I have noticed a real common problem is severe shoulder pain. They will explain they need surgery because the Dr says they have a torn meniscus, or calcium deposits or a number of other in resolvable issues. For the past 20 years or so whenever I get the opportunity I offer a neck and shoulder massage to see if it will help. In almost every case I run into one tight muscle that goes from the neck to the shoulder and I knead that muscle like I would dough. I start off easy and gradually increase the pressure. No more than 5 or 10 minutes total. It is somewhat painful for the patient.
The almost immediate success rate is extremely high, usually within a couple of hours the pain subsides and stays gone. It doesn't take any particular skill to do this and the risk is close to zero. It is very easy when you start the massage to know if it will work or not, if you don't find a tight muscle it likely won't work, if you find a tight muscle it likely will work.
No. Just, no. (following is just my own experience, not meant as an insult towards OP)
About 2 years ago I went to work with a stiff neck. I had no other problems, with anything. A substitute came in my room, and saw my discomfort. Oh, I give great neck messages, she told me - I felt uncomfortable, but didn’t want to hurt her feelings, and let her touch me.
After less than 10 seconds I fell to the ground, in intense pain. She ran from the room, leaving me there.
I was off work for over 2 months, unable to raise my arm, with horrible pain radiating down my back. She had pinched a nerve, setting me on a downward spiral of meds and eventual surgery.
I took an early retirement, and 2 years later I am very bitter about the whole episode. Why did I let her touch me? I can’t work, and am in almost constant pain.
Now, eventually my disc would have probably ruptured anyway, and other spinal problems were uncovered. But, it all started with that “massage”.
If you are not a licensed practitioner, please do not offer deep massages to others.
I’m sorry if this hurts your feelings, but I will never forgive myself or the other person for what happened to me.
Is that all she did was massage your neck?? Did she twist or manipulate in some way. I have never been aware of any risks just from massaging but if it is risky is am glad to find out about it.
No, doesn’t hurt my feelings. I stay away from even chiropractors who make neck adjustments. Yours was a stiff neck where what I am talking about is shoulder pain. If their is some risk involved better to know about it. I have always just kneaded the one muscle going for the neck to the shoulder.
This may or may not be related, but I get terrible aches in my right shoulder when I spend hours mousing away at work. When I’m deep in concentration, I lose track of time and I suspect my posture and mouse usage conspire to create agony. I assume I’m not a unique case.
I need to see if I can set up an alarm to remind me to stop and stretch every 30 minutes or so. That’s gotta help, right? I know when I’m more active (like raking leaves) it hurts less.
Kinda hard to believe that a massage would cause a ruptured disk. What did she massage you with, a sledgehammer?
Easy to believe that a “deep” massage would cause a pinched nerve and lots of pain if not done right. Harder to believe that it would cause long-term problems. I wonder if you had something brewing there all along that was about to show up anyway.
Deep massage does take particular training to do. My own training was just a 100-hr beginner’s class and didn’t cover that. I wouldn’t try doing a deep massage, nor would I welcome anyone (even a professional) trying it on me because it really is uncomfortable at least in the short run. The reason people like it is because it supposedly feels better in the longer term. Myself, I’m a bit unconvinced about that. (ETA: Or, maybe, they’re gluttons for punishment )
Massage can be a great art and skill, for practitioner and client alike, if you have a correct understand of what to expect from it. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of woo out there.
Massage can be a great pleasure, whether giving or gettng. But I’ll stick to plain-old feel-good massage, as practiced for example in those family-style day spas in Napa Valley. Massage for medical therapy, not so much.
I have rotator cuff issues that come and go. The four things that help are:
better posture, especially while sitting
exercise/strengthening the muscles
stretching the muscles/tendons
massage
Better posture is the most important in prevention, but doesn’t cure once the thing has acted up. And that’s a lot of the point of the exercises - to change the “resting posture” of my shoulders. But the only thing that provides immediate relief is a good massage. It’s often an uncomfortable massage, and I may not feel relief until the next day. But massage definitely helps.
I’ve gratefully accepted massages from both licensed therapists and amateurs.
