Why do I have pain?

Do you carry stress in your shoulders? Do you have pain between your ‘wings’ AKA shoulder blades, scapulae? How about glute pain, do you have a tendency to walk like John Wayne?

You could take over the counter meds to relieve your pain, temporarily. The commercials will tell you to take several throughout the day or ‘just one of these’ to sell their pain-relieving product to you.

Do you have some extra pounds you would like to lose and never find again? There’s an overabundance of DVDs, apparatuses, and clubs who will help you out—for a price. Want to see them? Go online, to the mall, or check out any big-box store to be inundated with choices.

America is a country with a plethora inventors, creators, and distributors of products. Some are extremely helpful—and others, can be extremely harmful. It’s as though the makers of the harmful products don’t care about your health. It’s as though the bottom line matters more than your kidney, liver, muscles, and bones.

Today I was looking through one of the many catalogs I receive selling health and fitness products. Of course, I scan it all but mostly look at the massage products to find what might help me better treat my clients. I’m a professional and could say ‘don’t try this at home’ but won’t because I’m not the one selling the products. So, I will tell you what to watch out for and where to get help, okay?

As for medication and your pain, you could try one or more pills. Pain medications have toxic effects on internal organs such as the kidneys and liver. Muscle relaxers? They mess with your brain just enough for you to not care about the pain. Think about it, if a muscle relaxer really relaxed your muscles, you would be in a puddle on the floor. And it does not pinpoint just the one muscle that hurts, it’s systemic; they too have negative consequence. If you are not certain of this, listen to the side effects on the next commercial.

I’m sure you get the idea; they don’t care about you so you need to care about you.

Losing weight, we all want to, you’re not alone. What the makers of the products won’t tell you is that diet and exercise are the best way to do this. Diet, I am not saying stop eating everything with sugar, or only eat things that begin with the letter D. Sensible is the best diet there is. I have various clients who have attempted a number of products and methods to shed pounds. The key here is that they are my clients and I am a massage therapist.

The problem with the DVDs teaching exercise is that the instructor is not able to see how you are moving, right or wrong. Another issue is that though we are all the same under our skin, we all move differently for various reasons. Because of this we all should not be exercising the same. Sure, they will tell you that you’re doing well but we both know they are not able to see you.
Ridding yourself of pain may sound simple. In the catalog I was perusing I came across pages of items that ‘feels just like a human hand’ or ‘bust out knots’. Just like the paper on the soap commercial that says paper reacts like human skin, it’s not true. There is not a product in the world that will allow a novice to massage a muscle as a massage therapist would, let alone feel like a human hand.

A very dangerous line is crossed when something states that one can ‘bust out knots’ with an apparatus. So-called ‘knots’ are not always what they seem. A true knot in a muscle may be a myofascial trigger point. If not, it may be a cyst, tumor, or other anomaly. If it is any of these then busting it out may be harmful.

I write all of this to ask that you use common sense.

• If the promise sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
• Remember, anything that goes in your mouth must go through all of your organs.
• A professional should always supervise exercise, especially at first.
  • Learn to move properly
  • Explain any and all injuries you have had in your life, not just recently
  • Not all professionals are to be seen as equal
    • Check their certification
• You lose weight when you cut foods out of you diet; you gain it back when you start to eat those foods again.
• Pain is not ‘normal’ no matter how old you are.
  • Pain is our body’s way of telling us something is wrong
  • Age alone should not cause you to hurt
  • Proper daily stretching often reduces/eliminate pain and future injury
• Do not judge knots by their feel
  • Ask a professional their opinion
    • Doctor, Chiropractor, Physical Therapist, Massage Therapist, etc.
  • Do not ‘bust out’ the knot, fast pressure will exacerbate the issue
• Stretch
  • Hold each stretch for 30 seconds to remind the muscle how long it is
  • Must be done repetitively to gain muscle memory, daily is good
  • Look at what you do during your day and adjust stretching accordingly
  • But not to the point of pain because it causes micro-tears in your muscles, which cause scar tissue
• If you have questions, ask.
  • The only stupid question is the one that never gets asked
  • I love to help people, give me a call 630-851-1412