michael, Author at Massage Revolution - Page 16 of 17

Author: michael

Back pain — especially lower back pain — is probably the single most common complaint in American society. Some people have genetic factors that make them more inclined toward back pain than others; some have injuries they got in high school or earlier that changed the way they stand or walk that resulted in long-term, low-grade muscle strain. Then there are people whose jobs or home lives demand that they work those muscles — or, in the case of the cubicle jockey, completely fail to work those muscles — every day.

Fortunately, for those last two groups — the over-workers and the under-workers — there are fairly simple solutions.

The Science of Lifting

If you have a job that requires you to lift awkward or heavy loads often, learning how to lift properly is crucial to reducing back pain. Lift with your back straight, your entire body facing the same direction (never lift while twisted), and by providing most of the power with your legs. Align your shoulders, hips, and feet so that the weight of the object is passed directly onto the floor without unnecessary muscular effort.

The Science of Sitting

Ergonomics was huge a decade ago; it was the science of figuring out how to make it most comfortable to sit in the same position for hours on end. Unfortunately, as much as ergonomics tried, the human body isn’t made to sit in the same position for hours on end; it causes enormous strain on the lumbar muscles. The solution is simple: get out of your office chair every 45 minutes and spend just 5 minutes on your feet, moving around.  Even a long-distance truck driver with the world’s most comfortable anti-vibration seat needs a break at least every hour and a half to avoid lower back pain.

While you do sit in your chair, sit in it properly: ears, shoulders, and hips lined up vertically to reduce strain on your spine. If you have a keyboard, your chair should be lined up so that your elbows can be on your armrest while your wrists are on your wristrest. If you’re driving, shift your arms’ positions regularly so that no one set of muscles is constantly picking up the strain.

Every occupation naturally has its own risks, demands, and proper approaches. Talk to your boss about safety and injury reduction at your workplace; most modern jobs have plenty of information about the subject at hand. If you have an office job, consider investing in a back pain relieving office chair. If you do end up injuring your back, pick up a bottle of a powerful, all natural anti-inflammatory and lay off for a day or two to give your back the chance to heal.

Ultimately the best solution is to consult a qualified Neuromuscular Massage Therapist!

People with chronic lower back pain are familiar with the sensation: you may have had days, weeks, or even months of normalcy, and then — a twinge.  A wince, and it’s back. The only question is, how long is it going to plague you this time around?

Back pain affects a person off and on for years, and unfortunately, the only real ‘solution’ that you get without professional help is to not exert yourself or put any strain on your back — which is almost impossible. Your back is built to take strain; its whole purpose is to hold up your body, after all.

One of the most common suggestions for people who have lower back pain is that they stretch it out. This isn’t a bad suggestion in most circumstances; stretching really can be quite helpful for a stiff or sore back. But for many people who have chronic back pain, a simple stretch doesn’t even begin to touch it. So what do you suggest after that?

First releasing the trigger points, or “landmine knots” that keep your muscles locked up, actually allows your muscles to effectively stretch. You may have tried to stretch your way out of pain, yet scientific research proves that it’s actually your trigger points that lock up your muscles and cause over 80% of chronic muscle pain. Stretching does nothing to relieve trigger points. The only way to release and de-activate trigger points is by self-treatment or seeing a qualified Neuromuscular Therapist.

Stretching may also actually do more harm than good. Stretching is great for preventing problems, but not so much for treating them once they’ve cropped up already.

That’s because stretching your lower back inherently lengthens the muscles and connective tissue in and around your spine. Stretching an already strained muscle or lightly sprained tendon or ligament can weaken the tissue and lead to greater instability or balance problems, which leads to even more back pain.

If you stretch a pained back and find that your pain increases either immediately or the next day, you need to seek the counsel of a neuromuscular therapist. Such an expert is highly qualified to release your trigger points, and tell you about the exercises you need to do in order to overcome your back pain without causing more stress on already-injured muscles.

