Treating Pain and Injury with Orthopedic Massage

Treating Pain and Injury with Massage and Bodywork

How Massage Helps

Massage helps relieve your pain in two ways:

Addressing the physical cause of pain by treating the injury
Breaking the cycle of chronic pain

Physical Causes of Pain

Orthopedic Massage is an important part of the continuum of care for strains, sprains, tendonitis, and other soft tissue injuries. Massage helps people recover from soft tissue injuries in several ways. Massage can decrease excess neurological activity, decreasing spasm and restoring proper muscle tone and length in the area of injury. Reducing muscle spasm will increase the flow of blood and nutrients to the area, which supports healing.

Adhesions and excess scarring after injury can limit movement and functioning. This can cause muscle tightness and compensations that, in turn, cause further pain and dysfunction.

Massage therapy is very effective in managing the development of scar tissue. In fact, doctors often instruct patients to massage their scars after surgery. There are specific techniques that help your body create the most functional scar possible. By functional scar, I mean a scar that offers both mobility and flexibility in the injured area.

Orthopedic Massage can address compensations in posture and movement, as well as treat myofascial trigger points that may be contributing to pain and movement limitations.

For more information about how massage can facilitate the healing of a variety of soft tissue injuries, including muscle strains, tendonitis, ligament sprains, and adhesions, please see my July/August 2005 Newsletter. Go the the Site Map to click through to more information about treating back pain, jaw pain, and other specific conditions with massage therapy.

Your treatment plan for massage therapy will be designed to suit your unique needs. But the goal for everyone is the same: To return you to a state of full, pain-free movement.

Breaking the Cycle of Chronic Pain

Chronic pain is exhausting. It's stressful. Massage helps to interrupt the patterns that make your pain worse.

You hurt, so your muscles tense up, which makes you hurt more, which makes you anxious, which makes you more tense, which makes you hurt more...

Studies have shown that massage reduces pain and anxiety. Scientists have measured lowered stress hormones after massage. Massage can also help to relieve pain by improving your sleep. Lack of quality sleep makes your pain worse by causing an increase in the production of Substance P, a neurohormone linked to pain. Massage has also been shown to release endorphins, the body's natural painkillers.

Respondents to a recent Consumer Reports survey said that massage therapy provided more relief than medication for back pain, neck pain, osteoarthritis, and fibromyalgia. Read more about this survey in my September/October 2005 Newsletter.

If the cause of your pain is being properly addressed and you still hurt, a massage could make a world of difference!

>>> Find out more about your first session of orthopedic massage

>>> Find out more about treating specific conditions and about other benefits of massage

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