For Your HealthArthritis Pain ReliefIce or Heat? Improving Posture of the Upper Back, Reducing Pain Myofascial Release for Longer Lasting Results The Tennis Ball Method for Pain Relief Trigger Points - The Often Overlooked Source of Pain What Kind of Shoes Do You Wear? Arthritis Pain Relief The research, conducted by the Touch Research Institute (TRI) of the University of Miami School of Medicine, examined 22 adults aged 20 to 65 years with wrist and/or hand arthritis. Participants were randomly assigned to either a massage therapy or a standard treatment control group. The massage therapy group received massage from a therapist on the affected area once a week for a four-week period, and also conducted self-massage at home daily. The control group received no massage, but was taught self-massage at the end of the study. Researchers found that the massage therapy group had lower anxiety scores and depressed mood scores after the first and last sessions, and by the end of the study reported less pain and greater grip strength. The massage therapy group showed greater improvement than the standard treatment control group on all measures. "While massage therapy has decreased pain in several pain syndromes, this is the first report of pain reduction in hand arthritis following massage therapy," says Tiffany Field, PhD, director of the TRI. "The results of this study are very encouraging for the application of massage therapy as a complementary alternative treatment for hand arthritis." Arthritis is a systemic inflammatory disease that causes persistent joint pain and can affect people of all ages and activity levels. While this pain can appear in any joint in the body, it often affects the small joints of the hands. Hand strength in patients with arthritis is generally 75 percent lower than in healthy patients. Because many daily activities, such as opening doors or food containers and lifting and carrying items, require considerable hand strength, the pain caused by arthritis can lead to significant limitations on activity. But as this research indicates, massage is one of many ways that arthritis sufferers can reduce their pain and improve their quality of life. This study was co-sponsored by Biotone, provider of professional massage and body treatment products and complementary supplies. Ice or Heat? Icing an injury restricts bloodflow, reducing swelling and pain. Heat boosts circulation, supplying more oxygen and healing nutrients to the injured area and helps remove waste products. Use ICE immediately after an injury or a muscle pull. For the first 72 hours, apply an ice pack for 10-20 minutes and remove it for 20 minutes. Repeat often. Or try giving the area an ice massage—rub ice directly on the skin over the injury. Keep it moving. This can be very effective for repetitive-use injuries. After several days (if the pain and swelling has mostly—but not completely—subsided) try alternating between ice and heat every 10 minutes. Be sure to start and end with ice. After a massage: Ice to help the muscles recover more quickly from deep work. Use HEAT on tired or tense muscles for 15-20 minutes once or twice an hour. If there is an injury, wait at least 24 hours after a minor injury and up to 72 hours after a more serious injury (when acute symptoms have subsided) before using heat. If heat makes the area hurt, you should be using ice. Before a massage: Heat helps loosen the tissue to allow for a deeper treatment. And, if ever in doubt, use ICE. Improving Posture of the Upper Back, Reducing Pain Do you suffer from upper back and neck pain? Do you try to stretch between your shoulder blades and not get any relief? I would guess that 95% of my clients specifically request upper back and/or neck massage. And the cause of the problem is not what people expect. Driving, washing dishes, gardening, sleeping on your side, using a computer, riding a bike and eating all have something in common—they strain your back. Your shoulders round and your chest caves with your arms out in front of you. The upper back muscles, by nature, are weak, easily fatigued, and often overstretched throughout the day. So trying to stretch them when they feel sore only makes the problem worse. Conversely, the chest muscles tend to be tight and overpower the muscles of the upper back - the traps and rhomboids. When your chest caves in, it allows the pectoral muscles to shorten, sometimes permanently. So the goal is to stretch the chest and strengthen the upper back. The neck is often involved so stretches will help that as well. The following exercises require no equipment. Also, consider the position you sleep in. Stomach sleepers put a great deal of strain on their neck; side sleepers strain the neck if the pillow is too low/high, overstretch the back, and shorten the chest. If it is possible, even for just part of the night, try sleeping on your back. (Chiropractors recommend it.) If relaxed, your shoulder blades will probably move up towards your ears and away from the ribcage, allowing you to breathe more deeply. Don’t try to pull them down away from your ears as this will strain the muscles of the neck and limit rib expansion when breathing. If your lower back bothers you, try using a pillow under your knees to ease the strain. Set aside a few minutes to practice these exercises and help reduce your pain. And reward yourself with a massage! Chest Stretch: Neck Stretches: Upper Back Strengthening: Myofascial Release for Longer Lasting Results Myofascial release is a treatment technique that corrects restrictions in the tissues of the body. According to Stedman’s Medical Dictionary, fascia is “a sheet of fibrous tissue which envelops the body beneath