Generally, a great first step is to add a powerful anti-inflammatory to your regimen. Inflammation is a natural reaction the body has to even minor muscle strains or ligament sprains, and it causes amazing discomfort, especially if it happens near the spine.

Ultimately the best solution is to consult a qualified Neuromuscular Massage Therapist!

Every year, America’s surgeons perform hundreds of thousands of back surgeries — it’s one of the most common surgical operations in the country. Discectomies, laminectomies, spinal fusions — the number of variations on ‘back surgery’ is amazing. Even more amazing is the fact that most of these surgeries are perfectly avoidable if the initial herniated or slipped disc is treated properly and promptly. Unfortunately, ‘proper’ treatment is a rarity in a medical environment where the response to pain is almost always ‘drug it away and rest a while’ and maybe get a little physical therapy. In many if not most of these cases, a trained neuromuscular therapist could have averted the need for surgery altogether.

Patients who have persistent pain or numbness after back surgery are rather tersely described as ‘surgical failures’, and their problems are known as ‘failed back surgery syndrome’. It’s chronic, because once your body is altered by surgery, there’s no way back. Re-operation is complicated at best and has chances of making things significantly worse. For many who attempt re-operation, the final option is to have a device implanted into their spine to quell the pain.

In short, back surgery should be reserved only for cases where a flaw with the spine is causing pressure against a nerve root, and the affected limb is suffering numbness, muscle atrophy, or constant pain as a result.

That’s because, if those aren’t your symptoms, the chances are approaching 100% that you’re able to get a non-surgical cure that doesn’t come with all of the risks of surgery. The vast majority of back pain is caused by musculoskeletal problems — if you’ve injured a muscle, tendon, ligament, joint, or disc in your back and never had a neuromuscular professional examine you, it’s probably still affecting you. Subtle changes in the way you stand, sit, and move due to long-forgotten injuries cause a surprising amount of pain — pain that can’t be corrected by surgery. Heck, for some people, a simple anti-inflammatory supplement can end a startling amount of back pain.

That’s why a neuromuscular therapist is the right person to talk to – they’re able to identify muscle imbalances and postural issues and help you correct them, even if you need special support in accessing and ‘undoing’ certain muscle groups in order to do it. With a combination of trigger point therapy, alignment exercises, and flexibility, strength, and endurance-building, they’re able to guide your body back to its ‘normal’, correct posture and end many if not most cases of chronic low back pain with much less cost than surgery.

The biggest problem that modern medicine has trying to address something as commonplace as back pain is that modern medicine is built from the get-go on the scientific process that involves eliminating variables and narrowing everything down to a single traceable cause. But the human body isn’t the kind of thing you can experiment like that on.  Your whole body works as a unit, and every change you make to one variable affects dozens of other variables down the line.  There’s no such thing as ‘isolating a factor’ when it comes to the human body.

Take back pain, for example: is your pain a sporadic, sharp and shooting pain? That might be because you have a problem with your vertebrae and the bone is pinching a nerve — but it’s more likely that there’s a tight, inflamed muscle that’s injured and the internal swelling is squeezing that nerve. You can cure injured muscle spasms in the back with the help of a trained professional, yet you also must make sure that it has everything it needs (i.e. nutrients, posture awareness) to heal itself.

You can take a high quality, natural anti-inflammatory to help the swelling go down and stop the squeezing on the nerve and help the muscle heal. Most doctors give you a prescription for something stronger than Asprin and send you on your way, giving you exactly nothing to help that muscle get better and ensuring that the pain lasts as long as possible.

There are so many factors that go into a ‘simple’ muscle strain. You need to have a professional assess your:

  • Muscles
  • Trigger Points
  • Ligaments
  • Tendons
  • Posture and alignment
  • Movement
  • Any potentially relevant scar tissue

And the kicker is that these affect each other, so if you learn that your posture is off, it may be causing your muscles to overwork and become strained — OR it may be that you have a muscle that’s already strained and your posture is subconsciously adjusting to accommodate the muscle. Just hiding the problem under a typical prescription pain reliever isn’t going to actually fix anything — and in fact it makes fixing the problem in the future that much more difficult.

