Orthopedic   Massage

Share Your Healing Stories

If you are currently in pain, take a look at my Monthly Q&A's, and please consider submitting your own question about pain and healing. If you have a story of recovery to share, please email me and we can all share the hope of healing.

• My Story- Allan K. Drew's meandering path to successful health
• About Touch- Notes on the history of healing touch
  
• Words of Support- Testimonials from my patients
  

It is my hope that this book will give you information that is not readily available elsewhere.

The healing process starts and ends with you. You have to be willing to make the time to do what is necessary. It is not always easy. The choice is yours.

A number of years ago I was buying a pair of running shoes. The young woman assisting me had a wrist brace on. I'm always interested in other's injuries, and asked if it was CTS (carpal tunnel syndrome). She said the doctor diagnosed it as tendonitis. She took off the brace and I could see the swelling above the tendons where they intersect the wrist. (If you hold your hand palm up and flex the muscles of your hand the tendons pop up.)

It was the most dramatic case of tendonitis I had ever seen. I explained that I was a massage therapist and asked if I could work the muscles in her forearm. She said yes. After a few minutes of working on loosening the muscles she said, "Oh my God!" I thought,"Oh shit, what have I done." She held out her hand, "The swelling is gone!" It had diminished substantially. She had to bend her wrist back in order to see any swelling at all. That was the moment I realized how powerful massage could be in helping tendonitis. By relaxing the muscles, the tendons' swelling was reduced.

One of my clients, a doctor, came into my office with pain in the palms of his hands and the bottom of his feet. His doctor told him he had neuralgia, pain along the distribution of sensory nerves, he was told to get used to it, "...it will only get worse." He asked if I could help. I told him what I tell all my clients, "If it's muscular, probably." One week after the first session he returned, held out his hands and said, "...its working." After three sessions the pain was gone.

A woman in her late sixties was referred to me by her doctor for low back pain and sciatica (nerve pain down the leg). She had been suffering this pain for over thirty years. After doing an assessment I discovered her hips were not even (often diagnosed as one leg shorter than the other). I checked for specific tightness in the muscles of the area and determined the key was her psoas muscles. Over a period of several weeks of working and stretching the muscles the pain disappeared. Using self-massage and stretching she is now able to stay pain free. A side note to this story, she told me she was having trouble getting out of a chair to stand which was a lack of muscle. She took my suggestion and found a personal fitness trainer to help her get back into shape. She is now swimming, doing water aerobics and weightlifting. She feels great, has more energy and no longer has trouble getting out of chairs.

A 45 year old woman came to see me for low back pain and sciatica. The problem started in 1982. She had seen several doctors and physical therapists but nothing was helping. She had been diagnosed with scoliosis. She had an enlarged muscular structure (three times larger than the opposite side) on the left side of her spine just above the hip bone. But the key was her psoas muscles, the right being the tightest. I worked the psoas and used stretches plus relaxing the surrounding muscles. After three sessions most of the sciatica was gone. It took months to work through the scar tissue in the muscles on the lower left and reduced the size by half. She worked with a personal fitness trainer to build muscle and balance her weak side. She is doing well and is without the pain she once had.