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A typical experience

I had a new client the other day for an 80 minute massage. I asked him if there is anything that he wanted me to know.  He told me that he suffers from a herniated disc that he has had for a few years. He has constant low back and right hip pain that at times radiates down the back of his leg to his knee. He told me that he has had two injections in his low back and has to stay on anit- inflamtory medication.  Anything to avoid surgery. The pain is always there. I asked him if he ever saw a chiropractor for his pain.  He said yes.  But the adjustments hurt his hip so bad that he could not continiue.  So here is a guy that thinks he is on the verge of surgery. I knew that there was a very strong probubllity that was not the case. The vast majority of pain people experience is nocioceptive pain( soft tissue- muscle, tendon, ligament, facia).  MDs and Chiropractors see pain as neuropathic pain( nerve pain).  With that asumption they give the wrong treatments and therapies.  Now there is no denying that at times injections and surgery is needed. Not denying that.   But most of the time - NOT.  70% to 85% of all pain comes directly from trigger points.  Anyway I showed my client a testimonial from a client that I was able to help out of a very painful condition that she had delt with for a couple of years. I showed him that testimonial because all pain has a psychological eliment too it. I wanted him to start thinking maybe he is not on the edge of surgery.  I palpated his entire back upper torso, both hips, and right leg. I found a very painful spot on his right L5 erectors.  Another very painful spot on his right greater trochantor.  A painful spot in the middle part of his lower right hamstrings.  And also a tender spot on the right spinous of L3.  I knew that if Iwas able to eliminate all those painful palaptory spots that I would most likely eliminate his pain problem.  Because a healthy body had no painful spots even with deep massage.  Ive been hunting and eliminateing trigger points for thirty years now.  He walked out of the massage room pain free. He was pain free for the first time in years. All those other professional people misdiagnosed him because they assume neuropathic pain over nocioceptive pain.  I assume the other way around.  I'm a Massage Therapist.  

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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on January 15, 2015 at 3:27pm
For some reason two attachments did not link to my last coment. I will attach them below.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on January 15, 2015 at 3:30pm
Hmm, for some reason I can only upload one attachment at a time. I meant all three to attach to my last comment. I just want to make sure everyone knows its not just me saying what Im saying.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on January 19, 2015 at 3:37pm
I have a new fibromyalgia client. She is around 40 years old and has basically been dealing with her pain sense teeenage, when she was told her body hurt because of growing pains. Well now that its gone on so long there is a trigger point on almost every square inch of her body. Front, back, and sides. Her nervous system is so upregulated that she flinches even before I touch her. I may have to use the technique I talked about earlier in this thread to downregulate her hypersensitive nervous system. She has so many. Over 100 trigger points. Can you imagine all those pain patterns at the same time? One doc examined her and said he could find nothing wrong ,suggesting that it was all in her head. Well I explained trigger points to her and showed her some charts with pain patterns. And I was able to deactivate a few of them. Difficult as that was. I've helped clients like her in the past, but ya never know. I pray I can help her. She had a massage not too long ago she called brutal. The therapist was digging and pulling telling her she needs it. She suffered for days after. I cut my rates in half because she will need to come in for at least 10 sessions. Hopefully she will feel improvement by the seventh session. I will attempt to add some attachments. One is a book cover. She has all the symptoms on the cover. Her problem is trigger points.. Masses of them that have been there for a very long time. Its going to be very challenging becasue she is so very sensitive. But its trigger points as usual. She bought the book and will now have a real understanding of her problem for the first time. She gave me a real huge before she left the spa. I really hope I can help her.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on January 19, 2015 at 3:38pm
Two attachments did not load. Here they are.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on January 19, 2015 at 3:39pm
well here is the second one. She was rerferred to me by another client who has been trying to get her to see me for a long time.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on January 19, 2015 at 4:00pm
I have three new clients today. I don't know them and they were not referred to me. What I find interesting, working in a spa, is the suprisingly high number of people that tell me they are already getting Theraputic massage in there chiropractors clinic becasue of pain issues. But they just want to relax for this massage. So in other words they are being beaten up durring theraputic massage. Which to my way of thinking, it's not very theraputic. I just kinda think most of the time even a deep massage should be relaxing.
Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on January 19, 2015 at 11:20pm
wow !! It was a healing day today. All three of those new clients came in with specific pain complaints. None of them knew me. After I talked to them a bit they all wanted the pain deactivation work( acupressure) instead of a real good massage. They wanted out of pain. I was successful with all of them. Two are coming back for sure for follow ups. One had , gosh at least 50 TPs on her body. All deactivated( at least temporarilly). She was freaked out happy. One client did not have near as many TPs yet was in more pain. Aching pain at night. She works out a lot. The last week she has had constant radiating pain down her right leg. She thought she had sciatica. Her personal trainer said its more likely coming form her Glutius Minimus. That person is a smart personal trainer. He was right. She had a couple more TPs besisides the Glutius Minimus. One on the PSIS, and another on the belly of her piriformis.. All on the same side. She felt way better after the session. She will need maybe three more 15 minute sessions to eliminate her problem. Acheing pain down the leg. Really bad in bed at night. She was not happy to hear me tell her she needs to stop working out for a week. After explaining to her the reality of trigger points, she understands that she needs to let herself heal. She is healthy, so a week or two of not exercising should do it. I might need to see her four times if that. The attachemts below show her thing and explain why she needs to get the treatment and allow herself to heal.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on January 19, 2015 at 11:21pm
I don't know why I can only post one attachment at a time. Here is the other one.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on January 21, 2015 at 4:05pm
Another new client the other day that told me she has on and off low back pain do to a bulging disce at L2. Well I don't know about the bulging disk. But she did have a few trigger points that make pain in the area. She had a trigger point on the very top of her sacrum as well as a glute medius trigger point on the left and a right L5 trigger point on the errectors and a trigger point at around L1 on the errectors. I was able to deactivate all of them quickly, and then continued on with her spa massage. She left the spa pain free. She is going to come in for a short follow up session or two to make sure those trigger points stay gone. Unlike the fibromyalgia client. This will be easy. I will try to attach pictures of her trigger points. I texted them to her so she could show her husband. She text me last night and said her low back is still pain free. What gets me is your low back hurts. You go to a smart person and they tell you it hurts because of a bullging disk. How many people are stuck with pain that dont need to be? Answer- A LOT.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on January 21, 2015 at 4:06pm
another attachment
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on January 21, 2015 at 4:08pm
last one. The trigger points were her low back pain.
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Permalink Reply by Gary W Addis, LMT on January 21, 2015 at 5:28pm

thanks, amigo

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