I’m a massage therapist. I’d say roughly…oh, every single client I see has that type of shoulder/neck pain. Tight traps, tight pecs, and tight shoulders. Truthfully, you don’t need to be super skilled, nor do you need to work very deep, to help loosen those muscles, as long as you are careful. Don’t overstretch and don’t use too much pressure. Work the muscle from the shoulder to the base of the skull, stretch the pecs gently, work around the shoulder blade a bit.
Not all shoulder pain requires surgery or steroid shots. A good therapist can help restore mobility to a frozen shoulder. Low back pain is very often due to tight glute muscles (someone mentioned the piriformis…nothing but trouble, that muscle!). Chances are very good I can help with that too.
Roughly 80% of my clients request me at my clinic. Probably half of those need glute work, and a fair number of them also have upper back/neck/shoulder pain.
I love my job so much.
Pain relief isn’t the same is fixing ripped cartilage. Damaged joints can cause issues further down the line, whether you’re in pain or not.
The resulting wound from having teeth removed will heal on it’s own. From what I can see about pirformis syndrome, it appears that it involves a muscle becoming inflamed or going into spasm and pinching a nerve. NSAIDs would make sense for that. Even a massage would make sense (in my very uneducated opinion) since we’re talking about a muscle.
But this is apples and oranges. Your doctor is masking pain while your body heals, not masking pain while it gets worse. To make a fair comparison, imagine getting your wisdom teeth out and the doc gave you pain meds because the dry sockets were bothering you. Sure, you might be able to ride it out or things might get worse.
First, physical therapists do use massage to a certain extent. Second, your mom had massages, but as you said, she had them while waiting for surgery and while to PT, not instead of a replacement or PT.
But in the end, why not just use the correct treatment instead. It doesn’t have to be surgery, but PT goes is going to do a lot more good in the long run. A massage may help knock down some inflammation, PT may actually fix the problem. Do you want a fish or do you want to learn to fish?
Also, can we all take a moment to notice that HoneyBadgerDC referred to the people he gives massages to as ‘patients’.
A tight piriformis can cause debilitating pain as it puts pressure on the sciatic nerve. My point would be: massage can help loosen that muscle, and the resulting increased range of motion will be helpful to you as you (if you wish) pursue PT or exercise to help keep it loose. But it is so damned easy to end up in pain again, because it (the glutes) can be a trouble spot when you drive, sit, stand, etc…pretty much anything.
Some people do PT, some people come back in a few weeks for more massage. For my clients, if we are indeed dealing with piriformis issues, the relief will be immediate and will usually last at least a few weeks to a couple of months. It also seems to be, ime, a cumulative effect.
I take nsaids for piriformis pain (when I can’t get in for a massage!), but have found massage to be more effective. Many people don’t want to take meds, though.
And while PT may be effective…massage feels good!
I’m telling you…if you have piriformis pain, get a good therapist to do a release on you. It’s amazing.
The first time I saw doctors about my shoulder problem, one of the receptionists warned me “don’t be to eager to get surgery. Surgeons like to cut, but the patients with problems like yours don’t seem to do well with surgery.”
But the doctor’s diagnosis was that I should be able to treat it with other things. Basically posture and exercise to avoid it, and massage and stretches when it flares up.
When I tore my labrum my PCP sent me for some PT which, possibly coincidentally, helped because there was something else going on*, but when the pain was still there he wanted a cortisone shot and referred me to an ortho to have that done. I also had an MRI done between those two appointments. When I was at the ortho office the PAs were talking to me and the doc walked in, looked at the MRI and said “Well, we’ll try the cortisone shot, but if you don’t feel better in a week or two we’ll go in and fix it”.
It was a bit tough to hear, the way he said it like it was nothing, but even I knew it had to be done. I already had the MRI images and could see the tear (I’m told it was fairly large too).
I assume the cortisone shot was either an “I know you don’t want surgery so we’ll try this first even though it won’t work”, required by insurance as one of the steps before surgery (PT was required before I could even get an MRI) and/or, even though the MRI showed a tear AND it was injury related, they wanted to make sure the pain wasn’t due to some inflammation.