Instead, follow this five-step system in order to ensure that the muscles in your back and neck are able to heal most effectively. Most back pain is muscular and the result of repeated strains within the back –so these steps heal most peoples’ back pain.

Step 1: Relieve the Muscles and Trigger Points

Quite often, the strain in your muscles either causes or is caused by a muscle or a set of muscles that simply does not relax. Fortunately, every muscle comes equipped with ‘trigger points’ that when released, relaxes the muscle. Even a muscle that cannot be stretched out manually is relaxed with trigger point therapy. In most cases, you need the help of an expert Neuromuscular Therapist like we have on staff, or a do-it-yourself trigger point kit to access the trigger points on your back muscles.

 

Step 2: Fix Your Posture

Once your muscles are done being so “angry” and allow you to stand normally, it’s time to make sure that you’re doing exactly that. Posture alignment exercises help you restore balance to your stance, which minimizes strain on your ligaments, muscles, tendons, and even your internal organs. If you sit at a desk all day, it’s crucial that you have the best chair for bad backs to keep your back and pelvis healthy.

 

Step 3: Restore Flexibility

There’s a significant difference between a relaxed muscle and a flexible muscle. A muscle that helps you stand and walk correctly may very well still be too short and tight to respond effectively to the demands made as you perform everyday tasks like carrying groceries in from your car. During this time, any residual inflammation can be particularly hampering; supplementing with a powerful anti-inflammatory  is a great idea.

 

Step 4: Restore Strength

As your muscles get ‘long’ and able to stretch, it’s time for some functional strength training. You should be almost entirely pain-free by this time before you do any strength training; what we’re doing here isn’t so much solving the old problem as making sure that it doesn’t come back.

 

Step 5: Build Endurance

Continue your flexibility and strength exercises, but add in isometric and other endurance-building exercises. This ensures that even if an extreme demand on your muscles suddenly arises, you’re able to handle it without the pain coming back.

The key to eliminating pain and preventing re-injury is to do steps 1-5 in order.  You must release your trigger points first, since they are the root cause of 80%+ of chronic muscle pain.  You can’t stretch a muscle well unless the trigger points are released first.  Also, when you do strength training too soon, like so often in physical therapy, you run the risk of re-injury and more pain.  Get your trigger points released and then move on to the strengthening later.

If you’re not sure how to accomplish these goals, you want to consult one of our expert Neuromuscular Therapists. With their care and your own focus, you’re able to eliminate the majority of the back pain in your life.

“A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses”.
~ Hippocrates

Mental Health: The Relaxation Response: Learn It!

Researchers at Harvard recently took a pile of 28 people who had never meditated or done anything similar in their lives, and taught them the simplest form of what they call the ‘relaxation response’ — by talking them through a muscle-by-muscle relaxation of their entire body while they repeated a mantra. They essentially Pavlovianly trained these folks to relax when they invoked their mantra, in the same way that Eastern monks who regularly meditate relax by closing their eyes and taking a deep breath. The benefits of learning to enforce relaxation? “[The relaxation response] produces immediate changes in the expression of genes involved in immune function, energy metabolism and insulin secretion,” the study says. In other words, you resist bugs more effectively, burn more calories, and store less fat — oh, and your stress levels plummet, too.
Science Daily, May 2013

Health Alert: ‘Five Second Rule’ Proven True…ish

Two separate studies examining the speed with which bacteria and other grossness on the floor gets transferred to your food have used very similar methods and received very similar data…and somehow managed to end up at nearly opposite results. The more liberal group essentially said that the five-second rule is probably OK given that the food gets dropped in your own home (where the bugs are ‘your bugs’ and you’re used to them) — not so much on the street or even in someone else’s house. The conservative group looked at the same data and concluded that “there is no five-second rule…eating food off of the floor is as dangerous as driving without a seat belt on, even after zero seconds.”
National Geographic Magazine, March 2014

Diet: Ketogenic Diet Can Fight Cancer!