Wallet, your problem sounds like its manifestation was quite different from mine. Mine is a sore shoulder with limited range of motion – NOT a stiff neck. I appreciate your warning about the dangers of messing with the neck, but I intend to continue getting shoulder massages from time to time. And offering them to others. But in light of your warning, I will be careful to avoid the spine – especially any lumps along the spine.
I have had neck and shoulder pain over the past 10 years. I have found that regular exercise that includes resistance training keeps the problem at bay.
Of course you’re right - there were underlying issues that would have eventually reared their ugly head. However, the pinched nerve (and resultant pain) led to many other complications and problems.
I just feel that deep massages (at least as it relates to the neck and spine) are best left to professionals. Oh, and thanks for the links - very interesting reading.
My husband is still welcome to lay his (gentle) hands on me anytime.
Coupla nitpicks. Most likely they didn’t have a torn meniscus. That’s in your knee. Most people have heard of a torn rotator cuff, but I’m going to guess you’re thinking of a torn labrum. It’s the cartlidge attached to the socket part of the ball and socket, essentially making the socket a bit bigger. However, if the “ball” rides up on it (like getting jammed or dislocated etc) it’ll tear. I had surgery to fix mine a few years ago but it still bugs me.
I only say that so if you read up about it, that’s probably what you want to read about.
Also, it’s probably neither hear nor there, but the calcium deposits are probably scar tissue, frozen shoulder (adhesive capsulitis) or a bone spur. This is all assuming it’s not some other injury.
When I was in PT, they did to massages, but the bigger thing was ROM exercises. Very, very specific ROM exercises and very specifically taking into account my injury, my surgery and other issues. For example, when I hurt myself, I not only tore my labrum but also ended up with shoulder impingement which meant putting my arm over my head which seemed like it should stretch it out and make it feel better was actually exasperating things.
For such a simple joint, there’s a lot of things that can go wrong (or at least a lot of different names for them).
On the one hand, I’m not going to say you can’t massage people, on the other hand, you’re taking on the role medical professional, but with no training and “treating” people with injuries. These aren’t people that spent an extra hour playing tennis, these are essentially post op patients.
Personally, I don’t think you’ll make things worse, but I doubt you’ll make them better when what they really need is probably further surgery to (at the very least) break up scar tissue, a cortisone shot or more PT.
TL;DR, you’re probably not going to hurt anyone, but you’re probably not helping either.
When I was in PT for a shoulder injury, I had one good PT and one not so good one. The not so good one used a TENS machine and various exercises, and at one point I left the office and from then until my next appointment I had, not exactly a pain, but a strain, that got very, very annoying. It was like I was carrying something heavy with that arm and would feel relief if I could put it down, only I wasn’t carrying anything. The only relief I could get was leaning my shoulder against a wall with my full weight, which was not a position I could sustain very long and get anything done.
The next time I went in, to the good one, I told her about this, and she said, “Oh, that’s not right.” She then massaged a muscle that went from my neck to my shoulder–it wasn’t even a deep massage IIRC, but whatever she did, it gave me immediate relief. I don’t recall if the massage itself hurt–I don’t think so, but I could be misremembering or it could be the good kind of hurt that leads to feeling better so I forgot it.
After that I always went only to that PT and not the other one, even though it was less convenient (I had to go either before or after work, the good one was before, so I had to get up early and rearrange my schedule and then afterwards I still had to drive to work which often undid anything good the therapist had done).
(FWIW what I had then was something called “insidious onset adhesive capsulitis” and apparently it can result in frozen shoulder if not treated properly, but then gets better on its own.)
Curing things by massage rather than surgery seems like always the better choice to me!
Not helping? Been doing this for about 20 years with amazing results. It works quickly in the vast majority of cases within a couple of hours and usually 1 or 2 massages is all that is needed. The common complaint is "I can't raise my arm"
There is zero question as to whether it helps or not, I wish I would have been documenting the results over the years.
I think a typical course for shoulder and other muscular and skeletal problems is to try PT before surgery. This was the case with my rotator cuff surgery for calcium deposits, and also for lower back, neck, and toe problems. In every one of these cases, the PT tried various things including massage, and it was somewhat helpful but did not resolve the problem so we proceeded to surgery.
