Yes.  Why?  Your body heals all the time.  It is constantly changing and making corrections (when it can.)

Let’s use me as an example:  I used to have such severe asthma (difficulty breathing) that I ended up in the hospital twice and I took steroid medications for almost 20 years.  Now?  No problem.  No drugs.  No wheezing.

(In case you are thinking that I finally outgrew it, nope.  I outsmarted it.  Made corrections to my diet and started taking vitamin and mineral supplements seriously.  Lots of illnesses are caused by nutritional deficiencies.)

Now let’s use you as an example:  Have you ever had a broken bone?  It healed?  And how about all of those scrapes, cuts and other injuries you have had throughout your life.  All healed?

You see, bodies have the ability to heal.  Muscles pull on joints because they cross over them.  Takes the pressure of the muscle off the joint (be relaxing the appropriate muscles) and the joint will feel better.

And muscles heal just as skin does.  And just in case you are wondering about the process of how your skin heals from injury, here’s an article for you from Lam Seina of Australia.

Title: How Wounds Heal

Article URL: http://www.submityourarticle.com/articles/easypublish.php?art_id=102780

When we were kids, we were made to believe that our wounds
would heal just with kiss of our very dear mother. But as we
grow and mature, we find that it’s not true. Wound healing
process is a complicated process.

Our skin is our first layer of protection from germs so that
they cannot enter our body. Our skin protects our internal
organs so keeping it intact is very important. Wounds may be
caused by rubbing to uneven, hard surface, puncture from
nails or sharp objects, or cuts from blades and/or knives
some are also from human and animal bites. These cause break
in skin which can be harmful and can cause further infection
if it is just left alone.

Wound healing process happens in order but usually overlaps.
It starts immediately when there is a break in the skin. The
body releases platelets in the bloodstream. The platelets
form a plug that serves as a support and a clog that
prevents too much blood loss. This stage is called
homeostasis. After this, it proceeds by releasing different
white blood cells to engulf the bacteria that have entered
the wound. They also clean the area of the wound and gets
rid of the debris left behind. This is called the
inflammatory stage. Next is the proliferative phase. Here,
the body forms the new cells that have been damaged or needs
replacement. The capillaries or the smallest blood vessels
are also formed. This gives the wound the pinkish or
purple-ish color. The capillaries will be the one that
provides the new cells nourishment and oxygen so that they
can continue growing. This also helps the cells produce
collagen which plays an important role in forming new
tissues as well as the formation of the scar. The remodeling
phase starts 2-3 weeks after the wound was inflicted. Here,
the collagen is remodeled to make it stronger. The
capillaries are also lessened and the pinkish color starts
to slowly fade. The white blood cells are also terminated,
by the process called apoptosis, during this phase because
their work is now done.

In the wound healing process, all the cells that have been
damaged are fixed and replaced. They are all renewed,
including the nerve cells in the surface of the skin. After
the healing process, it does not mean that the skin is as
strong as it was before. The skin takes a long time to
recover, approximately 5-6 months. So the nerve endings in
the newly healed wound are still sensitive. This sensitivity
is perceived by us as an itching sensation. The thinner the
skin the more itchy it becomes. The itching can also be
contributed to the dry skin since the oil glands are still
not fully functional just after the wound healing process.
Histamine, which is also released during the inflammatory
phase, is one factor that contributes to the itchiness.

Wound is a result of injury. Bleeding occurs and it needs to
be stopped immediately. To prevent further infection, it is
also advised that you do not poke, scratch, touch or pick it
with your hands. Always keep your wounds clean too to prevent
irritation and infection.

About the Author:

Lam Seina is an Author living in Sydney, Australia. He is interested in reading and creating websites. His latest
website is Australia conveyancing http://www.australiaconveyancing.com.au/

Question:

I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Hypermobility Type.

Have you worked with this disorder before?  If so, is there any type of massage that I should avoid?

I know I don’t like the deep tissue massage, and any type of rolfing.  I have had a reaction to too much of the heated sonar prior to massage which makes me feel like I had a sunburn.

My Response:

Prime Olympic athletes receive a type of sports massage which neither loosens nor tones their muscles.  It just allows them to remain in their peak condition while still having the benefits of massage.

I wonder the reason why you don’t like deep tissue massage?  Rolfing is supposed to correct muscle imbalances and for that reason is a deeper form of structural muscle massage.

It is possible to experience much tenderness during sessions of deep massage.  This is because some of your muscles are tight or contracted.  Tight muscles can be extremely tender to pressure.  However, there is a feeling afterward of relief and relaxation.

