Pain Relief Therapy in Chester Country, PA
St. John Neuromuscular Therapy for Pain Relief
St. John Neuromuscular Therapy is a form of structural massage that addresses the postural causes of your pain. A thorough postural analysis is performed to determine what areas of your body are contributing to your discomfort. Trigger point massage, myofascial release, and stretching are utilized to bring postural balance and alleviate pain.
Neuromuscular Massage Therapy – Postural Massage Therapy
St. John Neuromuscular Therapy uses trigger point therapy and neuromuscular massage to lengthen chronically short muscle groups to remove pain and restore proper posture.
Trigger points - felt as tight painful knots in the muscle - are known to shorten muscles and to send pain impulses to both local and distant areas. When it sends pain to distant areas it is known as referred pain. Many common pain conditions are caused by trigger points including headaches, sciatica, low back pain, shoulder pain and neck pain. Both trigger points and postural imbalances cause pain by creating abnormal pulling and tension on adjacent and distant muscle groups. By removing the trigger points and lengthening the shortened muscles, your pain can be relieved and eliminated.
St. John Neuromuscular Massage Therapy was developed by Paul St. John and relies upon the foundational work of Dr. Janet Travell and Dr. David Simons who co-wrote Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction: The Trigger Point Manual. Dr. Janet Travell was the first female physician in the White House, serving during the Kennedy and Johnson era. She was appointed her position because of the pain relief she provided John F. Kennedy in 1955 when he suffered from chronic back pain. Dr. Janet Travell devoted her life to the research and treatment of pain relief and trigger points, publishing the definitive manual on trigger points at the age of 82, after 40 years of experience and research.
I draw on the expertise of Dr. Janet Travell and subsequent myofascial and trigger point experts when treating you for your chronic pain conditions. St John Neuromuscular Therapy is particularly successful for treating back pain, low back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain, sciatica, radiculopathy from pinched nerves, plantar fascitis, and headaches.
What is a Neuromuscular Massage Therapy session like?
In a St. John Neuromuscular massage therapy session, I will thoroughly assess your posture to determine the postural contributions to your pain. I will test your range of motion and flexibility to see where muscles are short and tight and where muscles are weak and overstretched. I may watch how you use your body to walk, sit and stand. I may assess how you perform repetitive job tasks and common movements.
Then, using neuromuscular massage therapy and trigger point techniques I will work to shorten the over-stretched muscles and release tension from elongated muscles and areas of pain. When trigger points are found, I will apply specialized trigger point release techniques unique to St. John Neuromuscular massage therapy. These techniques release trigger points that are shortening your muscles and causing pain. By realigning the posture, St. John Neuromuscular therapy eliminates the postural stressors that are causing your pain. St. John Neuromuscular massage therapy is unique in that it provides permanent pain relief solutions because it addresses the cause of pain.
Ready for a pain relief session? Contact me for your first appointment to see how St. John Neuromuscular Massage Therapy or other Structural Balancing Massage Therapy techniques can help you. Experience pain free living today!
Learn more about Trigger Points
A trigger point is a contracted area within a band of muscle that is painful when touched or refers pain to a distant area when stimulated. Muscles that are chronically contracted due to overuse or poor posture become starved of oxygen and blood flow resulting in the development of trigger points. Waste products that are not flushed out of the tissue accumulate. These stored toxins further irritate trigger points which then send out pain signals to areas near the trigger point.
Trigger points are the primary cause of pain in 75% of patients presenting with pain according to Travell and Simons, authors of Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction: The Trigger Point Manual. Therefore it is a mistake to only massage ‘where it hurts’ without examining the potential trigger points that may be contributing to the pain.
Many headaches are caused by trigger points in the neck and upper back. Sciatica symptoms are often due to referred pain from shortened gluteal (buttock) and hip muscles. Sciatica and low back pain often occur when people have a ‘short leg’ from pelvic assymetry. True leg length discrepancy is uncommon and is usually due to an unlevel pelvis caused by muscular imbalances. Even functional disturbances can have trigger points at their root.
An example of a functional disturbance would be vertigo or dizziness. It can be caused by trigger points in the neck when they refer into the ear. (see picture). Our balance center is located deep within the ear. Tension around the ear can interfere with our sense of balance and cause dizziness or vertigo. Areas of tension and pain receive less blood flow and can interfere with surrounding organs like the ears, eyes or brain. Often migraine headaches* are caused by trigger points in the neck and upper back.
Trigger points can be released through specific massage therapy techniques using correct pressure and timing. Shortened muscles from chronic trigger points can then be lengthened through resisted stretching techniques. Overstretched and weak muscles are prone to develop trigger points and must be treated with different massage therapy techniques. As a trained St. John Neuromuscular Therapist I am able to assess the muscle imbalances and apply the appropriate massage therapy treatment for maximum pain relief in less time.
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