Dr. D’Agostino, an assistant professor at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology, has been studying the effects of extremely low-carb ‘ketogenic’ diets, and believes that cancer sufferers can manage their tumors metabolically. It turns out that cancer cells don’t burn fat for energy — only sugar — but humans who simply don’t eat any sugars will (after some suffering) naturally switch over to burning fat and fat alone for energy, which essentially starves the cancer, sending it into remission.
The Examiner, March 2014

Exercise: Obese People Don’t Get Any Exercise…and Should

It’s fairly common knowledge that obese people should exercise more, but a recent study revealed just how much they need to work at it — a study by the Mayo Clinic found that obese women get at little as one hour of aerobic exercise…per year. Men faired little better, with obese men averaging just four hours of exercise per year. Their conclusion: even if it’s just five minutes a couple of times a week, getting tiny amounts of exercise and working to increase that amount slowly — even over years and years — will improve these peoples’ quality of life (and lifespan) significantly.
Time Magazine, February 2014

Neuromuscular Massage: Myofascial Pain: A Sticky Subject

The term ‘myofascial pain’ is fairly common (and getting more so) but not that many people have a clear idea of what it means. Here’s what it means: the ‘fascia’ are like envelopes of slick tissue that surround almost every part of our internal body. Imagine the thin, clear layer you can often find in top of a skinless chicken breast. ‘Myofascia’ means ‘fascia around your muscles’ — so ‘myofascial pain’ is ‘pain caused by a problem with the tissues that envelop your muscles.’ This happens most often when small tears in the myofascia cause them to adhere to nearby other tissues. Massage or other forms of directed pressure can release the adherence and thus allow the myofascia to return to their proper place (and stop hurting!)
Click here to learn more about Neuromuscular Massage

Academy of American Family Physicians, February 2002

Ergonomics and Proper Posture: Does Your Office Chair For Back Relief Do This?
The office chair market is drowning in the word ‘ergonomic.’ There isn’t an office chair produced in the world today that isn’t ‘ergonomic’ — yet we’ve seen nothing but an ever-increasing amount of back pain. Chairs that are ‘ergonomic’, in fact the entire science of ‘ergonomics’, have failed us. If you want a serious back pain chair, you need the next evolution…Click Here to Read About the Ultimate Chair for Back Relief.

Wellness/Prevention: Knowing What Your Risks Are

Anne Wojcicki, founder of genetics testing lab 23andMe, put on a TED talk regarding some of the benefits of knowing your genes, and while 23andMe is currently prevented from giving out health advice based on their genetic findings, it’s almost certainly only a matter of time before that gets sorted out. Once they’re back in business, it should be considered an investment in your own future health to get yourself profiled — their results will tell you, for example, whether to worry more about cancer, heart attack, Alzheimer’s, or something altogether different. From there, you can decide for yourself what preventative measures suit your lifestyle.
Engadget, March 2014

Alternative Medicine: Herbal Remedies for Back Pain – the most common and uncommon!

