Massage and Bodywork
- Thread starter Bernhard
- Start date
I've just completed five sessions of deep tissue massage (including as part of the session, a truncated Indian Head Massage), at my local Ayurveda centre, primarily to heal neo-natal trauma. Whilst it is too early to comment on the success of the massages, another set of five sessions is planned. After the end of the fifth session I felt fine. The only side effect – continual since after the first session (which was quite painful on the calves) is edema, particularly in the feet and legs, although I think it is everywhere that has been massaged. The feet are much better now, with the main water retention in the legs, although it appears less this week.
Edema is an excessive accumulation of fluid in spaces between cells, in a mild form is called water retention. It is developed to provide protection of recovering neural tissues.
Louise Hay, in You Can Heal Your Life, suggests, ‘What or who won’t you let go of?’ For Holding fluids, ‘What are you afraid of losing?’ And, for Swelling, ‘Being stuck in thinking, clogged, painful ideas.’
Lise Bourbeau suggests that it is a desire to protect emotionally; may occur once resolution of conflict has been experienced, followed by a conflict between head an heart (which I think may be the case here); holding back due to lack of confidence in your talent and ability (also true); a swollen leg may indicate hesitation in moving forward toward a goal after having found a solution – to let go and take more risks in the direction your heart wants to go. This latter is confirmed by Christian Fleche in The Biogenealogy Sourcebook, knee, admittedly (all joints were painful to start with), as an indication of movement in a direction don't want to go but you go anyway, and lower limbs, reflecting conflicts of nonactivity and nonengagement, with knees relating to flexibility and ankles relating to adaptability.
All seems sensible to me.
Edema is an excessive accumulation of fluid in spaces between cells, in a mild form is called water retention. It is developed to provide protection of recovering neural tissues.
Louise Hay, in You Can Heal Your Life, suggests, ‘What or who won’t you let go of?’ For Holding fluids, ‘What are you afraid of losing?’ And, for Swelling, ‘Being stuck in thinking, clogged, painful ideas.’
Lise Bourbeau suggests that it is a desire to protect emotionally; may occur once resolution of conflict has been experienced, followed by a conflict between head an heart (which I think may be the case here); holding back due to lack of confidence in your talent and ability (also true); a swollen leg may indicate hesitation in moving forward toward a goal after having found a solution – to let go and take more risks in the direction your heart wants to go. This latter is confirmed by Christian Fleche in The Biogenealogy Sourcebook, knee, admittedly (all joints were painful to start with), as an indication of movement in a direction don't want to go but you go anyway, and lower limbs, reflecting conflicts of nonactivity and nonengagement, with knees relating to flexibility and ankles relating to adaptability.
All seems sensible to me.
theos
The Living Force
Prodigal Son said:
It could be that the edema is just a natural side effect of the massage as it is known to release toxins and accumulated fluids, or so I've read and have been told. After my first professional massage I was told to increase water intake to help flush out whatever the massage released from the muscles. fwiw
_http://www.treatmentmassage.com/understanding-your-body/toxin-release.html
I plan on getting rolfed sometime soon. It should be interesting.
Odyssey said:
That was my take too, that it was a natural side effect of massage. I'll take on the extra water and see what happens. It appears that the edema is reducing as the weeks go by. Certainly the pain associated with the weekly massages has practically disappeared.
As the weeks go by, I'm anticipating that this deep tissue massage could get interesting too. :)
Spiral Out said:
Cheers :). I had my first session on monday, and it went on for just over 2 hours, loved it! I already feel lighter with more 'space' in my body after only one session.
I also had colours and images frequently appear in my mind's eye during the session, and towards the end and for hours after I had a bad runny nose and lots of phlegm, as I've seen reported here. Very interesting so far :)
theos
The Living Force
Prodigal Son said:
By the way, Prodigal, are you still taking the cold baths? One thing I noticed when I was taking them is that they would really get excess water off of me. (I can't bear even the idea of taking one now.) It could just be a coincidence though. Just a thought.