But if the therapist treats the area that is not the problem–but is only the symptom–that can be pretty aggravating.  It doesn’t allow release of the problem area and actually causes muscle imbalance.

On the other hand, your body may be saying that this type of massage is not needed or wanted.

Now that I think of it, I did have a hypermobile female client who could not tolerate deeper massage either.  She directed the massage and kept the sessions brief, only 1/2 hour.

You may wish to try a warming/friction type of massage.  Some therapists have learned how to lift and “saw” the soft tissues to warm them.  (This is not the same as deep frictioning of tendons or ligaments.)  I learned this technique from a Russian physiotherapist named Zhenya Kurashova-Wine some years ago.

I think it would be very important for your therapist to treat the muscles on the front side of your body as well as the back side.  Some tend to treat only the back and that would not be of most benefit for you–it doesn’t promote muscular balance.

Since massage properly applied warms the tissues I don’t know that you would need any heated mechanical treatment.

And:

It’s always challenging to give long-distance advice.  I’m not a doctor or physical therapist.  I can’t see the person or feel them.  I’m working with very limited information about their situation.  But I give it my best and love doing it.  Here’s why:

You deserve to feel better and the more you know about your condition or problem–whatever it is–the better your chances of healing naturally.

Therapeutic massage is a wonderful tool for healing and healthy living but not all massage is the same.  It’s your body and so you may direct the therapist.  If something feels inappropriate or wrong to you, do not allow it.  Listen to your body wisdom.  Your therapist wants to help you feel better but you are always the person in charge of your massage.

The kind of pain they developed was the type that people with Fibromyalgia Syndrome have:  all-over joint and muscle aches.

If you have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep, try these suggestions and see what works best for you.

1.  Eat a cup of cottage cheese before bed.  (Protein + calcium; seems to help.)  The time to have a larger meal is 3 or 4 hours earlier.  This is just a snack.

2.  Have a routine before bed.  Do relaxing things.  This is not the time to pay bills that worry you or watch worrisome newscasts. (Maybe never is a good time to watch the news!)

3.  Get lots of movement during the day.  You were built to move and your body loves it.  Walking and other forms of exercise during the day satisfies your muscle’s need and allows you to rest better.  It reduces anxiety and depression.

4.  Use breathing as a meditation or learn to meditate and slow yourself down.  Paying attention to your breathing–in, out, in, out, slower, in, out, slower, in, out–can be very relaxing.

5.  Reduce stimulants like coffee, chocolate, sugar and alcohol.  If you can avoid them from afternoon on (or all together   ) that will help you relax at bedtime.

Don’t worry if you can’t fall asleep; it is not life-threatening.  “Play” with your breathing–listen to the sound of your breath, pay attention to your ribs moving, explore how many parts of your body you can move simply by breathing.

Get comfortable and breathe.  Next thing you know, it might be morning!

Gratitude helps you feel better on ALL levels.  Here’s the link to a very good article about an easy system for being thankful for what’s good in your life.

Increase Gratitude, Decrease Pain and Suffering. (<– click here.)  And start feeling better!

Well, we are supposed to move, run, jump, climb, roll and continue doing all of the cool, fun things we did as young children.

But most of us do not. 

So, we get back pain.  Why?  Because we are no longer using our muscles in a balanced way.  We use the same 60 or 70 or so each day and the rest of the 600 muscles are ignored.  When those muscles get unhappy, you get pain.

Walking is a perfect exercise and movement to help heal back pain.  Unless you were born with a disability that prevents you from walking, you were born to walk!

Walking uses your whole body.  It’s all attached and when you walk, your hips joints move.  Your shoulders move.  Your spine sways from side to side.

I like to tell the story of my friend, Rosalie.  She got rid of hip pain (she could only crawl up the stairs) and neuropathy (numbness from diabetes) in her feet AND she doubled her lung capacity.  Her pulmonary (lung) doctor was amazed!  She got all of these benefits just from walking!  (<– click here.)

My friend, Glenn, didn’t get much help from his doctor or the physical therapist (in fact, he quit therapy.)  But he got tremendous relief from walking. He could not go far at first (only 20 or so feet) but at his back relaxed over time, he was able to go farther and farther.

When you walk correctly–as you were designed to do–it helps your body regain its muscular balance.  In turn, that will help you with your back pain.

Some folks clomp their feet.  They no longer roll their feet when they walk.  They jar their joints.  (Is that you?)  Or they use their back pain as an excuse not to walk.

Some people have gotten into poor postural habits.  This is not too hard to do when you use only those 60 or 70 muscles each day instead of all of them.