the skin and also encloses the muscles and groups of muscles, and separates their several layers or groups”. This simplistic definition is an indication of how little importance our traditional medical system places on this tissue. Fascia is a connective tissue that surrounds the muscles, but it also surrounds and invades every other tissue and organ of the body including nerves, vessels, muscles and bone. The brain and spinal cord are also surrounded by fascia that is called the dura. Fascia extends without interruption from the top of the head down to the toes. It is estimated that the fascia has a tensile strength of 2000 pounds per square inch. You can imagine the impact restrictions in this tissue can have on the body. There are many influences on the health of our fascial system. Fascia can become restricted through trauma following injury or surgery. Scar tissue develops and can place severe restrictions on the system. Inflammation, poor posture, and stress are other causes of fascial restriction. The effects of fascial restriction are many. It puts abnormal stress on muscles, bones, nerves, etc. It can limit range of motion and flexibility. It impairs circulation to the restricted areas. It affects posture and alignment. It causes changes in sensation including pain, tenderness, and numbness. It can restrict normal bodily functions secondary to restriction of organs. It can also increase the potential for future injury. The restrictions in the fascia do not respond to stretch as muscle does, but respond well to treatment. A trained therapist will use their hands to palpate the restrictions in the body, and by applying stretch and pressure, the restrictions are released. The amount of pressure and stretch applied is determined by what your therapists feels with their hands and how your body changes in response to their input. You may find that the therapist is working on areas that do not seem to be related to your condition. This is because the fascial system is all connected, and a restriction anywhere on the body can affect any other area. Optimal resolution of the problem will require treatment of all restricted areas. During the treatment session it is important for you to be relaxed and comfortable. The therapist will work on your skin most of the time so wear loose comfortable clothing. While you are being treated relax and don’t try to help the therapist move you. If you are uncomfortable, feel free to move. During the treatment you may experience many different sensations. You may feel pain or tenderness in the areas of restriction. You may also feel sensations of heat or vibration. These are normal responses, and an indication that the fascia is releasing. After the treatment most people experience a profound sense of relaxation. You may also feel decreased pain, and improved flexibility. Some people experience nausea, lightheartedness, or flu-like symptoms after the treatment. This is due to toxins that were trapped in the tissues being released into your system. You can minimize these symptoms by drinking lots of water to flush the toxins out. Sometimes pain will increase or shift to new areas. This may last several hours to a day after treatment, followed by remarkable improvement. Another experience some people have is called emotional release. You may have the urge to laugh or cry for unknown reasons. All of these responses are normal and should not cause alarm. Hopefully this has provided you with a better understanding of myofascial work and its importance as a total body approach to treating physical dysfunction. Please feel free to ask your therapist any other questions you have regarding this treatment. The Tennis Ball Method for Pain Relief I often give my clients some homework to do between massage appointments so their results will last longer and so that some of those chronic knots might be finally overcome. A simple and effective way to treat adhesions (the knots you know and love, err, hate) is to take one or two tennis balls and put them in a tube sock. The sock helps you position the ball(s) where you need the pressure and also prevents the ball from rolling away on you. Pressing the ball into those knots treats the muscle in a similar way to trigger point work and helps loosen up the adhesion. And by working on yourself, you know where and how much pressure to apply. Hold the sock in one hand and place it over your opposite shoulder so that it rests on your back over “the spot”. Lean into a wall so that the pressure of the ball is pressing into the spot. You can hold this pressure or you can slowly move back and forth to friction the spot with the ball. This is great for treating between the shoulder blades as well as the outer edge of the shoulder blades for people with rotator cuff pain. You can also place the ball on the floor and lay over it for those spots that are harder to reach, like the mid to lower back and sacrum as well as the glutes for sciatic pain sufferers. Hold the pressure for up to a few minutes and you should notice the pain begin to ease. Apply pressure slowly and if pain increases, stop. You want to keep it within the “good pain” range. For neck pain at the base of the skull, place two balls in the sock, on your pillow, and lie down so that each ball is on either side of the spine, right at the base of the skull. This pressure will help to release the tension in a similar way that a cranial hold would during a massage treatment. Do this for a few minutes and remember to stay within your comfort zone. Trigger Points – The Often Overlooked Source of Pain Ever wonder what can be done to help headaches, neck stiffness, carpal tunnel type symptoms, tennis elbow, bursitis, frozen