There are a mountain of powerful, all-natural herbs in the world that help the human body heal in a vast number of ways. If your back hurts, for example, there are more herbal remedies for back pain than you can shake a stick at. Here’s just a rough sampling of a few…Continue Read Here

“The best six doctors anywhere, and no one can deny it Are sunshine, water, rest, and air, exercise and diet.”
~ Wayne Fields

 

Mental Health: Living At High Altitude Linked to Depression, Suicide

Utah researchers recently uncovered a startling factoid: while the folks in Utah tend to be some of the physically healthiest in the country, they also have some of the highest rates of mental illness. In fact, in the greater context of the Rocky Mountain states, the cities that sit high atop the mountains tend so strongly toward depression that some have started referring to the mountains as the ‘suicide belt.’ The theory is that living at high altitudes alters your brain chemistry and promotes depression, schizophrenia, and suicide. The theory falters on a global scale, however, as countries like Bhutan and Nepal are high-altitude countries with significantly better mental health overall than the U.S.
Salt Lake Tribune, March 2014

Health Alert: Autism Linked With Environmental Toxin Exposure…and Genes

Researchers from the University of Chicago, led by professor of genetic medicine Andrey Rzhetsky, analyzed data of nearly 100 million children gathered from different states in the United States to measure autism rates and intellectual disability. The study was epidemiological in nature, which means it didn’t focus on finding a single ‘smoking gun’ chemical that was ‘at fault’ — but what they did find is that there is significant evidence that autism happens when certain genetic states coincide with certain environmental circumstances. A glance at the map that comes with the study seems to point to high-fracking areas as being high-autism areas in general, though that may be purely coincidental.
Autism Speaks, March 2014

Diet: ‘Free Sugars’ Strongly Linked to Heart Disease

JAMA last month contained a large study that linked ‘sugar as a percentage of caloric intake’ to ‘death from cardiovascular disease’ and found that the correlation between the two was startling. We all know by now that correlation doesn’t imply causation, but nevertheless the World Health Organization is revising its guidelines, suggesting that ‘free sugars’ (in other words, sugar added to food rather than those naturally occurring within food) should comprise 5% of less of your total caloric intake. (For the record, that would put almost every American breakfast food off limits.)
The Journal of the American Medical Association, February 2014

Exercise: Late-Night Exercise Won’t Mess Up Your Sleep Schedule

The National Sleep Foundation Sleep in America Poll for 2013 finally came back a few weeks ago, with interesting results. It seems that people who get at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise sleep better at night — no surprise there. But even people who get that exercise right before bedtime sleep better than people who don’t get it at all — so the old theory that you should use the hour before bed to relax and do nothing has been officially tossed. If you can’t sleep, get some exercise, and try again.
Prevention Magazine, March 2014

Neuromuscular Massage: Amazing Treatment for Back, Neck, Hip and Knee Pain: Pain and Posture

A study from IPSB college showed that in people with chronic hip, knee, and back pain, a simple assessment of their posture can lead to new potential avenues of treatment. They assessed the pelvic tilt of people who reported many years of chronic hip, knee, and back pain. Then, they applied neuromuscular massage therapy intended to correct the posture of the patients — and when the five-week process was complete, they verified that complaints of pain were reduced in rough alignment with the correction of the pelvic tilt accomplished by the neuromuscular massage.
IPSB college, June 2008

Wellness/Prevention: Even Prevention Can Be Overdone

A massive study out of Canada last week revealed that preventive medicine can be taken too far. It turns out that there was zero difference in breast cancer mortality between women ages 35-60 who had annual mammograms and those who did not. What did change was that the women who received mammograms had more false positives, meaning lots of unnecessary fear, stress, and medication.
Modern Healthcare Magazine, February 2014

“To insure good health: eat lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an interest in life.”
~William Londen

 

Health Alert: Marijuana Less Addictive Than Cigarettes, But Still Addictive

One of the few epidemiological studies of marijuana was released over the weekend, having gained importance with Washington and Colorado having recently legalized the sale of pot. The study proved that alcohol, cigarettes, and other forms of tobacco/nicotine are all more addictive than marijuana — but not by much. Approximately 2 million Americans are addicted to marijuana in the sense that they cannot quit and their lives are negatively affected by the drug.

