So what happens now…
Sometimes a treatment can be a bit of a new experience and you can sometimes be left feeling like your body is doing some weird stuff. So let’s run you through what you can expect after a first session.
Adaption
Your body has been treated. Thing have been pushed and prodded and we’ve changed some basic alignments and tensions within soft tissue strutures. The body has to adapt to this - and it won’t like it. When you have been in a compromised position for some time, the body becomes used to that alignment and can even make it quite strong. Changing this means that certain structures and other supporting muscles have to change and adapt as well. New tensions need to be recalibrated if you like and this can lead to you feeling sensations or feeling slightly odd in other areas. This is normal and part of the process of realigning and finding a better solution.
Instability
With any release work and changing of established patterns there comes a little bit of instability As stated, your body is strong in a certain position and it likes it that way. Changing that up means that you have to adapt and shift the tension in other muscles and maybe even get some other structures to become stronger. That’s where the exercises come into play. To get you out of pain, we have to turn some things off but turn others on… so activation is often quite important for reducing pain and taking the load off overactive muscles or tendons.
Soreness
With some of the deep work of massage may come some residual soreness. You may feel like you’ve done a round or two in a boxing ring or that you’ve been ‘worked’ and can feel the soreness. This is a normal part of the healing process. Massage can ‘stir things up’ in order to get rid of certain tensions that need to be changed. Getting a structure to change means you have to tease it out a little and this can result in increased blood flow to an area and also a removal of wastage product from certain tensions. Like a plumbing system, you have to flush the pipes sometimes to get rid of the build up. So if you are feeling a little sore the next day, this is normal (and often a good sign). This should last only 24 hrs and a little bit of gentle movement is often the best remedy to increase that flushing effect of fluids and blood and get that soreness moving out of the system.
Change of Symptom
A single treatment is often not the miracle cure (sadly). But what we are looking for is a change in the location or the severity of the symptom. If we get rid of one pain, often we can start to feel a different pain in a different location. This again is a GOOD SIGN that we are getting a change in points of irritation. A change of location of pain is great as it shows an ‘unwinding’ of the pain. I say unwinding as it’s like a series of knots in a thread of cotton. You get rid of one and then you can move onto the next one. Similarly a change in the degree of pain can be felt. A broad strip of pain can be what you present with and you may still be left with that pain post treatment but it may be more finite or smaller. This again, is a GOOD SIGN that we are moving to a more specific presentation of pain and defining where the issue is rather than it presenting in a large broad band of tissue. This is actually a goal of treatment.
Increased Movement
Aside from getting increased range of motion through muscles you may also experience some increased ‘movement’ in your system. I’m talking digestion, defection and fluid. Increased urinary output, and increased digestive activity can be normal after certain treatments and these are really good signs of getting some movement of fluid and waste products through the digestive tract. A ‘flushing’ effect can be a result of treatment and this may occur over 24-48hrs.
