Displaying items by tag: chronic pain

Chronic pain is one of the most common health problems in the US. It can be very difficult to get through the day and live your life to the fullest when you experience recurring pain. Painkillers and alternative therapies can help you circumvent your chronic pain. Those approaches fail to treat the source of your pain. Deep tissue massage is one of the best ways you can effectively treat and alleviate your chronic pain. As a leading provider of deep tissue massage in Denver, let’s discuss what you can expect from this effective treatment method.

What To Expect From A Deep Tissue Massage In Denver

A deep tissue massage is no walk in the park. Other massage therapy techniques, like Swedish massage, may use a light approach to encourage relaxation and reduce muscle tension. Deep tissue massage, however, uses deeper and more intense pressure to treat chronic muscular pain. Let’s examine the unique approach, process, and benefits of a deep tissue massage in Denver.

The Deep Tissue Massage Process

A deep tissue massage will usually start out with some light massage techniques. These lighter strokes prepare your superficial muscles for a deeper intensity. It’s basically a short warm-up period to get your muscles loose, your blood flowing, and to relax your mind.

Your massage therapist will slowly begin to increase the pressure of their strokes. As the pressure builds, your massage therapist will begin to go slower and deeper. At this point, your massage therapist is beginning to target those deeper layers of muscle with more pressure in a targeted approach.

These deeper strokes aim to manipulate your connective tissues, which are the deepest tissue layers of your muscles. The slow and deep strokes slowly wear down adhesions on your connective tissue and start to break down any scar tissue. This process aims to “strip down” your muscles to ultimately treat your chronic pain and help realign your muscles, as well. As the massage continues, the problem areas of your connective tissue will start to break down and your healing process will be spurred.

Throughout your deep tissue massage in Denver, your massage therapist will mainly use their hands to apply pressure. To appropriately treat your chronic pain, your massage therapist may use their elbows and forearms to achieve the right intensity. In more intense cases, a t-bar massage tool may be used to leverage the right amount of pressure in a more targeted manner.

What Does A Deep Tissue Massage In Denver Feel Like

Fair warning: your deep tissue massage won’t feel like any massage you’ve experienced before. Afterwards, you’ll ultimately feel far better and have less pain than before. You should prepare to feel some slight discomfort during your deep tissue massage in Denver.

The highly focused pressure of a deep tissue massage can make you experience a little bit of pain. Many patients have described this sensation as a "good pain” - basically, a pain that feels good simultaneously. You may experience that sort of pain throughout the massage, but it won’t last the entire time. That pain should be gone by the end of your session.

It’s worth noting that clear communication is very important for deep tissue massage. Throughout your session, you need to talk consistently with your massage therapist. You definitely don’t want your massage to be uncomfortable or too painful. When the massage passes your pain threshold, tell your massage therapist! They’ll adjust their technique immediately so that you still get the most out of your massage without having too much pain.

Once your deep tissue massage is over, you should expect some slight muscle stiffness or soreness. These sensations are entirely natural and should be gone within a day or two. Try to drink a lot of fluids following your massage. Those fluids can help flush out the metabolic toxins that were released during your massage. When you’re properly hydrated and free of toxins, you greatly expedite your recovery.

The Benefits of Deep Tissue Massage

There are tons of different massage therapy techniques, all of which have their own purpose and health benefits. A deep tissue massage in Denver can greatly improve your health in a number of key ways. Of course, deep tissue massage has been proven to significantly reduce chronic pain. The health benefits don’t end there. Deep tissue massage can also:

  • Improve muscle stiffness.

  • Lower high blood pressure and improve heart health.

  • Reduce stress levels.

  • Streamline recovery from sports-related injuries.

  • And more!

The healing process can take a long time. Your recurring pain may not be fully treated or alleviated within just one session of deep tissue massage in Denver. As time goes on, those pains will start to fade into memory. With occasional deep tissue massages and daily proper stretches, you’ll be on track to leading a happier and healthier life.

Book Your First Deep Tissue Massage In Denver

Do you suffer from chronic pain? Does that pain get in the way of living your life to the fullest? Are you ready to be pain-free? At Wayfare Wellness, our experienced massage therapist will use deep tissue massage to successfully alleviate your chronic pain. We are focused on improving your health and wellness to the best of our abilities.

Book your first appointment with Wayfare Wellness today and experience the best deep tissue massage in Denver.