Diet: Reduce Food Cravings with Well-Timed Video Games

A group of scientists at Plymouth University, testing the theory that food cravings came from our imagination, not our stomachs — and were thus visual, not something felt, tested their theory in a unique way. They proved that people feeling food cravings who stopped whatever they were doing and played 3 minutes of a highly visual video game (they used Tetris) felt a 25% drop in their cravings.

Exercise: Antioxidants Nullify Many Benefits of Exercise

We’ve all been told that antioxidants are massively good for you — but studies from as far back as 2009 (Germany) and as recently as last week (Norway) have proven again and again that that combining high-antioxidant foods with exercise can make the exercise much less effective. One of the major benefits of exercise is the creation of new mitochondria (the organelles that burn fat and sugar for calories) inside your cells — but that cannot happen in the presence of “healthy” levels of antioxidants. In particular, Vitamin C, resveratrol, and CoQ10 have shown to impair the benefits of exercise.

Neuromuscular Massage: The Newest Back & Neck Pain Relief Breakthrough Taking Off in the United States

A study released by the American Massage Therapy Association revealed that neuromuscular massage therapists are becoming more and more in demand in the United States as the benefits of therapeutic massage become more evident. Predictions are that there will be 20% more massage therapists by 2020 than there are today — significantly above the average rate of growth for medical professionals.

Preventative Medicine: The Trifecta of Dietary Preventatives

It’s not that often that we get great, ‘clean’ studies out of China, but it can happen. In this case, a month or so ago, a trio of scientists at Wuhan University called out three preventative superfoods: garlic (for it’s antibacterial, antiviral, and antiparasitical properties), ginger (as a powerful anti-inflammatory and digestive aid), and lemon (because it cleanses the blood and liver as well as reducing mucus body-wide.)  A tablespoon each of the first two — raw, with honey — and a glass of water with a lemon squeezed into it — are on their list of things everyone should consider as a daily part of their health regimen.

Mental Health: Stress Causes the Brain to Build Misfires Into Itself

There are stem cells in the brain that are used when new neurons need to be built. But according to researchers at UC Berkley, under chronic stress, the brain will instead convert these stem cells into a kind of glial cell that has the job of coating nearby neurons in a myelin sheath. This operation is necessary in some parts of the brain (‘white matter’), but when it happens in an area of the brain that is normally gray matter, it can cause communications between some cells to become accelerated while others’ communications are at normal speed. The result is a ‘misfire’ that can cause a variety of effects from PSTD-like symptoms to a lack of ability to consider the ramifications of one’s actions. End result? Avoid stress when at all possible.

Whiplash is a specific kind of traumatic injury that harms the muscles and joints of the neck; while it can break a bone, such a fracture is a rare event. The tissues most injured in a whiplash collision are the neck muscles and joints of the neck: the places where bone meets bone.

Muscles cross over the joints, contracting in order to move the bones in relationship to each other. Much like a ligament, if a muscle is overextended because the joint is forced to move beyond a muscle’s full extension, the muscle becomes injured.  An injured muscle is called a ‘strain.’  It’s quite normal for a single injury to cause both a sprain and a strain in the ligament and muscle respectively.

Quite often, “landmine knots” called trigger points form in the front and back neck muscles, causing severe aches and pains, as well as referred pain into the eyes and head.

Joints are held together with connective tissues called ligaments. Ligaments hold the bones together, limiting the movement of each joint. When the joint is forced to move beyond the limits that the ligaments set, the ligaments are injured, resulting in a sprain. You may recognize this from the term ‘sprained ankle.’

Unlike most joints, wherein a muscle stretches across a single joint because it has only a single pair of bones within its range, the spine is a complex collection of small bones and muscles that stretch over many of the joints between those small bones.

Although whiplash injury can break (fracture) a bone, fractures from whiplash trauma are quite rare.

Notice, for example, that your elbow only moves in one direction. The neck, meanwhile, can turn left and right, tilt up and down, slide forwards and backwards, slide side to side, and even extend and contract a little bit. It’s the most flexible part of the body. The neck also holds up the dead weight that is the massive human skull and the brain it contains. All that, and the neck muscles and bones also protect the spinal cord that connects our brain to the rest of our body, allowing us to feel sensations and move.