Getting a strong back (<– click here) will help prevent and eliminate back pain and strain.  Walking can help you regain the fluid movement that will help you get rid of your back pain.  And eating healthy foods, drinking enough water and getting enough rest in a comfortable, supportive bed will also help you become pain-free.

If you take the simple, natural steps that your body wants you to take, you can have back pain relief.  Walking is a “step” in the right direction!

There are muscles in your head that can actually cause you to feel pain in your teeth.  The pain is not IN your tooth but that is where you feel it.  Removing the tooth doesn’t get rid of the pain because that wasn’t the cause of the pain to start with.

The muscles in your head can get “tight” and ornery just like any other muscles.  They can develop trigger points.  Trigger points are areas in muscles that “fire” or cause pain at some distance.

The muscles at the sides of your head–your temples–can cause pain in any of your top teeth, depending which part of the temple muscles are involved.

Your jaw muscles, the ones in front of your ears, can cause pain in your back teeth (molars.)

Your front lower teeth can hurt or have strange sensations caused by a muscle under your jaw that attaches to your hyoid bone (Adam’s apple.)

If you have tooth pain and your teeth are in good condition, don’t get them pulled until you (or your massage therapist) checks for trigger points in the temporalis (temple) muscles, the massater (jaw) muscles and the digastric muscle (under your chin.)

By pressing on the muscles, sometimes pinching them. “pulling” your hair or ears, or doing other types of massage, you can get rid of the trigger points, relax the muscles and get rid of your “tooth ache.”

My client Pat had told me about the pain that ran from her hip to her foot.  We had worked on the muscles of her lower back and hip in previous sessions because those muscles can “refer” pain into the foot.

Those muscles can also press on the nerves that run to your foot.  Releasing or relaxing the low back and hip muscles can get rid of foot pain.

That helped but when she came in again, she still had some pain in her foot and a bit of the old uncomfortable sensation in her hip and leg.

Well, sometimes your pain comes “from the bottom up.”  Sometimes it comes “from the top down.”  I got a sneaking suspicion that maybe the pain in her leg and hip was coming from her foot.

So here’s what I did.  I had Pat lay on her back and I sat at the foot of the massage table.  I warmed the muscles and tissues around her foot and ankle with pressure and rubbing (massage.)

And then I began pressing into the areas where her arch muscles attach to bones.

Yee-ow!  Tender!

I worked my way around the painful foot and ankle, on top of her foot and underneath.  I pressed into the long tendons that attach way up toward the outer side of her knee.  And since she also had complaints of a different sort on her other foot, I applied some massage and pressure to parts of that foot and lower leg, too.

Even as we were working, Pat said she could not believe the difference.  She said she used to rotate her feet years ago but they had become stiff and she could no longer move them.

Now she could.

You can do your own foot and lower leg massage if you can get into a comfortable position.  Or, you can go to a professional massage therapist who understands where the attachments for your muscles are.

On the right hand side of this page, if you scroll down, you will find a blue book.  It’s a self-help trigger point book.  Check it out.  It will help you understand which muscles are causing your foot pain and where you can press (and how) to get relief.

You will also find a Massage Category on the right hand side with info about how to find a massage therapist who can help you.

You can also use a tennis ball or golf ball or similar ball to press into your arch.  Look in the Foot Pain Category for more information on that.

Now that Pat’s ankles no longer felt stiff, she was rotating them around and around.  I reminded her to do that daily to keep them in that condition.

You can rotate your ankles in circles.  You can apply pressure to your arch with a ball.  But, in my opinion, NOTHING helps relax your muscles and get them back to normal faster than a good therapeutic massage or working directly with your muscles.

P.S.  Did I remember to tell you that I LOVE therapeutic massage?   So do muscles!

As a neuromuscular massage therapist, I learned a lot from my clients, my instructors and my own body and pain.  That’s how I know that bodies want to be well. Sometimes they need a little help, but they are able to get better.

Bodies change all the time.  Bodies can heal. Bodies do heal.

That means your body, too.

Bodies are brilliant. Give them what they need, and they WILL get better.

So what do bodies need?

1. Your body needs nutrients to function well. Give it all the vitamins and minerals it needs–not a skimpy amount but the FULL amount–and it can repair itself. Not the “minimum RDA,” but enough to counteract all of the environmental hazards we are exposed to every day in our air, water, food, houses and cars.

2. Give your body the water it needs–your body is largely composed of water–and all of the cells will function optimally. Your kidneys will be able to flush out metabolic wastes and other unwanted materials. When you are well-hydrated, the biochemical reactions that are supposed to occur, will be able to occur.

