Medical Massage: What It Is, and Why You Need It

During the summer months, you’re either relaxing and enjoying the time off with your kids, or your stressing out trying to find care or things to do for your kids. Perhaps children aren’t even in the picture and you’re either more adventurous with hikes and bikes as the temperatures rise, or summer causes an influx of work. Regardless of what’s going on in your life, you know you need a massage, but you just don’t know where to start.

Medical massage therapy is more than just our name-it’s a type of massage that’s perfect for those who have a varied pain, and need recharge their bodies in a multitude of ways. With medical massage, or therapeutic massage, you will feel pressure ranging from light to deep to release tension, relax muscles, and increase blood and lymph circulation. If there is dysfunction in your body, your therapist will pinpoint and restore a calming effect.

Although with this form of therapy you receive a multi-level massage, there are three types that are most often used. These are Active Release Trigger Point Release, and Lymph Drainage.

Active Release Therapy:

Also known as ART, this form of therapy according the activerelease.com is a “patented, state of the art soft tissue system/movement based massge technique that treats problems with muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia and nerves. Headaches, back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, shin splints, shoulder pain sciatica, plantar fasciitis, knee problems and tennis elbow”, just to name a few.

Trigger Point Release Therapy:

Trigger points, also known as muscle knots are very tender spots in the body that radiate pain and cause tingling, numbness or other various other discomforts in other areas of the body away from the actual pain core itself. Due to the tenderness of these sites, this type of therapy can often be quite uncomfortable, however, the benefits last a long time and many find the pain is worth the lasting effects!

Lymph Drainage:

We’ve discussed the benefits of lymph drainage, and how toxic backed up lymph nodes can be in a previous blog (link http://medicalmassagespecialties.com/lymphatic-massage-benefits/). Lymphatic drainage massage is often used to reduce the size of lymphedemas and to allow them to work at their full capacity. A lymph node’s main function is to detoxify the body and dispose of metabolic waste. If the nodes become backed up by poor health decisions, or the environment, your body can’t function properly. This massage helps drain them, or ‘unclog’ them in a way that benefits you in the long run.

Before you make your appointment, give us a call and let us know how you’ve been feeling, and we will recommend the perfect massage for you. We love to provide the medical massage to those who want an overall recharge, and also have a selection of essential oils to provide aromatherapy to your senses as well! Give us a call today!