What are the benefits of seeing a massage therapist or remedial therapist for pain management?

Quite often chronic pain clients present with diffuse, all-over pain which is unresponsive to medical interventions. The Descending Modulating System, that part of the nervous system which acts to keep the nerves chugging along in standby mode, becomes dysregulated and instead of dampening down non noxious signals from the environment, will instead revthem up leading to a hypervigilant state where all sensory input is regarded as pain.

Massage is the ideal tool to gently pacify this hypervigilant state. The benefits to the client are they can receive non-threatening stimulation, eg, touch to all of their sensory surfaces which calms the nervous system. A massage therapist, remedial massage therapist or myotherapist who can adjust their pressure to the client so that the nervous system can switch off its hypervigilance will find over time that the client will improve their touch tolerance, have improved sleep and decreased pain, all by calming the descending modulating system.

Myotherapy can be of benefit to chronic pain clients as quite often, chronic pain patterns are mimicking myofascial trigger point pain patterns and have been left undiagnosed and untreated. A skilled myotherapist will be able to discern the different types of pain a client is presenting with. Being able to know the difference between neuropathic pain, radicular pain, nociceptive pain and myofascial pain allows for a more targeted treatment to the real source of the pain Confusing these different types of pain can lead the chronic pain client into a cycle of ever-increasing pain with no end in sight, effectively tipping them over into central sensitisation.