Relax & Heal With Gary

Massage and Bodywork as therapy

Let me tell you straight up that not all LMT’s do therapeutic or medical bodywork. While all massage has a therapeutic value, not all massage is medical therapy.

First of all Bodywork is a term for massage Therapy more commonly used by those in my profession. It tends to approach illness or injury to the body more like a mechanic. I can already hear my peers cringing at this definition. But bodywork is more along the lines of restorative work, helping the body to rebalance itself and heal as opposed to the soothing and more relaxing oriented work commonly referred to as spa massage. Read the rest of this entry »

In previous articles I have described the various types of massage, the difference between therapeutic massage and relaxation and how to find a LMT. But I still hear the question how does massage help “my” condition. So I will start generally with this article and go on to other illnesses and injuries with future articles.

Read the rest of this entry »

So many times someone starts talking about stress and it gets so complicated. Stress is really simple “old math” (no to be mistaken with what they teach now as “new math”). Now here is the obligatory description of stress. “The body over riding desire to choke the stuff out of some idiot that is making your life miserable” But how does simple math come into that saying?

It is a simple rule of math that so long as you keep adding to your number it will get larger. As it is in the complicated world of math so it is with stress. As long as you keep adding to your stress you’re going to get more stress. But here is where it gets a little complicated. People think that when you stop adding to the stress that it automatically begins to go down. NOT TRUE.

Enter (key dramatic music) the pressure cooker. That is where you have already stopped the increase of stress but now you have put a tight lid on the boiling pot of your stress. True, you’re not getting any “more” stress. But that lid is putting a whole new quality to the stress you have. Lord help the silly person who happens to be nearby when this lid blows.

Here is where the subtraction comes in. 1. Subtract the heat. The heat is your expectations of forcing an outcome (ie: the illusion of control). Do your best and let it go. You actually have as much control over it as you do the nuclear roulette being played out in the Middle East. 2. Take away some stress with a breath. No matter how busy you are. Sitting back in your chair for 5 seconds and taking a deep breath “breaks the cycle of addition” (pun intended). 3. Subtract stress by adding a massage. Most of us (me included) get so ramped up in what we are doing that we forget that calming ourselves down is a part of that cycle. We forget what it is like to be relaxed, and just “not doing anything” IS NOT relaxing (verb, not adjective). Getting a massage reminds us that “normal” is not 2 degree’s from stroking out! Regular massage can bring down the stored stress level in our bodies and help you to remember to “feel” alive again.

So, stand up straight, take a deep breath, another glass of water and get a massage. So you can add relaxation to your life.

When is a LMT NOT an LMT? When they are a prostitute of course! While I am personally rather opinionated about things (I know that will surprise you) I do not bring that to the table nor anywhere near my clients and patients. However, a recent “episode” of The View and the ridiculously ignorant, sensationalistic and blatantly stereotypical comments made by the hosts and guests has just sent my blood pressure through the roof!! I find it necessary to clear the air!

I, and every LMT I know work very hard to bring help to our clients. Anyone with any education in massage therapy has been taught that sex is not within our scope of practice and highly unprofessional. We hold ourselves to a noble example and do not cross “that” line. There are from time to time cases that pop up in the media of masseuses that cross that line. They are the exception and not the rule! You can find them on Craigslist, and even in your local yellow pages under massage. Responsible LMT’s do what they can to influence media not to associate the two together. But want of a quick buck and professional  laziness make our job more difficult. It is the irresponsible media and the recent showing of “The View” where they were discussing “EX- Vice President Al Gore’s” alleged attempts on a self described “masseuse” which led them into a vitriolic thinly rational defense of their own insecurities about massage therapy, therapists and being touched.

While I am not about to venture a guess as to innocence or guilt of either party. I would like to point out a couple things. First, touch is touch! It is the intent of that touch that makes the difference. Intent is personal. So if YOUR intent is to be sexual that will come out in your touch or in the way you perceive the touch. Inflicting your personal fantasies on a massage session is an indecent accusation on a professional. I personally take GREAT offense at this! Do women have that same fantasy about a gynecologist, or men their proctologist? Maybe, (though I doubt it) but they would be the exception. NOT the rule!

Second, length of a massage again has nothing to do with sex. THe  not so thinly veiled accusation was that anything over an hour is indecent. While 1 hour is the standard measure of time for a massage it is not unusual for therapists to work 2, 3 and 4 hours on a client to resolve an issue. Measuring honest therapy which is the rule with the exception of ignoble lust due to a measure of time is a sensationalist tactic of titillation. As a professional I can tell you that working with soft tissue goes at the speed with which the tissue opens up and not on your consideration of minutes and hours. If a client is only in town for a few hours or days and needs concentrated work then you do the best you can with the time allotted. Which goes the same for someone doing short term chair massage at an airport.  