Published in Massage

We’ve all been there. You’re waiting for the light to change and get rear-ended. A hydroplaning car careens right into the side of your vehicle. Or you’re momentarily distracted and you slam on your brakes too late. Whichever way it happens, a car accident is never a good situation. After the collision, you’ve got to deal with the headaches of insurance claims and car repairs. But, you also need to treat your personal injuries, even if it was a minor accident. One of the best treatment methods for your injuries following a car accident is massage therapy. Let’s examine how it can contribute to and improve your recovery.

The Recovery Process: How We Recover From An Accident

In the US, roughly 3 million people are injured in car accidents each year. Depending on the severity of the accident, those people may have either a short road or a long road to recovery. What does that recovery process usually look like?

In most cases, you seek out the attention of a medical professional soon after the accident. They treat your injury and set your expectations for the remainder of your healing process. In more minor cases, you might brush off the incident and go about your work week as usual. Either way, we eventually recover from our injuries and feel 100% once more. But, that doesn’t last forever.

Sooner or later, you might notice some recurring pains in your neck, back, or other muscles. You might even experience flare-ups of prior injuries. For many, it’s not always clear why these pains are occurring now.

The answer is simple: Your body undergoes muscular trauma in a car accident. Your body gets jolted, your muscles tensed up, and you were injured. When you get into a vehicular accident, your body can experience some serious muscular problems. These could include:

  • Whiplash

  • Lumbar sprains or strains

  • Cervical sprains or strains

  • Lower back pains

  • And much more!

This muscular trauma only gets worse if it’s never properly treated. Regardless of how long it’s been since your car accident, massage therapy can help address that muscular trauma and improve your recovery.

Improving Your Recovery From A Car Accident With Massage Therapy

Let’s examine just a few of the ways that your road to recovery can be improved with massage therapy.

Alleviate Your Chronic Pain And Muscular Problems

Massage therapy offers a non-invasive therapeutic approach to treating chronic pain. To do this, your massage therapist may employ neuromuscular massage — an extremely focused treatment method that can be a bit painful. This intensive approach is necessary to work out the muscular knots and underlying tension that is causing you pain.

While the session may be a little painful, you’ll ultimately experience far less chronic pain afterwards. The powerful pain relief effects of massage therapy have been well documented for years. Numerous studies have also shown how massage therapy can improve accident-related injuries. So, whether you’ve got minor back cramps or recurring pains from your car accident, massage therapy can help.

Improved Sense of Wellbeing

Car accidents bring out the worst in us. We yell, curse, and place blame on each other and ourselves. The whole situation can bring you down, ruining your self-confidence and self-esteem. Fortunately, you can easily repair your sense of self-worth after your car accident with massage therapy.

Research studies have shown that massage can contribute to improving your sense of wellbeing. These impacts can occur even up to 6 months after the accident! But, it doesn’t stop there. Massage therapy has also been shown to improve your mood. So, you can pick yourself up out of the post-accident dumps with a session of massage therapy.

Reduce Your Stress Levels

Car accidents are stressful! The initial collision undoubtedly causes a spike in your cortisol levels. Don’t forget about the stress of dealing with the insurance claims process and finding the time to take your car into the auto-shop. It’s overwhelming, stressful, and messy. Fortunately, massage therapy can help with that too.

Did you know that 15-minutes of massage therapy can help reduce your stress levels? This is due to the fact that massage therapy helps lower your heart rate and blood pressure, relax your muscles, and increase the levels of endorphins in your brain. It should be clear by now that the perfect self-care remedy to follow-up your car accident is massage therapy.

Better Overall Health

We’ve covered some of the best ways that you can improve your recovery from a car accident with massage therapy. But, massage therapy can also benefit your overall health in many additional ways. Do you have mobility or flexibility issues? Do you want to improve the negative side effects of sitting all day? Or are you looking to improve your immune system and your bodily efficiencies? Massage therapy is the answer to all of these problems and more! And when you have better health, you recover from injuries faster.

Speed Up The Recovery From Your Car Accident With Massage Therapy

The car accident has already happened, there’s no use worrying over that now. Now, you need to focus on the present and on the state of your health. If you want to avoid future chronic pain or alleviate your current ones, then it’s time to integrate massage therapy into your recovery.

Schedule your first session with Wayfare Wellness today and start improving your recovery from your car accident with massage therapy!