*This is something important that goes back to the OP treating his ‘patients’. In addition to the tear, I also had shoulder impingement. At the time I didn’t know this, I just thought the pain was all part of tear (and later realized that’s why my symptoms didn’t line up with one specific thing). In any case, something I was doing to relieve the pain, namely stretching it and running my arm through it’s full range of motion for fear of it freezing, were actually making it worse. Each time I raised it up, that tendon ran through a narrow spot and inflamed itself more.
I flew off my bike, rolled on my shoulder and got up with what years of rugby told me was a torn rotator cuff. I was too busy for surgery so I put it off (for years!), until it got to the point where I was in constant pain and couldn’t raise my arm.
Doc said “Before surgery, I’m going to have you try Physical Therapy.” Which took three minutes. PT guy felt my shoulder and asked me to stretch my arm over the back of the chair I was sitting in. He pulled on it gently for less than a minute, then asked me to raise my arm.
I had a full range of motion and no pain. It wasn’t my rotator cuff after all. And yes, I’m an idiot for diagnosing myself and not seeing someone right away.
My first thought with that was that it was an insurance thing. When I had my injury my PCP started in one direction but the second I mentioned workers comp he said we had to do PT, then imaging then ortho consult. If your insurance requires PT first, I could see you having to go as a formality, even if everyone knows you’ll need surgery, but you have to show that you tried something else.
It’s done with meds as well. There’s some meds that aren’t covered until you’ve tried others first and it’s no secret that the doc will write the script you have to try and the script they want you to take so you can get the first one filled and a few days later fill the other one. It’s a waste of everyone’s money. Luckily in many cases a phone call from the doc will fix that.
However, it sounds like your PT did a diagnostic test that your PCP should have done and for one reason or another didn’t. I’d think that a torn rotator cuff is common enough that most PCPs would be able to diagnose it pretty quickly or at least have enough of a suspicion to send you for an ortho consult. OTOH, if you told the doc that’s what you did, you may have sent him in the wrong direction, I do way to much arm chair diagnosing before I go to my doc and I’m always worried I’ll do that too, luckily he’s very good (and very nice) at saying ‘yeah, it’s not that’.
If somebody’s shoulders hurt because of a torn meniscus, the New England Journal of Medicine would love to hear about it.
My mother’s doctors DO “try the massage thing”. They call it Physical Therapy. It works, while it works, for as long as it works. They also tell her to work on her posture: she does that like she’s ever, oh, kept up her many diets. She’s taken to draping herself over the arms of an armchair when she’s not in bed. You think that helps her posture?
I once watched an interview with the then-reigning arrijasotzaile (stone-lifting) champion. He explained that you must lift 1) with your legs, not your back; 2) keeping your back vertical and your elbows tucked in. “You lift the rock to your thighs and then stand up. You lift like you’re a pregnant woman.”
Was diagnosed with a SLAP tear a few years ago, ortho took a look (can’t make heads or tails out of an MRI image, it all looks like oatmeal to me), poked around, an said he’d rather not operate (surprise!) , Gave me a cortisone shot and prescribed a course of PT and anti inflammatory meds.
Now it’s a matter of “if it hurts don’t do that” combined with doing the stretches and exercises semi-regularly. Not a perfectly pain-free world, but I think preferable to trying to live through a surgery.
OK, so I’ve been massaging my left trapezius off and on all day, and I just want to say Thank You!
My left shoulder has been giving me hell lately, and this is making a big difference - heck. I can almost raise it 90 degrees already, and the pain is greatly reduced.
Did I forget to say Thank You? When’s your birthday?
I have shoulder pain and had a zero balancing treatment and my shoulder and arm left better . I had to pay out of pocket for it , I wish insurance would cover it. I posted a link that tell what zero balancing is .
I think it’s great that you’re feeling better - but the link you supplied declared this method as being a placebo, and places it on Quackwatch.
That being said, if it works for you and doesn’t prevent you from seeking legitimate treatment, then why not. Hope you continue to feel better!
