Clients and chronic pain. Or more specifically, you and chronic pain.
or as an AI Chatbot would want me to say: You Don't Have to Live with Pain: How to Unlock Your Body's Healing Potential. Meh.
Before I start, I would like to add a small caveat. In the blog that follows I am talking about people who have gotten so used to having chronic pain, that they are convinced it is permanent pain. Unmanagable and untreatable even if they haven't had the work put in to improve their bodies or get full and proper treatment.
There are some of you out there who live with chronic pain for which release is a sweet dream, and this blog is less for you than the athlete with a dodgy Achilles, or the DIYer who fell off a ladder broke their clavicle and has been living with the pain ever since. Just remember, that even for you there are management options and techniques that are proven to work.
Clients often arrive for a massage looking for some temporary, not long-term relief or even just tell me to ignore X, as X has always been a problem and there is nothing that can be done. I see clients deeply convinced that this is their lot, that hip pain is sciatica, and that the neck pain is permanent. Working with these clients can be like banging your head against a brick wall unless I can convince them to return a few times, and then they start to realise that something is happening. Something is releasing and they are in less pain and have more mobility than before.
There is no way I can get you to see what I see when I work on your tissues. That your body is a remarkable structure capable of self-healing to an extent you don't seem to be aware of as long as whatever is blocking that healing is removed. Soft tissue can be incredibly cool or darned right troublesome depending upon its state. When everything is working fine, you almost never notice but the moment something goes wrong.....
Take muscles for example. Just a slight knock or pull in the wrong direction and suddenly they can lock up, become weak, overstretch, overtighten, adhere to neighbouring tissue, and start yanking bones in the wrong direction making it feel like your entire body is lopsided.
If you are in chronic pain or dysfunction it is worth remembering that your muscles in their natural state quite happily pull, stretch and slide and keep your body mobile without you having to worry about it. If you can remember that when you awake at 2 a.m. in the morning it's worth remembering that your body can be like that again and THAT is critical to your recovery as without that belief you won't come and see people like me who can treat and train you to not be in pain again.
Comments