Throughout our bodies we have bursas to help cushion our joints. Bursitis happens when a bursa becomes inflamed, usually from a repetitive motion around the joint that is inflamed. A person with bursitis often experiences pain around joints such as the knees, hips or shoulders.

Carpel Tunnel affects the forearm and hand with hand tingling or numbness. The median nerve running down the arm gets pinched, therefore causing those symptoms. What causes the median nerve to be pinched? You could use your hand repetitively a certain way, you could have other health problems, or it could just be the anatomy of your bones causing the pinch on the median nerve.

This is a disorder characterized by musculoskeletal pain. In order for the pain to be considered fibromyalgia, the pain must be wide spread throughout your body. People also endure fatigue, sleep memory and mood changes with fibromyalgia. Unfortunately there is no definite trigger as to why you may have fibromyalgia.

The pain could be characterized a number of different ways and in many different places throughout a person’s head. The pain may be sharp, or it could be an annoyance throughout the day.  A headache can be short or long term. As you can see, there are many varieties. There are also a number of causes including stress, tight muscles, hormonal change, and so on.

Knee pain is characterized by having pain in or around knee. There could be many different causes for the pain, including having tight quadriceps, having a torn ligament, referral pain, arthritis, and so on. Massage can definitely help treat the knee pain you may be experiencing.

A migraine is a type of headache that is characterized by being much more severe in pain then a normal headache. A migraine can cause a throbbing and pulsing symptom in one area of your head. Migraines can be accompanied with nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light and sound. Although the cause isn’t for sure known, environmental factors can play a role. For example: If you have stress, this causes tension in the neck, which can cause a migraine, especially when your stress is highly elevated. Massage can help reduce some of the environmental factors and stress in your life, therefore reducing migraines.

This condition is characterized by chronic pain throughout your body, often in your muscles. With MPS, people will experience referred pain from triggers points in muscles throughout the body. MPS usually occurs after a muscle has been contracted repetitively. During a massage, your massage therapist can access the trigger points directly, release pain and tension.

Neck pain is a very common problem in adults, affecting at least 10% of adults at any given time. Neck pain can vary from being one sided, to having it on both sides. It could be referring or very local pain, sharp or dull. Massage is a very effective tool to help any type of neck pain you may be experiencing.

Plantar Fasciitis is one of the most common reasons for experiencing heel pain. You have plantar fasciitis when the plantar fascia (a ligament that runs from your heel to your toes) gets inflamed and therefore becomes painful. The pain is usually stabbing and worse in the morning. Massage therapists can work to loosen the fascia on the bottom of your foot, and give you stretches and self-care tips to help with the pain.

A postural distortion is when your posture is incorrect because of the way you hold yourself in a certain area of your body. It could be anywhere, from your feet, all the way up to how you hold your head. When you have a postural distortion, your muscles overwork and are constantly tight and pulling on different bones, including vertebrae which can then misalign. When your muscles are tight and overworked, they can also cause nerve entrapments and trigger points. You may have a distortion from bad posture, over worked muscles, falls, injuries or repetitive motions. Massage helps to loosen the muscle, allowing it to go back to its original length and not be stressed and tight.

After surgery, it takes your body a while to heal from what it has undergone. Generally after a surgery, you have to wait six weeks before receiving massage, but after that time, massage can benefit a lot. You probably will have pain after undergoing surgery, and massage can help with your pain. Massage can also help with anxiety or stress you may be experiencing post-surgery.

When you become pregnant, your center of gravity begins to shift as your belly grows bigger. This and the growing uterus put a lot of stress on the joints and ligaments around your pelvis and uterus, often causing pain in the low back. Massage therapists can access the pain in the low back and around the hips to relieve tension in and around the ligaments and low back.

This is an auto-immune disorder in which your joints are chronically inflamed and painful. It doesn’t always attack all of your joints however; the most common are the joints in the hands and feet. Massage can help reduce the pain and stiffness around the joints where the inflammation is occurring.

The rotator cuff is a group of muscles that surround the shoulder joint to keep the head of the shoulder in place in the socket. A couple of different injuries you can experience in the rotator cuff are an impingement, a tear, or tendinitis. Usually you experience a dull ache in your shoulder that worsens when you try and do activities with your shoulder. Overuse is a very common cause of all of these injuries. If you have a job or play a sport that includes having your arm overhead a lot, you are at risk for a rotator cuff injury.