shoulder, back pain, low back stiffness, sciatica, shin splints? Find a massage therapist that is skilled with finding and treating trigger points and you just might find immediate relief. Trigger points are accumulations of waste products around a nerve receptor. Often times they feel like nodules or taut bands of fibers within the soft tissues. Trigger points form in muscles which have been overused or injured due to an accident or surgery. Common characteristics are increased muscle tension and muscle shortening. Increased muscle tension is the primary side-effect of trigger points and pain is the most common secondary effect. Trigger points can present themselves as referred patterns of sensation such as sharp pain, dull ache, tingling, pins and needles, hot or cold, as well as can create symptoms such as nausea, ear ache, equilibrium disturbance, or blurred vision. Trigger points can exist in two states, either active or latent. Active trigger points are those which cause discomfort. Latent trigger points wait silently in the muscle for a future stress to activate them. Aches and pains which began in the past become more frequent and severe in intensity as we age. It is common to attribute this discomfort to arthritis instead of our tight muscles which harbor trigger points. Trigger points are not visible with traditional medical testing such as MRI or X-ray. 80 % of the trigger point locations are common with acupuncture treatment locations. When trigger points are not treated, they will create satellite trigger points in the affected area. For instance, a trigger point in the trapezius may cause a trigger point to appear in the temple. The trigger point in the temple then may cause a trigger point to appear in the jaw. And, voilà! - a case of TMJ. To diffuse a trigger point, static compression (pressure) is applied for 10 seconds, released, then pressure applied for 10 more seconds in a pumping action while the client breathes deeply. This action flushes the toxins and calms the nerves. Trigger point massage is not a relaxing, "fluff and buff" technique. It requires the participation of the client to communicate the presence and intensity of pain and discomfort. The therapist and client work together as a team to maximize the effectiveness of the treatment. It is common to find great improvement after one treatment. Repeated treatment may be necessary for those with chronic trigger points. Stretching should be done as "home work" to encourage the muscles that have been treated to stay in a lengthened position. Trigger Point Therapy is a subset of neuromuscular therapy which examines and treats muscles and muscle attachments in layers from superficial to deep, ligaments and connective tissues. What Kind of Shoes Do You Wear? Has a chiropractor ever told you that one of your hips is higher than the other? Have you ever noticed in the mirror that one shoulder is closer to your ear than the other one? Does one of your knees rotate inward? If you have never considered that the type of shoes you wear might accentuate these visual clues of postural imbalance (and be contributing to your chronic aches and pains) now is the time to think about it. Your feet are the foundation of the body. Every joint of your body is affected by the health of the foot, the quality of its arches, and the quality of your gait. If, for example, your right foot rolls inward when you walk (you have a low or no arch), not only could this cause a bunion, but the knee will also be pulled downward and rotate inward. This pulling will continue up the body. The hips will be thrown out of alignment, then the shoulders, and the neck will then compensate (with one short side and one tense side) in order to keep the eyes level. The body is remarkable in keeping itself balanced enough to keep functioning, but at some point, this extra effort takes its toll. Unfortunately, the knee is often the first joint to be compromised in this situation because of its proximity and correlation. In this instance, if knee surgery is needed, it is important to note that it may bring relief but not correct the underlying cause of the initial pain. While bodywork can help correct these imbalances, it is difficult to overcome the everyday stress people inflict on themselves. One hour of treatment won’t be much of a match for a month’s worth of regular strain when walking. That is why your shoes play such an important role in keeping you healthy. Look for soles that are firm and supportive and that cradle your heel well. Shoes that can be bent in half may not offer the support you need for standing on your feet all day. Flip-flops offer no support or cushioning, for example, and clogs or other slip-on shoes cause the toes to work hard to keep the shoe on when you’re walking. High heels shorten the calf muscles and cause the hips to roll forward, arching the low back. They also place all the body’s weight on the balls of the feet and toes, which were not designed to support that kind of load. Sometimes even seemingly helpful items like arch supports can overcompensate or create a weak arch. And remember that shoes do wear out. Unevenly worn soles at the toes or heel are one sign, but it can be difficult to notice when the cushioning inside is no longer as supportive as it once was. If you are unsure about what shoes to choose, consider talking to a foot specialist. If you are a runner, there are a number of stores that specialize in running shoes and will analyze your gait on a treadmill to see what kind of shoe will suit you best. You can begin your search with a few of the resources located on the Links page.  |
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