3. Your body needs good posture. When you supply this “Vitamin P” all of your organs will function better. Your lungs will be able to fill fully with life-giving oxygen, your intestines will not be squashed, your heart won’t be compressed…your organs will have the space they need to be healthy. Your headaches and other physical pain symptoms will be less. You will feel better and look better, too.

4. You need “Vitamin T.” Touch is unbelievably important to your good health. Even if you do your own self-massage, you will benefit. If you can trade with a friend or loved one, or go to a professional massage therapist on a regular basis, even better.

5. Get rid of the junk. You know what I mean, don’t you. The closer you get to eating natural foods, instead of factory-created and chemical-laced “foods,” the healthier you will be. You will have fewer diseases and disorders. Eat as much colorful and fresh foods as possible. If you can buy at least organic butter and spinach, you will keep some hormones and pesticides–that your body doesn’t want or like–out of your body.

When you give your body what it needs to have happy muscles you will have less muscle pain.

Janet says:

Some people have a preference for a certain type of massage.  This may be because they have had it in the past and enjoyed the experience.  But the fact of the matter is…

There are many types of massage treatments and a skilled therapist who knows many different techniques will quite likely incorporate several into each session.  Why would this be?  Different techniques “talk” to the body in different ways.  Some are more superficial or surface-touch.  Others work deeply into the skeletal and support muscles and tissues.

A massage for an athlete may be invigorating and helps the athlete know that he or she is in peak condition but it doesn’t cause relaxation or detract from their peak condition.

A massage for a frail person or child will not be vigorous or as deep as it would for an average person.  Someone who is suffering with back pain or hip pain will have a different massage experience than someone who has carpal tunnel syndrome.

ALL massage is beneficial but there are so many types and techniques that a knowledgeable therapist can choose from that each massage you have will be unique.  At one session you may have more warming and another time more trigger point work.

The massage that is best for you depends on how you feel at the time of your appointment.  It depends on whether you are experiencing any pain or dysfunction or whether you simply want an hour to yourself.

If your desire is to have a relaxation or stress reduction massage then that is best for you at that time.  But if you would like to feel better and leave with less pain than you came in with, a stress reduction massage would be frustrating for you.  You would wonder why you spent money that didn’t give you relief from your pain.

My goal is to help you to feel better and have less pain when you leave my office.  When you arrive, I will talk with you about any complaints you have.  We will go over your medical history.  And then I will work with you to develop a massage that will let you say, “This type of massage is best!”

Kathryn says:

An experienced massage therapist like Janet will give you a much different experience than a new therapist.  You can find very talented therapists and you can find some who just really aren’t too good, regardless of length of time they have been in the field.

Word of mouth is one of the very best ways to find a massage professional.  If someone you know was happy, there’s a good chance you will be, too.

Scroll down on the right hand side to the Categories and look for the Massage category.  You will find more articles there about therapeutic massage.

I have had many senior citizen clients who have had heart surgeries (even an artificial heart!) and with asthma or other breathing problems.  We have been privileged to serve clients in their 90′s.

Every massage therapist is different.  Ask friends and relatives for their recommendations.  If someone you know has been happy with their therapist, there is a good chance you will be, too.

What does massage do?

Massage boosts your immune system.  That means that regular massage will help improve your health.  By “regular” it could be every week or every few weeks or even once a month.

If you have trouble breathing or asthma, having massage on the muscles in your back and the front of your chest and shoulders will help relax the muscles that have become tight from difficulty breathing.

Massage feels good.  It helps your muscles normalize.  Massage acts as exercise (but you don’t get the the aerobic benefits, of course.)

You may wish to have a general all-over massage because that improves circulation all over your body.  Your therapist could also focus on areas where you have aches and pains.

There are many types of massage and a good massage therapist will ask you questions about your health and any health problems before they begin to treat you.  You can tell your therapist how much pressure you prefer.  You can also let them know where you would like them to work.

Have a conversation with your therapist.  He or she wants you to feel better.

I would suggest starting out with a medium pressure general massage if you are in generally good health.  If the pressure seems too much ask the therapist to lighten the pressure.  If it seems not enough, you can ask for more pressure.  It’s your massage and your body so you always get to make those important decisions and share them with your therapist.

A good therapist will work WITH you not just ON you.

You can tell when the pressure is right if it feels right.  If it feels too uncomfortable or inappropriate, the therapist is working too deeply for you at this time OR in the “wrong” area for your complaint.

If you go to the Categories on the right hand side of the page here, and scroll down to the Massage Category, you will find an article about how to find a massage therapist who can help you.  Just ask the questions that apply to your situation.

I applaud you for considering massage as an important part of your good health.  Therapeutic massage has tons of benefits for older folks and senior citizens.