What should I expect from a massage therapy treatment?

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It’s best to allow 10 minutes before your first appointment to allow time to find the clinic, fill out a health history form and to talk to your therapist about what issues you are having and your individual needs and goals. Your therapist will assess your body’s condition and then leave the room while you get onto the table. You may be asked to lie prone (face down), supine (face-up), or sidelying under a sheet and towel on the massage table and to remove your clothing (except underpants), if comfortable, to allow the therapist better access to the areas to be treated. Your comfort and privacy will be respected at all times and only the area of the body that is being treated will be uncovered. The therapist will sometimes ask you to move from one position to another, or allow your body to be soft, heavy and limp as they move it, and other times they will ask for your assistance with moving specific parts of your body.

 

After your massage, a treatment plan will be discussed which could include a home exercises, a series of appointments and then a reassessment if symptoms are not yet resolved. You will be offered a glass of water. It is recommended to drink plenty of water before and after massage, to keep your tissues hydrated and flush out toxins released by the massage. An epsom salt bath is a great way to follow up a massage, to soothe and detoxify muscles. After a therapeutic massage, use of ice or heat may be recommended to aid in the natural healing process of the body. Over the next three days there may be some tenderness which improves every day, and generally there is less pain and more range of motion than there was before the massage. Quite frequently the initial treatment will resolve one pain and cause another one to emerge. This occurs because the body has been compensating to accommodate pain or dysfunction. It is usually recommended to have a series of 3 massage treatments to reveal all body compensations and to systematically locate and treat all symptoms.

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Do you use a pregnancy massage table?

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While they may be popular, especially for expectant women who are normally stomach sleepers, pregnancy massage tables using a hole to allow them to lie on their stomach, are not used since they may cause excessive pressure within the uterus (which is not good for the baby), excessive compression of the posterior compartment structures and may put already strained uterine ligaments at a harmful stretch. Rather than take any unnecessary risks, a specially designed set of pillows are used to support the prenatal woman.