There are causes of pain that you are aware of which are easy to identify: a sporting injury,motor vehicle accident, digging up the backyard as a once off project, a drunken slip off of a verandah… (these are more common than you think).
These injuries are usually associated with immediate pain and restriction in your movement, or come on within a day or two. This pain is usually quite strong and can be aching, grabbing, pinching and shooting, usually worse on moving. Further investigation may be necessary in some cases to identify the severity of the injury and how and if, Remedial Massage can help. We work in with Physiotherapists and Doctors quite effectively to create a well rounded approach to rehabilitation.
The other more confusing is the gradual build up of pain. Pain that is more of an aching, sometimes with burning and numbing or tingling associated. The confusing part is that you don’t know when it started or how, and pain is hard to identify as it can move or it travels down the arm, up the neck, etc. This type of pain is created from postural imbalance and tension through prolonged periods of static positions such as sitting at desks, standing, driving, etc. These positions force muscles on one side of a joint to tighten and shorten more than the other side, causing an imbalance. This can take weeks, months or even years to build up. You might have noticed some niggles that you ignored over time. This was your body warning you that something bigger was going to happen if you didn’t make some changes… naturally we ignore those prompts and yes… the tightness becomes worse.
Thankfully, the pain and restriction can be eased; we just need to give the body what it has been missing over time: correct movement… and in some cases just movement alone will do the trick. We have lost the ability to move through range of motion and this results in some of our muscles becoming tight and the opposing muscles becoming weak – there is no balance and therefore our posture suffers. The tighter a muscle gets, the less it will function correctly and the more pain will be felt. Trigger Points can build up in tight muscles and they can send pain travelling to other areas, e.g. headaches caused from neck and shoulder tightness, leg pain caused by lower back and hip tightness, etc.
Remedial Massage can return muscles to their normal length (injuries permitting), increase circulation to allow muscles to function correctly and to move more freely. Teaching of correct movement patterns will then allow you to help maintain the freer movement, and once again with more movement and balance there will be less pain for longer periods of time. Strengthening weak muscles through some easy to do exercises, helps to further balance the body and get you feeling better quicker, and for longer.
We look forward to helping you out with your pains and restrictions, and to guiding you in helping yourself make long term changes for a more comfortable future.
Yours in health
Staff at Naturally Massage & Wellness