Music and massage therapy AMA

[flamingsword]

I am pleased to direct your attention toward sabotabby's 2018 music recs. They are amazing. Yes, all of them.

In other news, a friend of a friend is having hip and sciatic pain, and it occurs to me that lots of yall may not know that I am an actual facts massage therapist who can help out with this stuff. Tell me about your pain, and I can generally narrow down where it is coming from to a few likely culprits and then help you workshop an answer that will fit your life and ability. If you want to PM me with stuff now or in the future for privacy reasons, that is totally kosher.

I'm a massage therapist; ask me anything.

Comments

[sabotabby]

Always happy to introduce folks to new music!

I live with hip pain, and occasionally sciatic pain, as the result of having a spinal tumour and then having it removed. Massage therapists are the best people imo.

[flamingsword]

For my clients who have hip stiffness that precedes sciatic flares, I recommend doing The Twist. Start gently, do it for only a couple minutes once or twice a week, and never when you are actively in a flare. But keeping the obturators and piriformis, the muscles that turn the hip in and out, limber and exercised is very important.

After you do The Twist, take sixty seconds to gently stretch the muscles in the hip. The gentlest way is to sit on the floor with your legs straight, cross one over the other, and lean toward your toes. Never stretch to the point of pain unless you are in the company of someone with letters after their name telling you to. If someone is not a PT, MD, DC, etc. then their opinion is invalid. Stretch to the border between comfortable and uncomfortable and hold the stretch there. Stretching to the point of pain is just going to aggravate the nerve and teach your brain to avoid stretching.

If you sit down for things a lot, or have to do anything kneeling on a floor, try squatting for one minute every day. You may have to break that into twenty or thirty second bursts at first, but the strength you should have in the muscles that keep the piriformis from getting hypertonic and balance a lot of your walking and standing movements will get weak without regular squatting. I highly recommend a Squatty Potty if you can get one.

The stuff that I cant help with

[flamingsword]

If you have the kind of sciatica that is not preceded by stiffness, then you may have nerve pain related or sacroiliac joint related sciatica. Do you ever have flares of pain in the joint between the hip and tailbone that last longer than a few hours? That could be either arthritis or bursitis, and I am not qualified for that work. You would need a doctor. If you have the sciatic flares at the same time as headaches and random other body pain, then you may need to be on nerve pain medication, again, go see a doctor. Rheumatologist for joint stuff, neurologist if nerve stuff.

Re: The stuff that I cant help with

[sabotabby]

I don't think it's that bad; they thought I had arthritis a few years back and it turned out not to be. It's mainly just that I have a spinal fusion. I'm supposed to be doing exercises for it and...don't. Because I am lazy.

Re: The stuff that I cant help with

[flamingsword]

Which exercises do they have you doing, and how are you working them into your routine?

Can you make them dance moves and do them when you are cooking or cleaning? Can you teach them to your sprogs and do them as jitter alleviation for one minute once a week when everyone is restless at their desks? Can you do them in the shower when your muscles are already warm and pliable? What is going to feel rewarding and keep you doing it?

Alternatively, if you just need a reminder bc you never remember, put it in your phone. I have alarms to remind me to eat, that shit is useful as hell and anybody who laughs can be verbally eviscerated with a careful, "Do you think I deserve to be in pain?" And then just keep asking them that question until they stfu. I had to do that once. Every time they came up with an "innovative solution" I would tell them I'd tried it and it didn't work and ask the question again. He caved, eventually. (Thankfully that coworker did not stay long.)

Re: The stuff that I cant help with

[sabotabby]

I think the main thing I’m supposed to be doing is core strengthening. The problem is I’m just not good at incorporating exercise into my life. Left to my own devices, I’d live entirely on the couch. I manage to do 10,000+ steps a day because of my phone and somehow managed to get obsessive about it, but I can’t figure out how to compel myself with PT.

Re: The stuff that I cant help with

[flamingsword]

Okay, please don't get discouraged when I say this, but I think you are coming at this sideways. "How do I force myself to like something?" is always going to be an unsolvable problem. Our brains hate feeling forced; it's not in our nature. "How do I make something I am not used to into something that I use or enjoy?" is the tack to take if you really want to do something new, especially physically.

If you are a socially motivated person, get a workout buddy. If you are a cerebrally motivated person, then do your PT during your time listening to podcasts that stimulate you, since studies have shown that exercise increases cognitive function. If you are a meditative person who likes reflecting on your thoughts, try tai chi or yoga, which are both good core work, even the simple stuff.