This is all due to the incredibly powerful and well-engineered bones in our spine, called vertebrae. Each vertebrae has three individual joints rather than the one that most bones are allowed. The largest joint on each vertebrae is called the disc joint, because a disc of ligament-like tissue sits between it and the next vertebrae in the spine. The disc joints are the ‘shock absorbers’ of our bodies.

Then, each vertebrae has two joints at the back of the bone, called facet joints. The facet joints are where the muscles that control the movement of your neck and back are connected.

When you get whiplash, the muscles, disc and facet joints between your neck vertebrae get overextended in a forward-back direction. This results in several related conditions: ligament sprains, muscle strains, and in extreme cases, the discs between vertebrae can rupture or become herniated.

Whiplash injury research is both extensive and in-depth. Because whiplash is such a common legal battleground, there have been literally thousands of scientific and medical studies on every single aspect of whiplash.

For example, we’ve known for a couple of decades now that the primary sources of damage during a whiplash event is the overextension (‘inertial injury’) to the soft tissues (muscles, ligaments, fascia, and muscles) of the surrounding area and joints in your vertebrae.

By injecting the muscles and soft tissues of the neck with very localized anesthesia – thus numbing the neck one small section of tissue at a time – researchers studying whiplash have been able to determine precisely which muscles and tissues the pain is originating in. By using a powerful x-ray machine called a fluoroscope to precisely position anesthetic needles in the exact tissues they want to anesthetize, they can ensure that they don’t accidentally anesthetize the wrong tissues. When they make an injection that stops the patient’s pain, they’ve found the tissue that was responsible for the pain. By slowly working their way through the facet joints, the disc joints, the spinal muscles, the spinal nerves, the connective tissues, and other parts of the neck, they can establish in each case where the problem is.

The results have been very consistent across hundreds of patients: chronic whiplash pain is by far most commonly sourced in the muscles, trigger points, and  ligaments of the facet joints at the base of the neck, and secondly in the disc joints of the same vertebrae.

Whiplash-related headaches, however, come from “landmine knots” better known as trigger points in your neck and shoulder muscles. These trigger points refer pain directly into your head, behind your eyes, and base of skull causing you that aching tension throughout the day.  Whiplash-related headaches also come from ligaments of the facet joints in the upper part of the neck.

Whiplash Injury Healing Time

Injured muscles and soft tissues can take up to 12 months to heal completely even when given the most appropriate treatment. The average healing time for a well-treated whiplash injury (back to maximum movement with no pain) is seven months and one week – however, a meaningful amount of whiplash patients can take as long as two years to reach that point.

However, Neuromuscular Massage Therapy  is shown to greatly speed up recovery and pain relief, breaking the pain spasm cycle caused by the accident.

Numerous scientific and medical studies prove that the extent of damage to your vehicle is not a predictor of the extent of damage to your neck caused by a whiplash injury. In short, there’s no connection: you can find severe whiplash in the rider of a vehicle that suffered only a paint scratch, and you find a person with no whiplash damage who’s car has been totaled.

  • Specifically, no correlation is found between vehicle damage and:
  • The degree of whiplash injury
  • The duration of treatment required for whiplash injury
  • The severity of the symptoms of whiplash injury
  • The probability of chronic pain caused by whiplash injury
  • Or the probability of whiplash-related arthritis in the joints of the neck developing later.

Some vehicles are designed to collapse during an accident; others are made to resist collapse. All necks are designed with more or less the same standards of movement – so there’s a solid, engineering-based reason why no amount of correlation is found between vehicle damage and whiplash damage.

One of the most brilliant scientists that ever lived was undoubtedly Sir Isaac Newton – a physicist, astronomer, mathematician, theologian, and natural philosopher whose work has influenced many parts of our society. At age 43 – in 1647 – he published Principia Mathematica, which altered the history of science.

