Massage For Your Health

By Julie Kennedy, CMT

When people think of Complementary and Alternative Health care, they usually think of acupuncture and chiropractic. Acupuncture and chiropractic are becoming more mainstream, as evidenced by their coverage in many insurance plans. Like these fields, massage therapy is an excellent complement to most health problems people face and insurance companies are starting to notice.

Massage works synergistically with chiropractic care because relaxing the muscles in your problem area helps your body hold your adjustments longer. In other words, a massage therapist's work helps the chiropractor's work be more effective.

Many chiropractic offices offer massage and those that do not usually have a relationship with local therapists so they can refer clients. It works the other way too, often clients come looking for a massage but what they really need is a massage and a chiropractic adjustment.

Massage also helps your physical therapist's work be more effective. Patients who have had knee or other joint replacement benefit greatly from massage. Some patients have to adjust the way they move because they have been compensating for the problem joint for so long and their muscles are not used to working with a functional joint. Other patients benefit from massage because they are working hard with their physical therapist to gain strength and relaxing the muscles they are exercising helps get them back into working order sooner.

One of the best-known benefits of massage is how it helps with pain relief. This benefit is closely tied with acupuncture. There is a cross-over discipline known as acupressure where a massage therapist puts pressure on the meridian points in the same places where an acupuncturist would place their needles. Hopefully a client in pain finds a practitioner whose work helps relieve the pain.

Everyone in health care has one overarching goal to help those who seek them get, stay, and feel healthy. Massage is a great tool to help you on your journey to better health. Maintenance massage, which most therapists agree is monthly, along with other maintenance care, can help keep you in that better state.