Third, supposedly she was paid $540 for 3 hours. I don’t know what her hotel contract states for payment. While I don’t charge anywhere near that rate I am not going to assume guilt by value either. Nor would I accuse someone of something so unprofessional and reprehensible by the value of what they get paid.

Massage Therapy is a medical profession here in Florida, as it is in many other states with Licensing (Portland included). We LMT’s (Licensed Massage Therapists) do our best to provide professional services to our patients and clients in a comfortable and safe environment. Ignorant assumptions and insecurity based back room humor disguised as fact from the irresponsible media does harm to us all.

Relax and Heal With Gary Gammon LMT, LLCC

What does soft tissue do? No really aren’t muscles tendons, ligaments and fascia just there to help us move.  Well yes and no.

 Certainly the most obvious function of the human bodies musculature is movement. Without the musculature we would not/could not sit, stand, walk, twist, type, read, breath, swallow, run, jump or leap Wiggle, jiggle, dance, hop, eat, swallow, frown, smile or laugh. Hammer, screw, cut, drive, lift, carry, shovel, drill, drink, wave, swim,…

 That movement of muscles provides a critical pumping function for the fluid of the body i.e. blood, and lymph. While the heart and lungs are the primary pumps for the blood and lymph, they are certainly not the only ones. That would be like saying that the guy who dips out the water in a bucket line is doing the whole job. He fills a critical job but without the movement of the water by the rest of the line, the fire will probably win.

 Another aspect of the muscles, tendons, ligaments and fascia is station keeping. Kind of like the way a spiders web holds together. The individual strands of the web while strong, count on a dynamic tension of pull from different directions to hold together, and respond to stress, threats, damage or food. This translates to holding bones, organs, tissue, etc in place, moving, separating and holding together at the same time. Not only that but it holds up against gravity, and adapts to abuse, use and disease. Pretty impressive huh?

It is a Japanese proverb that says “fall down seven times,… and stand up eight.!” While this is a great description for overcoming the difficulties, trial and tribulations that life throws at us I would offer that we never truly stand up straight waiting for the next fall. Those most common “falls” that we seem to be expecting is the problem with weight loss, energy and getting enough done.

We rarely truly stand up 100%. Does that surprise you? We adopt a truly crouched posture in most of our daily tasks. The muscles of the body are dynamic, they constantly adjust to stretch, and the lack there of. Musculature can shorten and restrict. The “Front Line” (credit to Tom Myers) is a line of connecting muscles from the skull (just behind the ears) to the bottom of your tummy. If this line gets shorter, (from not standing up straight) it makes it more difficult to stand up straight. Like wearing a small 2 oz sinker hanging from your neck it will inevitably pull you down.

What in the world does standing up straight have to do with weight loss and energy? Well, mostly with the body’s involvement of breath and biomechanics. If you do not breathe fully then some muscles do not fully stretch, move fluids, exchange gasses. They eventually become tight and shortened. The body works towards a position of ease. Hunched over aint it! This posture takes “more energy” (yes more!) to maintain. So the body feels it has to store energy to meet this demand. So not only are you robbing it of the ability to generate energy by breathing fully, but also making it store more to meet the excessive demand of bad posture. It’s like a snake eating its own tail. You get locked into this pattern then consume quick energy foods to “get you through”.

So when me “and mom” tell you to stand up straight it really is a good thing!

Sooooooo, Stand up straight, take a deep breath, drink a tall glass of water and get a massage and get rid of that weight dragging you down.

You say tOmato, I say tomAto. But aren’t they the same? No! Let me state right off that there is a difference between carpal tunnel injury and carpal tunnel syndrome. That diagnosis is for a physician. Both have pain in the wrist as the most demanding symptom. But Carpal tunnel syndrome is referred pain and carpal tunnel injury is not. But you would never know the difference, hopefully your physician does.

Carpal tunnel syndrome or CTS is part of a domino effect involving the rotator cuff muscles. But in truth it involves the muscles from the backbone to the shoulder to the chest bone It also involves muscles from the hips to the head and is not limited to the injury side. It is about trigger point pain referral and not about the carpal (small bones of the hand) pathway or tunnel.

Helping this condition involves the range of motion and the dynamic tension that holds the shoulder in place. Helping CTS is like washing your hair, wet, lather, rinse, and repeat. Its not as simple as releasing one muscle. You balance the tension between 8 different muscles and then start all over. Range of motion increases gradually and then and only then can you deactivate the trigger point that caused the problem in the first place. Breath work is also important in this bodywork since the muscles involved respond to the movement (or lack thereof) of the ribs.

 Soft tissue bodywork has been shown to be very effective at relieving carpal tunnel syndrome. Since the problem is actually coming from your shoulder, surgery on the “carpal tunnel” generally doesn’t help. But bodywork after surgery still can.

 So, drink a tall glass of water, take a DEEP breath, and get a massage. It may mean the difference between 3 months off work and a regular massage.