In his seminal book, Newton discusses three Laws of Motion – Laws which we’re able to easily use to explain the causes and effects of whiplash trauma and the injuries it causes. The First Law of Motion is the Law of Inertia. It says, quite simply, that an object that isn’t moving will remain motionless and that an object that is moving will keep moving in the same direction and speed – in both cases, unless some outside power intervenes to change things.

The larger and heavier and faster-moving an object, the greater the intervening power has to be in order to alter the motion. In the case of whiplash injuries, the object that’s moving is your head – a pretty hefty ball of mostly water, often moving forward at several dozen miles per hour while the vehicle (and, because of seat belts, the body) holding it up stop quite violently. The only force that can stop the head is the strength of the neck’s muscles and connective tissues.

Alternately, in the case of a rear-end collision, your car and body, which is held up by the seat back, lurches forward. Your neck flexes backward as your head doesn’t keep up. Then, because your car is heavy and holding your body in place with a seat belt, your car and body stops, but your head won’t. Your head plummets forward, again only stopped by your neck’s muscles and ligaments.

In either case, what happens is that, given a significant enough impact, the muscles and connective tissues of the neck tear and disjoin, causing severe damage we call ‘whiplash.’

For nearly a century, we’ve known that the best way to get injured muscle tissues to heal is to get them to move – early and often, though not necessarily to the extremes of their normal limits. In particular, treating whiplash injuries has been easiest when combining massage, mobilization and manipulation of the tissues. When the joints are mobilized, the muscles and connective tissues move – and if done by someone trained in therapeutic massage rehabilitation, they can be moved in a way that encourages them to heal correctly.

The classic response to an injury has long been traction – the immobilization of the area. However, we’ve known for decades that the best whiplash healing happens with controlled movement, not immobilization.

When we hurt our neck’s muscles and ligaments, one of the most common responses is ‘guarding posture’ – a change in the way we hold our head and move that keeps the pain from flaring up. The problem is that when the guarding posture is held for weeks (or months or years) at a time, it can cause a snowball of changes to the way we hold our torso, walk, carry things, and so on – changes that themselves cause pain and problems.

The best way to avoid being permanently stuck in guarding posture is to allow our neck’s muscles and ligaments to heal – which means moving them correctly. But moving them correctly is what we’re guarding against! It hurts!  That’s precisely why you need a skilled neuromuscular massage  therapist to loosen up the muscles and help you move them correctly without causing wincing pain.

According to the Annals of Internal Medicine, the benefits of massage therapy for neck pain treatment and whiplash have proven to be significantly superior to self-guided exercises and drugs (the so-called “conservative treatment” espoused by most primary care physicians.)

When treating chronic whiplash pain, science proves the benefits of massage therapy to be more effective than acupuncture, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, and traction. In addition, the group treated with massage therapy had no adverse reactions – the group taking drugs actually reported more adverse reactions than benefits. Massage therapy was the only one of the three groups that was still found to have benefited one year later.

Massage Revolution is LA’s #1 Pain Relief Massage Center

Fast, lasting relief—plus expert therapeutic massage when you just want to feel amazing.

Our Pain Relief Focus
  • Neuromuscular Pain Relief Massage
  • Trigger Point Release
  • Myofascial Techniques
  • Postural Correction
  • PPO Insurance Accepted
Trusted by Thousands. Backed by Results
  • 600,000+ Massages Delivered
  • 3,000+ Clients Helped Monthly
  • 20+ Years of Results
  • 100% Satisfaction Guarantee
1,000+ Reviews
800+ Reviews
Also Offering Therapeutic Massages

While pain relief is our specialty, our experienced therapists are also trained in:

  • Swedish Massage
  • Deep Tissue
  • Sports Massage
  • Prenatal Massage and more

pop