Published in Massage
Wednesday, 12 June 2019 10:37

How To Resolve Chronic Pain With T-Bar Massage

While massage therapy can benefit people from all walks of life, those suffering from chronic pain usually require a more individualized and unique therapeutic approach. Sometimes your pain problems may be too chronic for swedish massage therapy or too centralized for deep tissue massage. If your pain is too severe for traditional forms of therapeutic massage, then you might benefit greatly from t-bar massage.

What is T-Bar Massage and How Can it Benefit Me?

It’s estimated that nearly 20 million Americans suffer from high-impact chronic pain issues on a daily basis. This can greatly limit your daily activities and operations. Highly targeted neuromuscular massage therapy (NMT) can effectively treat those chronic pain issues. Since neuromuscular therapy is so extremely focused, massage therapists will often call upon an NMT tool called a “t-bar.”

The t-bar is used to isolate trigger points and effectively treat those painful areas. Your massage therapist leverages the t-bar to hone in on your pain points and apply greater pressure to specific areas for greater pain relief. To put it more frankly: a t-bar massage allows your massage therapist to reach the root of your pain and treat it right at the source.

How Does T-Bar Massage Work?

The very simple t-bar tool has three central pieces: the handle, the shank, and the tip. This straightforward design helps the massage therapist easily apply concentrated pressure to trigger points. Trigger points are hypersensitive pea-sized knots that usually develop in injured muscles.

Once the trigger point is found, the massage therapist will apply alternating levels of concentrated pressure directly on the trigger point for anywhere between 10-30 seconds. Some patients may experience some discomfort when a massage therapist is using t-bar massage to release tension in the fascia. This is necessary to properly alleviate your points of chronic pain. We recommend working with a licensed NMT therapist that you can openly communicate with to reap the most benefit from t-bar massage.

Those who struggle with chronic pain know that it is a highly personal experience. That’s why t-bar massage is never “one-size-fits-all.” Instead, we utilize a wide variety of t-bars in our neuromuscular massage therapy techniques to give every individual client the maximum benefit possible.

Who Should Try T-Bar Massage?

It should be noted that only certified Neuromuscular Massage Therapists are licensed to practice NMT and use t-bars during massage. You should never receive NMT from a massage therapist who lacks the certification. Our licensed massage therapist, Sarah Monreal, is a dedicated and certified practitioner of NMT, so she understands the minute details of neuromuscular and t-bar massage.

T-bar massage is not for everyone, the same way that neuromuscular massage is not for everyone. Those that have chronic/recurring pain problems can benefit the most from t-bar massage. Additionally, NMT can be incredibly beneficial to those recovering from injuries, accidents, or surgeries. T-bar massage can also help address:

  • Arthritis

  • Circulatory problems

  • Myofascial trigger points

  • Neural entrapment

  • Nerve compression

  • Sciatica

  • And much more!

If you don’t suffer from any of these conditions, but still have recurring pain problems, you may benefit from our other approaches to massage therapy. Regardless of your therapeutic approach, Wayfare Wellness will develop a personalized treatment plan to address your pain.

Book Your First T-Bar Massage Therapy Session

T-bar massage is the ideal massage therapy solution for anyone who suffers from chronic pain issues. If you find yourself impeded by recurring pain and need relief, then book your first t-bar massage with Wayfare Wellness today!

Published in Massage
Monday, 04 March 2019 10:30

How We Do Neuromuscular Massage in Denver

Chronic pain is one of the most common reasons adults seek medical care. It’s estimated that roughly 20% of U.S. adults (50 million) have suffered or are suffering from chronic pain, which can greatly limit experiences throughout our lives. Those that suffer have sought out relief from this pain from a great variety of approaches (e.g., traditional medication, chiropractic services, stretching, etc.), but in a great number of cases the pain does not go away.

If you suffer from chronic pain, perhaps it’s time to try something new. Neuromuscular massage therapy is the tested and true treatment for chronic muscular pain. Neuromuscular massage therapy (NMT) is a highly targeted form of deep tissue massage that is highly effective at treating chronic soft tissue pain.

Neuromuscular Massage in Denver: How Do We Do It?

Our certified Neuromuscular Massage Therapist, Sarah Monreal, is a dedicated practitioner of NMT and is intensely passionate about helping others find relief from chronic pain. This passion comes from her own real world experiences as an athlete, who suffered from chronic pain issues in the past. When practicing Neuromuscular Massage Therapy, also referred to as trigger point myotherapy, Sarah uses a step-by-step approach to assess the body, focusing on areas of muscle spasm or pain commonly called trigger points, and relieving the chronic stiffness and pain of the trigger point through extremely focused pressure. Chronic pain in muscles is often the result of a lack of blood to the area; our neuromuscular massage in Denver uses pressure to reopen those muscles to allow blood back into the afflicted areas and relieve the pain naturally.

