Why do your muscles hurt?

The most common reason for booking a treatment with Vitality Therapy is muscle pain due to your”knots”.

So what do we mean by “knots”?  Technically speaking they are either  Trigger points (or Myofascial Trigger Points to give them their correct name) or hypertonic muscles.

There are six key elements that cause acute or chronic muscle pain:

  1. Ischemia: the lack of blood flow to soft tissues that causes hypersensitivity to touch.
  2. Hypertonic muscles: very tense muscles or muscle spasms.
  3. Trigger points: highly irritated points and bands in the muscles that refer pain to other parts of the body.
  4. Nerve entrapment/compression: pressure on a never by soft tissue, cartilage or bone.
  5. Postural distortions: imbalance of the musculoskeletal system resulting from poor posture while siting at a desk.
  6. Bio-mechanical distortions: imbalance of the musculoskeletal system resulting in faulty movement patterns e.g. poor sports techniques.

A massage therapist has a wide variety of techniques in their toolkit to help release muscle pain including NMT.

 

 

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  • Headaches – How to tell when they are serious

    More than 10 million people in the UK get headaches regularly, making them one of the most common health complaints. The most common treatment is to take a pain killer.  In previous blog posts I have explored other treatments including

    Most headaches aren't serious and are easily treated.  However it is important that anyone with a headache “that is out of the norm” should see their GP as soon as possible. Particularly if the headache is more likely to be serious i.e.:
    • it occurs suddenly and is very severe – often described as a blinding pain unlike anything experienced before
    • it doesn't go away and gets worse over time
    • it occurs after a severe head injury
    • it's triggered suddenly by coughing, laughing, sneezing, changes in posture, or physical exertion
    • you have symptoms suggesting a problem with your brain or nervous system, including weakness, slurred speech, confusion, memory loss, and drowsiness
    • you have additional symptoms, such as a high temperature (fever), a stiff neck, a rash, jaw pain while chewing, vision problems, a sore scalp, or severe pain and redness in one of your eyes
    Tension headaches (see headache categorization) are one of the most common complaints we see in the Vitality Therapy treatment rooms, and Seated Acupressure Neck & Shoulder massage is what we recommend. (Book here)

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  • Massage Therapy and Neck Pain

    Painful neckOne of the most common conditions we treat is neck pain which can range from a simple stiff neck, to inability to turn your head to either the right or left. So in this blog post I wanted to discuss the recent scientific research regarding massage therapy for neck pain in people with neck arthritis.

    Background

    • 1 in 5 people who visit a massage therapist do so because of neck pain
    • 28% of people with neck pain due to neck arthritis are likely to book a massage

    Until the most recent research the scientific literature on the effects of massage therapy on neck arthritis pain was mixed.  In this study an attempt was made to enhance the effects of weekly massage therapy by having the participants massage themselves daily.

    Methods

    Forth eight participants from a medical school, suffering from neck arthritis pain, were randomly split into two groups, one that received massage treatments and a wait list control group. The first group received a course of four 30 minutes weekly moderate pressure massages and supplemented this with 15 minute daily self-massage.  The control group started the same course of treatments after four weeks without massages.

    The effectiveness of the treatments were measured through self-reports and range of motion assessments, completed after massage treatments on the first and last days of the monthly study period.

    Results

    The group that received the monthly course of weekly massage treatments, showed significant reductions in pain and improvements in range of motion.  These ROM changes occurred specifically for nodding your head (flexion) and right and left lateral flexion motions.  Between the first and last day of the course of treatments showed on average a 50% decrease in pain during flexion.  Conversely the control group reported increases in pain and reductions in range of movement while waiting for massage treatments.

    The study Field T, Diego M, Gonzalez G and Funk C G (2014) Neck arthritis pain is reduced and range of motion is increased by massage therapy, Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice 20(4): 219 - 223 supports my subjective experience that massage therapy helps reduced neck pain and increase clients range of movement when it has been compromised.