Lower back pain affects at least eighty percent of the population, and whether the problem is acute or chronic, it can deeply affect your overall health and wellbeing. We may not even realize how important our back’s health is to our whole-body strength until that twinge of inescapable back pain hits. Lower back pain can have a number of causes including (but not limited to): direct trauma to the body (such as in a motor vehicle accident or a fall), posture misalignments, childhood injuries, or inflammatory conditions.
Usually occurring alongside other symptoms like leg and hip pain, this particular type of deep muscle ache can be all-consuming. Many seek relief by taking medications or applying balms, but these remedies only provide a temporary reprieve. However, a trained professional massage therapist with experience and skill can offer long term relief and awareness for the sufferer by using a technique called myofascial release.
Tightness within the fascial system can be extremely painful and difficult to resolve without the right help. The fascia, a three-dimensional web of connective tissue that is found throughout the body, surrounds every muscle, bone, and organ to the tissue’s cellular level. When the fascia is restricted, this web tightens and hardens, creating restrictions in areas called trigger points, and pulling other structures like muscles, ligaments, and bone out of alignment. These trigger points cannot be seen on an X-ray or MRI, but a trained massage therapist can locate the restrictions with their experienced hands. You may even find it can affect digestion and the muscles surround the intestines.
During a session involving myofascial release, your massage therapist will apply mild to moderate pressure to release these trigger points, loosening the tightened web of fascia. By using sustained pressure to stretch and lengthen the fascia, your therapist will essentially “melt” and unwind adhesions as well as surrounding trigger points. The result of these released restrictions that compress nerves, muscles, and ligaments around your back and spine is a more flexible and healthy fascia, allowing your muscles to move and glide in the way they were meant to.
After a myofascial release session, your body’s blood flow, circulation of oxygen, and lymphatic drainage throughout the body will be improved markedly. And while you may feel immediate results after your first appointment, experiencing relief and relaxation, it may take multiple visits to gain lasting resolution. If you are enduring lower back pain like so many are, contact us now to set up your next myofascial release appointment. Our center is one of the few that is open seven days a week, available for you to seek lasting relief, right away.