Medical Massage

We get many questions in regards to what exactly medical massage is.  So hopefully this post will clear up any questions.  Medical massage is different from Swedish and Deep Tissue because the focus is a specific condition or diagnosis.  For example, if someone comes in with fibromyalgia, we will focus the treatment on specific factors – such as using lymphatic drainage techniques to help move fluid along to the left subclavian vein and terminus, effleurage and petrissage strokes (which are Swedish techniques),and light trigger point therapy for any trigger points present (this is passive so as not to flare up any trigger points). 

With medical massage, typically the treatment is focused on the problem area – such as chondromalacia patella.  With this condition, we will focus on all muscles surrounding the knee and hip for the entire session.  We get a lot of people with low back pain, so I focus on the psoas muscle, lower erector spinae and quadratus lumborum (QL).   Specific muscle groups and associated soft tissue structures (ligaments, tendons & fascia) all play a part in any condition and our medical massages focus on allowing these structures to return to their natural resting state using various massage techniques.