Saturday, September 26, 2015

news from the table

One of the things I love about massage therapy is the immediate transformation that takes place within the system of my client.

There are few fields of work where the impact of your skills and training can be so immediately apparent!

On Wednesday I was given an opportunity to work with a woman who is having a lot of nerve pain in her lower leg.  She has been seeing a chiropractor, doing yoga, and generally paying attention (rather than ignoring it and hoping it will just "go away" like many choose to do).

She had a one-hour session, and wanted some "relaxation" work, but requested that we spend most of the session supporting her knee/leg area.

The area did not present as very inflamed, but my client said it was hyper sensitive to touch and could suddenly supercharge a pain sensation down into her foot.  So I was of course approaching the area with a lot of caution and communication.

My overall strategy was to just tune into the heat in the knee joint, see if I could feel any hot spots or tissue bulges, and also attempt very gentle bone manipulations, very slight traction, and as always, Reiki.

With my client face-down, I gently lifted her femur off the table, with the lower leg gently bent, so I could give the joint a weightless sensation as I began to do a very slow, subtle rotation of the knee.  As always I was checking in every step of the way with my client to ensure that she was comfortable with the maneuver.

She reported feeling comfortable with the movements, as well as relieved that she was comfortable with the movements!  So that was a good start.

Once we got her onto her back and I had more ready access to the front of the knee and the side of her leg, I began with some Reiki through the sheet.   Right away I noticed a bunch of tears wanting to push through my eyeballs onto my cheeks!

This didn't surprise me too much, as I am an empath and at times I do seem to get in touch with emotions held unknowingly within my clients.

But because I had good rapport with her and felt that she would want to know, I did tell her that I was feeling a lot of sadness in that moment, and she seemed to really appreciate that.  I could feel her body get a little bit heavier on the table, and I found a small area of "extra tissue" lateral to the patellar tendon.  It seemed to hold the key to her troubles, and I said to her, "this is the spot, isn't it".  She immediately acknowledged, YES!  That is where it seems to originate.

With that knowledge I just took a nice deep breath and held the joint gently on either side.  I felt that we could conceivably relieve the area by slowly grabbing hold of the tibia and the fibula and just gently offering the tiniest bit of traction.   Again, making sure my client was comfortable and following the cues of her breath and her energy I was able to feel her body get heavier yet again on the table, a sign that tension is relieving and healing can occur.

In addition I did work the muscles of the lower leg ever so gently, to just push circulation through and into the knee joint, as well as working her foot and doing some rotations of the ankle and point work through the sole of the foot.

I still don't really know what is wrong with her leg.  It may be a bursa, it may be arthritis, it may be a nerve impingement, or something else entirely.

But after the session I could see that she had made a large step towards a more relaxed, supported system, and she said she was feeling a lot of optimism that her leg could be normal again.  She said the session was "magical and superior" and wanted to book the second session in her 4-pack for just a couple of days later.

With the client's full knowledge I called the chiropractor who has been working with her, and just let him know what we had done in our session, how it made her feel, and asked him when he had a moment to check his records for her and let me know if he had any good ideas for further treatment.

This type of exchange is what keeps me in the business after 18 years and counting.  I love supporting people in their experience of being in a body.  It can be puzzling!




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