I was planning to start body work again. Are there any guidelines on which one choose deep tissue or Rolfing or others ?.
I had more than 15 rolfing sessions year and half back. I should say I was scared to even to go the sessions. In some areas on the body, I didn't even allowed the rolfer to touch properly. It did made me become more sensitive but in positive or negative , I am not sure as too many things were going on at that time.
I had more than 15 rolfing sessions year and half back. I should say I was scared to even to go the sessions. In some areas on the body, I didn't even allowed the rolfer to touch properly. It did made me become more sensitive but in positive or negative , I am not sure as too many things were going on at that time.
As it happens I'm not, after falling off my bike a while back I couldn't put any weight on my left arm, so I would not have been able to get out of the bath. Only now am I able to put some weight on it - thanks to the deep tissue massage.Odyssey said:
Curiously, the emphasis seems to towards 'heat' - the Ayurveda centric propose this, and the session ends with a short sauna session - to get the spices used in the hot oils (used in the massage) to infuse into the body. Looking for ways to reduce edema, the suggestion is to use FIR sauna to get rid of the toxin build up, and the recommendation from the Ayurveda centre is to use hot salt water baths for my feet and, also, to keep the feet elevated above my heart. Not certain which is most appropriate - overnight through sleeping with my feet elevated drains the excess water off by about 95%, but by the end of breakfast it's starting to return. I've also ordered some Comfry, as I understand that could help too.
Prodigal Son said:
I used to have a terrible situation with swollen legs. The FIR sauna and diet changes really worked for that. It took about ten days of 90 minutes in the sauna at moderate heat. I think that taking NAC helped it too. Haven't had any swelling now for four years.
RGG
Jedi Master
I'd like to share a story of mine that this thread has shed some light on:
2 years ago I was visiting my sister in china and she gave me a voucher that she had for a 1 hour foot massage and 1 hour body massage from a local massage house that she couldn't use because she was 9 months pregnant. I put my kids to sleep and headed out around 10 pm to cash them in intending to do it all at once since my visit to China would be too busy for multiple appointments. I've always been hesitant of foot massage and foot reflexology because I have very sensitive painful feet from 15 years of competitive dance, inherited bunions and 2 bouts of plantar fasciitis during my pregnancies but thought i should try it at least once. The one hour foot massage was pure luxury and like Laura mentioned, the man massaging my feet was really caring in the way he approached the massaging which made all the difference I think. It was intimate and personal in a caring way which I had never experienced before.
When it was finished I was notified by the front desk that my sister had stopped by and was too tired to continue checking on my children sleeping in the apartment next to hers so I had to cancel the full body massage and go home. I was quite disappointed because being a mom, I knew these kind of opportunities are rare and it was unlikely that I would ever get to that full body massage.
About an hour after i was home and lying in bed to go to sleep I became really nauseous. I couldn't think of anything that I'd eaten that day that could have been a problem and no one else had been sick around me but i was a foreigner in China so who knows. It became worse and worse until I had to run to the toilet to be ill but what came out was not at all what I expected. It seemed like I was vomiting pure negative energy! Nothing exactly landed in that toilet but i still felt it coming out of me in 4 terrible heaves. This was not like being very ill and retching even though there is nothing left in your stomach. I felt something like heavy air come out and some other sense of mine "knew" it was a dark kind of energy that was spewing out of me. After that, I felt perfectly fine and eventually went to sleep. I was also thankful that the full body massage was unexpectedly cancelled- If that was what was released from just my feet what would have come out of an entire body?!!!
I've always wondered about what had happened then and suspected that somehow there had been a kind of healing. Now that I'm reading this thread, I think that some negative emotion or pain that was locked inside my feet was released and literally ejected out of my system.