It always seemed to me the system was trying the less dangerous, less disruptive, less expensive methods first. I don’t think this approach simply hasn’t occurred to the medical field.
The question you asked, why don’t docs recommend massage therapy (instead of PT/surgery I assume) is for a reason.
As I said earlier, what you’re probably referring to a torn labrum. Cartilage has little to no blood supply and generally won’t heal on it’s own so there’s two options to deal with it. You either have physical therapy to strengthen the muscles around the tear as well as retrain your body to not compensate for the pain.
The other option is surgery to sew and/or anchor the the torn cartilage (followed up by PT) so the joint has the ability to work properly again.
Not doing these things can result in early arthritis, further injuries, strains other parts of the shoulder from not using it correctly anymore, issues on the other side since you’ll favor, even without knowing it, your ‘good’ shoulder etc. A torn labrum also makes it very easy for your shoulder to dislocate/subluxation, the list goes on.
Doctors don’t suggest it because it doesn’t fix anything, even if it offers some temporary relief, the tear is still there along with the associated risks. A patient that doesn’t want surgery is far better off doing physical therapy than massage therapy. Of course, relief will be months away and there’s a pretty significant hump to get over with that one.
So yeah, you’re probably not hurting anyone, but you’re also probably not helping either.
To elaborate on Joey P’s point that it can be important to not miss the opportunity for repair, when I had my lower back surgery it was after 6 months of PT. I have paralysis in my lower leg now, which the surgeon says he might have been able to fix if we had done the surgery within weeks of my injury, but which had become permanent by the time we had tried all the PT and finally moved on to surgery. This surgeon has an excellent reputation and made other predictions that came true, so my best interpretation is that he was right about this, and using conservative measures first left me with a permanent deficit.
A good chiropractor would try massage on a shoulder.
My mom was in the medical field (anesthesia) for 40 years. She would always dismiss chiropractors. They aren’t professionals.
Well, aches and pains in her seventies convinced her to go. She’d already seen a doctor and had a steroid shot in her aching hip. It helped but the fix quickly wore off. They won’t administer many of those shots.
A few weeks with a chiropractor had her walking again and doing much better. A trained chiropractor knows what he can treat and what to refer to doctors.
I believe their point is that pain relief IS helping, even if it is temporary. That doesn’t mean the other things aren’t helpful or even necessary, too, but, if there is pain relief, then it very much is helping.
I’ve gone to the doctor for a weird hip pain before (piriformis syndrome, I think). He gave me exercises I needed to do, but he also recommended prescription strength Aleve to temporarily alleviate the pain. My dentist took my wisdom teeth out, and I needed to just wait for it to heal. That didn’t mean they didn’t give me pain medicine.
If massage reliably causes pain relief, then I don’t see why doctors wouldn’t prescribe it or physical therapists wouldn’t use it. I know my mom had massages while she waited for her hip replacement, along with the physical therapy.
Shoulder surgeries are listed as one of the most common surgeries that weren’t necessary. Many of the problems surgically corrected would have resolved themselves on their own over time. Most of the people I have given this massage to are people I know and as far as I know the problem was resolved. It might act up again later but the same fix resolves it. A tight muscle in the neck to the shoulder will cause severe pain in the shoulder and immobilize it. Drs. tend to think surgical it seems.
I tweaked my shoulder lifting my laptop onto the bed. I keep it on the floor, leaning on the wall when it’s not needed.
Hurt myself twice. The 2nd time my shoulder bothered me for a week.
Talked with the doctor. “Did you have you arm fully extended?”, yes I did. “Don’t do that!” “keep your elbow by your ribs and then lift the laptop”
I’ve picked up that thing a hundred times since and never hurt my shoulder.
I do the same thing lifting a full carton of milk from the fridge. Keep that elbow tucked in as much as possible. Never fully extend your arm and lift anything. Not even a heavy textbook.
I’m sure there’s a reason. I never had that problem until I reached my thirties.
I can’t work, and am in almost constant pain.
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