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Massage for Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI)

Aug20

A common type of injury is the repetitive stress injury (RSI). The most well-known RSI is probably carpal tunnel syndrome, but it’s just the tip of an iceberg. Other repetitive stress injury include thoracic outlet syndrome, De Quervain’s syndrome (inflammation of the thumb muscles), tendonitis, and ligament injuries.

Repetitive stress can cause problems in your hands, wrists, forearms, shoulders, neck, or back. Runners, heavy lifters, or other people who stress their legs and hip joints can have repetitive stress problems in their hips, knees, ankles, or feet.

Symptoms of Repetitive Stress Injury

Any repetitive activity, be it work, hobby, or sport, can potentially cause injury. I sometimes hear people say, “I’ve been doing this [insert activity] for years and it never hurt before.” That is the nature of repetitive stress injuries; they develop slowly over time. Some people are more susceptible to injury than others.

Common symptoms of repetitive stress injury include:
Chronic tightness, discomfort, stiffness, or pain in any part of your body, especially your hands, wrists, fingers, forearms, elbows, neck, shoulders, or back.

  • Tingling, coldness, or numbness in any area.
  • Clumsiness or loss of strength and coordination in your hands.
  • Pain that wakes you up at night.

How Can Massage Help Repetitive Stress Injury?

Carpal tunnel and thoracic outlet syndromes involve nerve compression. What is compressing the nerves? In most cases, tight muscles. Massage releases muscle tension, which relieves the compression and pain. Regular stretching is also essential.

In other repetitive stress injury (such as tendonitis or ligament injuries), muscle, tendon, or ligament fibers are torn. Specific work on the injured fibers speeds healing by breaking up adhesions (stuck together tissue) and excess scar tissue and by increasing circulation, which brings in nutrients and removes waste products.
Regular massage can help any problem caused by tight or injured muscles or injured tendons or ligaments.

Consider massage before resulting to more drastic treatments. Do realize it’s not a miracle cure and requires a regular treatment schedule. You must also take responsibility for stretching and making any needed changes in your activities.

Do you need a massage? Click here to book an appointment

Massage for Chronic Pain

Aug20

Pain creates a vicious cycle. Pain leads to muscle tension, reduced circulation, and restricted movement, which in turn lead to more pain. Massage therapy can play an important role in breaking this cycle.

Muscle Tension

Muscles contract around any painful site to protect the area. If pain is resolved quickly, muscles relax. If pain persists, muscles can become habitually tight. Sometimes tight muscles press on nerves, causing tingling, numbness, or more pain. Massage helps by stretching tight muscles and by stimulating the nervous system to relax muscle tension.

Reduced Circulation

Tight muscles reduce circulation, letting waste products accumulate, which can leave you feeling fatigued and sore. Plus waste products can irritate nerves, causing pain to spread. Massage releases contracted muscles and increases circulation. Also, as massage relaxes the nervous system, blood vessels dilate to increase blood flow. Waste products are flushed away and replaced with oxygen and nutrients.

Areas with poor circulation often develop trigger points- highly irritable spots that refer pain, tingling, or other sensations to other places in the body. Trigger points respond well to specific massage techniques.

Muscle Shortening and Restricted Movement

Eventually, the body lays down connective tissue in any contracted area with poor circulation. While helpful for healing injuries, this natural reaction can “glue” muscles and their connective tissue coverings into a shortened state. The stretching and kneading of massage softens and lengthens connective tissue.

Irritating waste products, painful trigger points, and shortened muscles make even simple actions difficult and tiring. As your capacity for movement and exercise decreases, you lose the most important means for maintaining good circulation throughout your body, risking pain in new areas.

Massage helps restore normal movement by releasing trigger points, removing waste products, and stretching shortened muscles. Also, because you feel better after a massage, you may have renewed energy and motivation for physical activity.

For massage to be really effective, you need to set up a regular schedule–certainly once a week at first, and then possibly less often as you respond to the massage. Remember, it takes time.

Do you need a massage? Click here to book an appointment

Massage for Soft Tissue Injuries

Aug20

Soft-tissue injuries (such as muscle pulls and strains, tendonitis, ligament sprains, and whiplash) heal faster with specifically targeted massage. Massage benefits you by reducing spasm, pain, swelling, and formation of excess scar tissue. Massage also breaks up excess scar tissue and adhesions (stuck together tissue) that weaken muscles and contribute to further injury.

“Skillful, knowledgeable massage can make the difference between a one-time muscle strain that takes a few weeks to resolve and a painful, limiting, chronically recurring condition… By applying skills to the proper formation of scar tissue, the reduction of edema, the limiting of adhesions, and the improvement of circulation and mobility, massage can turn an irritating muscle tear into a trivial event.” A Massage Therapist’s Guide to Pathology by Ruth Werner

When you have a soft-tissue injury, the tissue fibers are torn. Scar tissue begins to form immediately at the injured site, but the scar tissue does not necessarily run parallel to the fibers of the injured tissue. This process can lead to excess scar tissue that is weak and prone to further injury. Also, because scar tissue is not elastic, it can restrict movement of surrounding fibers, again setting you up for further injury.

Massage benefits you by creating tension and stretch that breaks up excess scar tissue and determine the direction of new tissue fibers. This makes the injured site stronger and less prone to new injury. Massage also increases circulation to the injured area, bringing needed nutrients and removing waste products produced in the healing process.

Massage for injury requires a regular schedule, no less than once a week. In some cases, you will see much faster results with a twice-a-week schedule. For how long? It depends on the nature and extent of the injury, how old it is, and your ability to heal. It also depends on your willingness, when appropriate, to ice the injury, do some exercises or stretches, or identify and eliminate the cause of ongoing injury.

Do you need a massage? Click here to make an appointment