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working on injury that is still swollen

Hi all! I would appreciate any tips anyone may have for working on a new client of mine. I am in my first year of massage therapy and this new client has by far the most compicated health history of any client yet. He was involved in an explosion while serving overseas- durning the explosion he was hit by a car door in the back, primarily on the right side just below his scapula...his right shoulder still has swelling, mainly in his trapezius and rhomboids....he had an MRI that showed nothing significant....he seems comfortable having me work on him... any thoughts??

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Permalink Reply by Hope on August 31, 2010 at 12:55pm

Thank you Samantha!
It has actually only been two months since this accident! I did keep the pressure very light over the area and applied arnica....I do not believe he has tried physical therapy but that is a great suggestion! He isn't taking any pain meds but that is a good consideration as well. Thank you again!

Samantha J. Bennett said:

could be a pretty if'y situation, but it happened overseas? so this may just be a chronic problem since the onset of the injury has probably been awhile? - I wouldn't do anything extremely deep by no means but take advantage of some anti-flammatory essential oils or herb compresses to that area and some arnica oil or lotion...would be my two cents. good luck! hope he gets to feeling better! Has he tried doing the physical therapy bit too? that help at all? Be sure he doesn't take any muscle relaxers or pain killers right before or after your massage treatments as well, depending on his doctors that could be an issue too if it's a chronic pain problem for him as well in time!

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Cohen on August 31, 2010 at 8:31pm

Lymphatic Massage is the modality I would use with swelling. KMT would probably help also. It comes from Korea and was originally used in battle 400 years ago.