The dark and stormy path

The curving and dangerous road of illness and injury is a path most of us go down at some point in our lives. Most of the time except the last, we manage to find our way out. My experience with most illness and injury is that it is a case of distancing yourself from the problem. The crux of the healing comes from walking back out on the path that got us here.

In my experience many illnesses such anxiety, chronic sinus infection, compressed disks, headaches are a pattern we create a virtual path that we walk. One step after another into the dark forest and obviously if we saw that it was a dark forest we would never go in there. (OF course some still will <smokers>). So it creeps up on us. We ignore the signs until it is upon us.

In the process of taking down a pattern that leads up to something like anxiety attacks you have to go back through the symptoms that you ignored on the way there. Which means that you start to feel the pains and problems you ignored prior. It really is a journey back to health. But going through all this on the way out can be scary. It is easy to think the healing journey is making you worse.

The process of walking out is an up and down pattern . You improve then it snaps back to close to where you were, but not quite. You keep going through this up and down aspect of healing, improving and learning the pattern you created in the first place. Soft tissue work in healing is not about “inflicting” changes on your body, it is about relaxing your body in particular places to so it can readjust to a pattern it likes. Your body really does all the work, I just help it relax and heal.

So, stand up straight, take a deep breath, a tall glass of water and get a massage. Experience what the road to healing feels like.

“Massage?! Who me? No way! I love being uptight, stressed out, bordering on stroking out at any second, and putting my body through the wringer on a daily basis! That’s where the excitement is.” Seriously though wouldn’t you like a nice quiet, warm, relaxing place, where you could truly and deeply relax even for just an hour? I know where you can get that, right here in St. Cloud. Yes, I know you have heard that massage is relaxing but you don’t have time for it. It costs too much, or my favorite excuse, How can I trust the therapist not to …”touch” me.
Well, It IS my profession to touch you, to work the soft tissue. It is my ethics and professionalism to work only the appropriate tissue. It is a no judgment zone. I don’t care if you are emaciated (REALLY REALLY THIN), overweight (I think everyone knows this when they see it), or somewhere in between. There are so many physiological functions of where, how, why, what (lather, rinse, repeat) going on that there really is not a lot of space for anything else.
That statement is one that strikes my funny bone more than you can imagine, but I understand the fear. It is said in a variety of different ways, by both men and women, but the feeling is the same. How can they relax when the fear of being violated is lurking. While the Massage Therapy profession and the State of Florida has put many laws into place to protect you, the client, it ultimately falls to personal professional ethics.
From a massage “therapists” point of view it is the furthest thing from my mind when you are on the table. Speaking from my own perspective, when I lay my hands on my client’s body my thoughts go to: are they hot, cold? Is it circulation or do I need to warm the room? Is the circulation in this area good? If not where is the flow blocked? What musculature is in that area? Does the tight musculature in that area correspond to what I saw in their movement when they walked in? How are they breathing? Is the entire rib cage moving, or just part of it? All that assessment and more are constantly going on. Then there is the actually body work, the constant questions and focused thought of the minute differences in tissue placement, temperature, alignment, and circulation demands 100% attention.
The first 15 minutes of a massage for the client is about determining whether the touch being applied is “safe”. My job is to take you through this time of determination while applying therapeutic work. Regular massage shortens this time due to familiarity. But it is still part of the process of relaxing.
SO stand up straight, Take a deep breath, a tall glass of water and relaxxxxxxxx. The water is fine.

Relax and Heal with Gary Gammon LMT, LLCC – Insurance

Common wisdom has often been quoted that the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t. But in the case of this new health care I think it might be a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But the jury is still out on that one. However, since we still have the current beast to deal with lets go with that.

Having dealt with health Insurance companies on the provider end I can tell you it is a royal pain. It seems as though it would be easier to pull teeth! (But only if THAT molar is covered and you have the forms filled out in triplicate, once you have called for the 6th time to get authorization, on a Tuesday under a blue moon (sarcasm intended)) They do everything they can to make it as difficult to get treatment covered. Then sometimes they contact you 6 months later and say “oops” we weren’t supposed to cover that, please send the money back. As an LMT accepting insurance I can tell you it is a sandspur under my saddle. But I rationalize it by telling myself that some people simply could not afford to get the care any other way.

In case you haven’t read the last 96 articles I have written in St. Cloud in the News. I firmly believe in the ability of massage therapy to help your body heal and grow stronger. Massage in some cases is fluffly and soothing and in my work is deep (not harder) and relieving. Comprehending what Body Balancing Massage Therapy can do for you is experiential. You can listen or read about trigger points and myofascial restrictions and lymphatic drainage. It all come to reality on the table when you feel it and you have an “AHA!” moment. You can feel the change in your body and remember what it was like before. That is why I take insurance, suffer the indignities of slings and arrows of the health insurance companies. To help you.
So stand up straight, take a deep breath, drink a tall glass of water and get a massage. If you have a RX I can help with that too!
##