Great thread! Thank you for posting this Spiral Out -it has allowed me to connect a small personal dot which makes this a VERY productive day all in all :)
2 years ago I was visiting my sister in china and she gave me a voucher that she had for a 1 hour foot massage and 1 hour body massage from a local massage house that she couldn't use because she was 9 months pregnant. I put my kids to sleep and headed out around 10 pm to cash them in intending to do it all at once since my visit to China would be too busy for multiple appointments. I've always been hesitant of foot massage and foot reflexology because I have very sensitive painful feet from 15 years of competitive dance, inherited bunions and 2 bouts of plantar fasciitis during my pregnancies but thought i should try it at least once. The one hour foot massage was pure luxury and like Laura mentioned, the man massaging my feet was really caring in the way he approached the massaging which made all the difference I think. It was intimate and personal in a caring way which I had never experienced before.
When it was finished I was notified by the front desk that my sister had stopped by and was too tired to continue checking on my children sleeping in the apartment next to hers so I had to cancel the full body massage and go home. I was quite disappointed because being a mom, I knew these kind of opportunities are rare and it was unlikely that I would ever get to that full body massage.
About an hour after i was home and lying in bed to go to sleep I became really nauseous. I couldn't think of anything that I'd eaten that day that could have been a problem and no one else had been sick around me but i was a foreigner in China so who knows. It became worse and worse until I had to run to the toilet to be ill but what came out was not at all what I expected. It seemed like I was vomiting pure negative energy! Nothing exactly landed in that toilet but i still felt it coming out of me in 4 terrible heaves. This was not like being very ill and retching even though there is nothing left in your stomach. I felt something like heavy air come out and some other sense of mine "knew" it was a dark kind of energy that was spewing out of me. After that, I felt perfectly fine and eventually went to sleep. I was also thankful that the full body massage was unexpectedly cancelled- If that was what was released from just my feet what would have come out of an entire body?!!!
I've always wondered about what had happened then and suspected that somehow there had been a kind of healing. Now that I'm reading this thread, I think that some negative emotion or pain that was locked inside my feet was released and literally ejected out of my system.
Great thread! Thank you for posting this Spiral Out -it has allowed me to connect a small personal dot which makes this a VERY productive day all in all :)
truth seeker
The Living Force
This is just for what it's worth but my current thoughts are basically if anyone is super sensitive to being touched in general but due to past abuse issues of any kind specifically, they may want to go to a practitioner with a lighter touch. In some cases, one that barely utilizes physical touch may be beneficial at least at first such as a craniosacral therapist. I think it lessens the chance of triggering that way and is a more relaxing and thus beneficial experience all around. My thoughts - others may feel differently.seek10 said:
Bernhard
Jedi Master
truth seeker said:
I agree with truth seeker, you may want to start with a modality that is lighter and give your body time to get used to therapeutic touch again. CranioSacral is basically on the opposite end of the spectrum compared to Rolfing, but can be just as effective. Well, in fact, my Rolfer combined traditional Rolfing with CranioSacral Therapy, adjusting the intensity as we went along in the sessions.
In general I don't recommend Rolfing to anyone without prior bodywork experience. It can be like wanting to drive a Ferrari without having ever driven a car, if that analogy makes sense. In other words, it's important to learn how to receive and get your body used to deeper touch, so getting basic Swedish/deep tissue massages can also be helpful in "preparation" before going to Rolfing. That way your body learns to be more open and trusting for deeper work and you develop a different relationship to pain so your muscles don't contract and you hold on unconsciously.
I've found in my own practice that some clients can't differentiate between "discomfort" and "pain". A little discomfort is good to work through the tension (especially with the help of the breath) without rejecting it as "pain" right away. I make a distinction here between acute "pain" (which is a signal of your body because of physical damage to the tissue) and "discomfort" (no physical damage to the tissue, but just the sensation of working through contracted muscle spasms/connective tissue that has become hardened). So understanding the difference between the two is very important. It requires body-awareness so we can differentiate between the two and develop the right sensitivity (not overly sensitive so we experience every "discomfort" as "pain" and and not too numb, so we can't even tell when it's "too much" and actually do damage to our body).
