Have you ever got off of the table after your treatment and thought to yourself "WOW!! That was INTENSE! I must have needed that!", or even "I feel worse now then when I came in"? There are a lot of factors to consider when we build your treatment plan initially, and the amount of pressure I use during the treatment plays a pretty big roll in it. It depends on both whats going on internally (emotions, DNA) and externally (injury/trauma). I touched base on this issue in my Deep Tissue Massage Blog, but I wanted to further elaborate on how much pressure is too much, and what we can do to prevent the treatment from doing further damage.
I read an article (link below) that touched base on why clients switch therapists. And while the basics do play a big role (changing locations, too expensive, etc), one of the main reasons was that the pressure was either too much or not enough. A common misconception about massage therapy is that in order to get relief, its gonna hurt. It is common to feel a bit of discomfort during your treatment, but a massage should never feel like we are damaging your body. For this article, I am going to outline the Good kind of pain and the Bad kind of pain that can be experience during a massage treatment as well as what both you and your therapist can do to reduce the risk.
Good Pain: "It Hurts, But It Feels Good":
If there is an injury or trauma to a muscle tissue, the body will adapt by either moving blood to the area for it to heal, or create a knot (Trigger Point) to help protect the tissue from further damage. This is a natural response to an injury. So if you are sore after experiencing physical trauma, it means your body is functioning normally. If not dealt with properly, these can manifest into sore/tender areas of the body. This is where massage comes into play. When your RMT palpates a trigger point, you may feel a "dull/achy" sensation either locally or referring to another area. When we release those trigger points, you may experience a bit of discomfort, but you should also notice a difference after. During some stretching/mobilizations you may have some tenderness as well if the muscles are stiff from lack of use (or in some cases overuse). However, you should also feel some relief after you're returned to a neutral position.
Bad Pain: "Is A Bear Massaging Me?!?!":
This should NEVER happen during a massage treatment and your instincts will tell you that something needs to change. In this case, the treatment is over-excessive and chances are pretty high that the tissues are going to be more damaged. This includes a sensation above your pain threshold, digging/clawing into the skin, nerve irritation and aggravating inflamed tissues. All of which do significantly more damage than good.
The main thing to keep in mind with differentiating between the Good and Bad Pain is that the
Good Pain is the pain of pressure/tension being released and the Bad Pain feels like pain being inflicted on you.
Now that you know the difference between the two types of pain, how does that affect your treatment?
What You As A Client Can Do:
1 - Communicate: I have stressed this many times in the past, and will continue to stress it until I retire. Communication is ESSENTIAL in developing your treatment plan! There is no way of me being able to know what exactly you are feeling unless you tell me. By giving me information about your reaction, I can try to interpret what is causing your pain so we can negotiate the best treatment to help. This includes telling me if the treatment is moving from the good pain to the bad pain.
2 - Follow Your Plan (& Communicate): it is very seldom that one massage, or any other session, will provide 100% relief from your symptoms. As a health care practitioner, I provide you with a solid treatment plan that will help you to achieve your goals both in the clinic and at home. And if something isn't working, speak up!
3 - Report: At the end of your treatment, if you are dissatisfied with any part of the treatment, I would prefer to hear about it from you. That way I can ask some follow up questions to get to come up with a resolution. I always love constantly improving myself, and if there is something that you don't like with my treatments, I may not be aware of it, and other clients might feel the same. By bringing it to my attention, I can take action to ensure you are receiving the best care. The College of Massage Therapists of Ontario also has a section where you an report any RMT who you feel has abused you. They have a strict zero-tolerance policy for abuse, and I feel like I am very compliant with it. It is there for you if you need it. I will be blogging more about this article later.
What I Can Do:
1 - Listen: Feedback is very important to me. So when you give me information about your treatment, I take it very seriously.
2 - Respect: When you give me feedback, I will respect it and do my best to incorporate it into your treatment plan if it is possible and safe. After all, I would never want to get a massage from someone who doesn't care about what I want to get out of the treatments, so why would I expect you to?
3 - Be Attentive: I am trained to watch for signs that your body is having a negative reaction. This includes inflammation, sweating, heavy/no breathing and wincing. After changing your treatment to avoid these signs, you won't be as sore after we are done, yet you'll still feel amazing!
I hope you enjoyed learning about the difference between the Good and Bad Pain when it comes to massage therapy! I loved writing this article for you and it presented new topics that I feel inspired to write about for future blogs - so keep an eye out for them!
As always, thank you for taking the time to read this article, and I really hope you got something to take away after reading it!
Have a great day!
References:
P. I. (n.d.). Massage Pressure: How Deep is Too Deep? Retrieved June 03, 2016, from https://www.painscience.com/articles/pressure-question.php
Image - https://www.painscience.com/imgs/intense-massage-l.jpg
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