In our Denver office, we will approach NMT with a therapeutic tool called a “t-bar.” When engaging in such high-pressure massage therapy, sometimes the thumbs just do not cut it. The t-bar allows Sarah to work through a detailed massage, acquire the best leverage, and isolate the trigger points. The t-bar is a very versatile tool that we employ daily in our neuromuscular massage in Denver. Once a trigger point is identified, Sarah will utilize the t-bar to apply alternating levels of concentrated pressure directly on the trigger point for anywhere between 10-30 seconds.


Lastly, at Wayfare Wellness, we believe that communication is an essential part of any neuromuscular massage session. As neuromuscular massage can be an intense process, our licensed therapist communicates with you throughout every step of the treatment. We will do our best to never cross over your pain threshold or make you uncomfortable during your appointment. By communicating consistently with our therapist, we ensure that you get the most out of your neuromuscular massage without experiencing pain or major discomfort.

How To Book Your First Neuromuscular Massage in Denver

This form of therapy is the ideal solution for patients who suffer from chronic pain, as well as patients who participate in rigorous exercise or athletics. If you suffer from chronic pain, it may be time to give neuromuscular massage a chance.

Book your neuromuscular massage in Denver today!


Published in Massage

More often than not, massage therapists are seen as a luxury, utilized when one needs to relax and unwind or wants to pamper themselves. The healing properties of different massage modalities often go overlooked, when in reality therapeutic massage could be exactly what you need to recover from an injury or an illness. Craniosacral massage is a gentle technique that is ideal when a patient has experienced a physical or emotional trauma. One of the many craniosacral therapy benefits is the support it provides the body to get back to equilibrium.

What Exactly Is A Craniosacral Massage?

Craniosacral massage is a technique that is focused specifically on the central nervous system. By working with pressure points in the head, spinal column, and sacrum, the therapist is able to relieve pressure to help alleviate pain. Learn more about the technique and benefits of craniosacral massage.

5 Reasons You Should Try Craniosacral Massage

1. Suffer From Headaches or Migraines

Headaches and migraines are often triggered by stress, poor sleep, excess tension, or a combination of the three. Craniosacral massage therapy helps patients reach the equilibrium they need to achieve quality sleep, as well as relieving tension in the scalp and face. This excess tension is increasingly common as people spend more and more of their time in front of the computer screen. According to a study in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine, decreased frequency and intensity of headaches and migraines lasted up to three weeks after craniosacral massage therapy.

2. Experience Chronic Neck Or Back Pain

For some chronic pain sufferers, traditional massage therapy is not enough for long-term relief. Craniosacral massage gets to the root of the problem by affecting the neuromuscular system at the deepest level. By manipulating the deeper levels of tissue craniosacral massage helps the body heal from the inside out.

3. Had A Traumatic Injury Or Accident

Spinal cord injuries affect more than 200,000 individuals in the United States. These injuries have serious physical, mental, and financial consequences and treatments that help these patients find a better quality of life can be rare. Craniosacral massage stimulates the central nervous system, thus influencing the rest of the body.

4. Have Anxiety, Depression, Or Other Emotional Disorder

Craniosacral massage is recognized as a mindfulness-based treatment that support healing through manipulation of specific pressure points. The environment in which a craniosacral massage is performed supports relaxation and stress-relief. A 2011 study showed that 74 percent of participants who were receiving craniosacral therapy saw valuable improvement in their anxiety and depression and 70 percent were able to decrease or discontinue medication use.

5. Suffer From Immune Related Weaknesses

Craniosacral massage enhances the body's ability to heal itself by supporting the function of the autonomic nervous system. The day-to-day physical and mental stressors people experience cause an imbalance in the body. This gentle therapy helps restore equilibrium to strengthen the immune system and help the body recover more quickly from illness.

Craniosacral Massage In Denver

Craniosacral massage has the ability to improve the quality of life for people who experience a variety of ailments. From chronic pain to chronic illness, emotional disorders to traumatic injuries, this gentle therapy re-establishes equilibrium within the body through manipulation of the central nervous system. If you want more from your regular massage therapy routine, contact Wayfare Wellness today to see how craniosacral massage can help you find relief.

Published in Massage