After you experience an injury, your body heals and in the process, leaves behind scar tissue. Scar tissue replaces the skin that was there with new tissue. It looks different because of the way it is compiled. You can picture normal skin as a stack of neatly piled logs. Scar tissue is like a scattered stack of logs. The fibers are running all over and not in neat lines, and that is why it looks different than normal skin. Massage therapists can work directly on top of your scar tissue and help to realign the fibers so they are running more parallel. This will reduce the amount of hardened scar tissue. The sooner you see a massage therapist after an injury, the better

This refers to the pain people feel that radiates along the path of the sciatic nerve. You may feel pain radiate from your buttocks, and down your leg. Typically, only one leg is affected from sciatic pain. The reason for the pain could be a couple of different factors. One is that you may have a bone spur or bulging disc in your low back that is putting pressure on the nerve. You also have a muscle in your buttocks that the sciatic nerve runs right underneath and in some people even pierces. This muscle is called the piriformis. When the piriformis becomes tight, it also can put pressure on the nerve and cause pain. Our Massage Therapists can release the piriformis and the muscles surrounding it to relieve sciatica pain.

A scoliosis is when you have an abnormal curvature in your back, curving to the left or right. A scoliosis will generally occur during a growth spurt just before puberty. The cause of these curvatures is unknown. Most cases are mild but there are severe cases that can be disabling. Massage can help to reduce the tension in the muscles near the spine. Muscles tighten because of the scoliosis, and massage can reduce the pain in your back.

A shin splint is when you experience pain along your shin bone, or your tibia. Most often, a shin splint will occur when you increase your activity significantly. When you increase your activity, your muscles, bones and tendons become overworked causing pain along the tibia. Massage therapists can help to relieve and release the muscles around the tibia, reducing the pain in the lower leg.

Shoulder pain is referring to any pain around the shoulder joint. Pain can occur for a number of different reasons (refer to rotator cuff injury). Shoulder pain can occur from a muscle issue, or the pain could be coming from inside the joint itself. Pain usually worsens when the shoulder is used. While there are a number of different causes, massage helps to relieve and release the muscles around the shoulder joint.

A spinal herniation is when the soft center of the spinal disk pushes through a crack on the outer surface of the disk. Pain occurs if the herniation pushes onto a nerve. Most of the time, a massage therapist will help to alleviate the symptoms of the herniated disc by increasing blood flow to the area, and loosening tight muscles around the herniated disc, helping to relieve the pain surrounding the area.

Most everyone experiences some sort of stomach pain at some point in their life. It can vary from being dull or sharp, long in duration or short. Again, there are multiple reasons why you may be experiencing stomach pain. Stomach massage can help alleviate stomach pain and issues, such as gas and bloating. Stomach massage can also help to strengthen the abdominal muscles. Stomach massage increases blood flow to the abdomen, helping to alleviate stress and tension. This also helps to stimulate internal organs.

A sprain is stretching or tearing of a ligament, and a strain is stretching or tearing of a tendon or muscle. A ligament connects bone to bone and tendon connects muscle to bone. A massage therapist can use a technique called cross fiber friction to help repair a tear in a ligament or tendon. After a massage tendon, pain will be lessened and you may be able to move better.

Tendonitis is inflammation of a tendon. It causes pain and tenderness, making it hard to move the affected joint. Massage helps to decrease inflammation and swelling, increases blood flow to the area (which speeds up the healing process) and averts the production of adhesions in the affected tendon.

TMJ Syndrome is when the temporomandibular joint (connects the jawbone to the skull) is working improperly. When the joint isn’t working properly, it causes pain and sometimes ‘locked jaw’. You can get TMJ syndrome from clenching your jaw, or chewing a lot of gum, repetitive motions. Massage helps to loosen the muscles around the TMJ and that helps to let the joint move properly.

Whiplash is a neck injury that happens when a person’s neck is forced into a quick back and forth motion, much like a whip. Many times, whiplash can happen when you get rear ended in a car. You can also get the injury from other causes. Whiplash causes neck pain, stiffness and headaches. Massage will help to release the tight muscles and release the tension, relieving the pain and headaches.