Sometimes massage therapists are faced with a whodunit – and it takes a good bit of detective work to unveil the unusual suspect.
The fun of massage therapy, I find, is solving these puzzles and giving a client not only relief but also the confidence that they will get better.
Recently a client came in looking frazzled and tired. A friend had referred her and she didn’t expect much. While she sat in the waiting room, she clutched her purse in front of her midsection with both arms.
A recent trip to the doctor and some bad X-rays had revealed some pretty bulgy discs in her neck. Her MRI was scheduled. She had known about the discs for a while, but these pictures looked worse and her left arm had experienced shooting pains. Now her thumb was numb, and the numbness seemed to be creeping up her thumb toward the wrist.
When a massage therapist listens to a client’s history and observes the posture, it tells a story. I was not sure what was going on yet, but I had a pretty good working theory. But puzzles can be tricky.
Cautiously, I warmed up her anterior shoulder and neck with Swedish massage. The skin was sore to the touch, and the muscles underneath were rock-hard. Working within her tolerance, I drew a flat forearm across her left anterior shoulder to gently press the suspects: subclavius, anterior trapezius, pectoralis major and pectoralis minor.
The thumb and forearm tingled a bit but the numbness remained. I took the shadow referrals to the arm as a hopeful sign. Erik Dalton teaches the forearm sweep as a great way to bust up sludge, adhesions and gummy bears stuck to the muscles and fascia just below the coracoid process. I used his inspiration and started down the shoulder girdle toward the arm.
Technically, my trigger point charts tell me subclavius should be the bad boy in this hunt for thumb-numb. But the constant pressure of rounded shoulders, stress, poor circulation, etc. had brought all these muscles to the table. Just picking one out would not do. Too many other players were jammed into the small space beneath the acromium to pick them apart.
All of these players were so stuck they were acting in a clump. Her numbness and pain gradually subsided. I then spent a long time doing Swedish warming massage up and down the arm, shoulder and neck.
My reward?
“It feels like my arm again,” the client said.
I feel like Nancy Drew.
