Massage Therapy
Therapeutic massage involves manipulating the soft tissues of the body to prevent and alleviate pain, discomfort, muscle spasm, and stress. As in many kinds of therapy, therapeutic massage is one part of your overall chiropractic treatment plan.
Massage therapy:
- Alleviates headache-associated pain.
- Helps improve your ability to walk with a normal and balanced gait.
- Helps lower your blood pressure.
- Improves your breathing as a result of a more relaxed diaphragm.
- Improves your range of motion, muscle tone, and flexibility.
- Increases your blood flow, which aids in the healing process and allows muscles to work more efficiently.
- Reduces stiffness, pain and muscle tension.
- Stimulates the body to release helpful chemicals such as endorphins.
Massage has been shown to be an effective treatment for a wide variety of health problems, including:
- Stress.
- Sleep apnea and insomnia.
- Sinusitis.
- Range of motion.
- Pain (chronic and temporary).
- Myofascial pain.
- Jaw disorders.
- Injuries such as pulled or strained muscles and ligaments.
- Headache.
- Digestive disorders, including spastic colon and constipation.
- Circulatory problems.
- Carpal tunnel syndrome.
- Asthma and bronchitis.
- Arthritis.
- Allergies.
In some cases, devices may be used to perform massage. Traction massage entails lying on your back on a special table with a pillow under your knees. The table has small rollers that glide up and down your spine. Traction massage helps stretch and massage the muscles in your back and is not a form of spinal adjustment. In fact, traction massage may sometimes be used to make an adjustment go more smoothly.
Heat Therapy
While ice therapy is used to reduce swelling, heat therapy is used to relax the muscles and increase circulation. Both kinds of therapy help reduce pain.
Heat therapy is often used in patients who have chronic or long-lasting pain. Heat therapy can involve many kinds of methods, from simple heating pads, wraps, and warm gel packs, to sophisticated techniques, such as therapeutic ultrasound.
Back injuries can create tension and stiffness in the muscles and soft tissues of the lumbar region, or lower back. In many cases, your circulation may be impeded.
The tension in the muscles can sometimes escalate to spasms.
Heat therapy:
- Dilates the blood vessels of the affected muscles, allowing them to relax and begin healing.
- Helps lower discomfort by reducing the amount of pain signals going to the brain.
- Increases the ability of your muscles to easily flex and stretch, thereby decreasing stiffness.
Heat therapy, as well as ice therapy, are normal parts of an overall chiropractic treatment plan and treatment can rarely accomplish maximum results without it.
Heat therapy is not used on swollen or bruised tissues, or in patients who have dermatitis, deep vein thrombosis, diabetes, peripheral vascular disease, open wounds, and cardiovascular conditions such as hypertension.
Ice Therapy
In many cases, temporary pain and even additional injury can be minimized and even avoided by a simple application of ice. Ice, applied in a timely manner and in an appropriate way, can reduce inflammation. Inflammation left unchecked can allow the source of the pain to continue doing damage to muscles, ligaments, tendons, and other structures.
Ice causes the veins in the affected tissue area to constrict. This reduces the flow of blood while acting as kind of anesthetic to numb the pain. But when the ice is removed (and this is key), the veins compensate by expanding, which then allows a large volume of blood to rush to the affected area. The blood brings with it important chemicals that aid in the healing process.
Back and neck injuries frequently involve muscle sprains and strained ligaments, which can spasm and become inflamed.
Ice massage, or cryotherapy, is effectively used to treat many kinds of injuries, including those associated with back or neck pain.
Ice massage can provide a number of benefits, including:
- Assisting the body in minimizing tissue damage
- Mitigating muscle spasms
- Reducing or eliminating pain by numbing sore soft tissues
Ice therapy is not recommended as a form of treatment for any kinds of rheumatoid arthritis, Raynaud's Syndrome (a circulatory disorder of blood vessels of the extremities), colds or allergic conditions, paralysis, or areas of impaired sensation.