I recommend finding a tai chi or chi kung or yoga routine that just barely challenges you on YouTube, and after the first couple times of watching it with the sound on, try to follow along with the sound turned off. It will help with a moving meditation and then you can write down the stuff your brain queued up for you while you were doing that. Meditation journaling is a big help sometimes, it's why I have the gratitude tag. (Which I should really get back into)

Now for the caveats: do physical stuff with the body that you physically have, and not with the body that you wish you had. Most of the people I have worked on right after their first yoga class thought they could do the pose like the instructor if they just forced their body to stretch that final inch. Not listening to your body is a bad idea, and if you are a sedentary person with chronic pain who does a lot of mental work, you are probably used to ignoring your body's pain signals. I know it's going to be uncomfortable to have to feel your feelings in order to do exercises that you are ambivalent about. It will take about two or three weeks of basic exercises just for your muscles to adjust to new demands being placed on them. But it doesn't have to hurt.

Next caveat: the Ten Percent Rule. Never do more than ten percent more weight or ten percent more reps than was challenging the last time you did the exercise. If you held a yoga pose comfortably for 30 seconds last time, go for 33 to 35 seconds this time. Our bodies build and release connective tissue *very slowly* and if you make them move faster than their preferred glacial pace then they will bitch at you for it. Make progress slowly to not hurt.

Re: The stuff that I cant help with

[sabotabby]

Objectively, I know you're right. But I've never been able to manage it. A lot of it is the pain is usually at low enough levels that I can ignore it, and the real danger is when I'm 60 or so, which seems very far off.

Re: The stuff that I cant help with

[flamingsword]

Okay, so some questions to ask yourself, here, are: how much pain is doing a few specific exercises a couple times a week going to save you between now and when you are sixty? And: if you try to start doing the exercises when you are 60, how much more is it going to suck if the stiffened connective tissue in your back and hips has decided to calcify? Because sometimes it does do that.

Our bodies are not made for sitting. We are not adapted to it like we are to walking and squatting and climbing. Ooh! Do you live anyplace that has climbing gyms? Because indulging your inner monkey is also great core work, plus amazing fun, and you can start on the baby slopes until your strength catches up.

Re: The stuff that I cant help with

[sabotabby]

I'm sure there are, but I also have the issue that if I am not good at something right away, or it's not convenient (none are in walking distance), I am not excited to do it.

On the plus side, I hardly ever sit.

[havocthecat]

Thanks! Massage therapist is a job I could never do, but I am in awe of people who do it.

I will go hit "refresh" as I've had this tab open all day and see what comments are here already first.

[havocthecat]

Welp. Okay, I have migraines! They are caused by many things, usually when I have multiple factors all at once, and sometimes that is tension in the neck and I can't get anyone to massage it away. (I would love to afford a monthly massage, but maybe someday.) I mean, I have a lot of shit wrong with me, but that's something today, so.

Migraines are kinda complex. Bear with me.

[flamingsword]

Okay, so your neurologist has had you do elimination diets and the simple stuff like tracking your headaches with your cycle to see if they are estrogen balance related?

Assuming that, then let's start with where the pain starts. If they start in the teeth or over the eyes /temple area they can be from the muscles on the front and sides of your neck, called the scalenes, and no matter how much you rub the back of your neck it's not going to go away. The diagnostic test is to stand in front of a mirror, and lean your ears down toward your shoulders. Can you lean farther on one side? If you lean your ear to your shoulder and then twist just your head so that you are looking up toward the ceiling, does anything hurt? Then there's your culprit.

If not then the muscles of the head and face may be your nemesis. Feel around on your face, at about medium pressure. Does anywhere you push seem sharp instead of sore, or refer pain from your jaw into your teeth, from the back of the head into the top of your head, etc? Those are called trigger points and are dreadful to deal with, but you can pull your hair for 30 seconds or try putting alternating heat and cold on the points for a few minutes until the pain goes away. [Do not do while you have the migraine, for obvious reasons]

Make a note of where it hurts and if you can describe it then I can tell you what to do for it, and what actions may be aggravating it. Some things like being on a laptop or phone for longer than an hour at a time are obvious culprits, but sometimes talking with a phone between your ear and shoulder, or working at a desk that is too tall for you can trigger muscle tension related migraines.

If your migraines are sinus related there is much less I can do, and have to refer you to an allergist or an otolaryngologist. Tracking weather patterns and headaches will usually reveal sinus migraines.

Good luck and let me know. Dont be afraid to PM me if anything becomes uncomfortable to talk about.