Considering that you have received Rolfing before and it didn't really work for you it may also be an issue of the Rolfer him/herself, so maybe looking for a different therapist may help as well. Not every Rolfer is good at what they do, just like with any profession. Especially when it comes to bodywork, it's not just about the techniques, but also the touch and sensitivity of the therapist, being able to tune into the client's body and what it needs.
I went through the Rolfing series twice in a span of 6 years, while receiving regular deep bodywork on a consistent basis over the years (once or twice a month). When I did the Rolfing series the second time around I was better at receiving it since my body has become accustomed to therapeutic touch and I was able to work through the discomfort more consciously, utilizing my breath, which helped my body to let go of any holding patterns. I also developed a better relationship to pain, being able to breath through it more effectively and my body wouldn't tense up automatically.
I agree that Rolfing is for the person who has gone through a lot of body work prior.
Another type of massage that is very good for those who are particularly sensitive is lymphatic drainage techniques.
Very interesting, Rx, about your foot massage experience. That's one of the first things I did after my last surgery, find a reflexologist and make an appointment. Sitting in her recliner while she worked on my feet was the first time I had been able to fully relax and sleep after all the pain I had been dealing with. And getting relaxed can be the first step to recovery. It was a lifesaver.
Another type of massage that is very good for those who are particularly sensitive is lymphatic drainage techniques.
Very interesting, Rx, about your foot massage experience. That's one of the first things I did after my last surgery, find a reflexologist and make an appointment. Sitting in her recliner while she worked on my feet was the first time I had been able to fully relax and sleep after all the pain I had been dealing with. And getting relaxed can be the first step to recovery. It was a lifesaver.
Today I had a forth rolfing session. It was great! My rolfer worked on my whole body. It was very painful when she worked on my knees which I felt it was like she was pricking there with a small needle. She also worked on my toe that I hurt really bad, falling from stairs on the New Year.
My body felt very warm while she was working on my body. I mentioned her about eating nutritious soup every day. - She asked me like “Is it bone broth?” And I was like “yes!” – Then we started talking about different diets. She was very interested when I told her about Paleo diet and Ketogenic diet, and the fact that I was eliminating most of vegetables as an experiment to be healthy. She also asked me if I was still having painful period, and I told her it’s been much less painful after start eating bone broth.
After the session when I stood up, I felt very dizzy for a while, but after I felt my weight on the ground, firm and steady – I felt more support standing up with good balance on my two feet.
I was very happy for some reason while she was working on my body. I was very relaxed and calm. When the session was done, I sat on a chair ... and started crying. oh god...tears came out and it didn’t stop! My rolfer was perplexed but I explained to her my situation – about moving from Japan after the earthquake/nuclear accident and so forth. Actually, I felt so happy that thinking about my home made me want to cry –not because I was sad. I guess I was crying for others who are suffering consciously or unconsciously, as the situation is so devastating.
My rolfer said to me, "thank you for telling me all these things." - she looked emotional, too. I had a release and it was a very good session. :)
My body felt very warm while she was working on my body. I mentioned her about eating nutritious soup every day. - She asked me like “Is it bone broth?” And I was like “yes!” – Then we started talking about different diets. She was very interested when I told her about Paleo diet and Ketogenic diet, and the fact that I was eliminating most of vegetables as an experiment to be healthy. She also asked me if I was still having painful period, and I told her it’s been much less painful after start eating bone broth.
After the session when I stood up, I felt very dizzy for a while, but after I felt my weight on the ground, firm and steady – I felt more support standing up with good balance on my two feet.
I was very happy for some reason while she was working on my body. I was very relaxed and calm. When the session was done, I sat on a chair ... and started crying. oh god...tears came out and it didn’t stop! My rolfer was perplexed but I explained to her my situation – about moving from Japan after the earthquake/nuclear accident and so forth. Actually, I felt so happy that thinking about my home made me want to cry –not because I was sad. I guess I was crying for others who are suffering consciously or unconsciously, as the situation is so devastating.
My rolfer said to me, "thank you for telling me all these things." - she looked emotional, too. I had a release and it was a very good session. :)