Clearly Living

Nerve pain (neuralgia) and related conditions are often experienced in the form of pain, restricted movement, and other abnormal sensations and can be felt just about anywhere in the body. Common descriptions of nerve pain include: sharp, shooting, numb, tingling, burning, and electric. Nerve related symptoms can show up suddenly or develop gradually over time.

There are many possible causes for nerve pain: repetitive movements, poor working posture, inactivity, structural abnormalities, inflammation, injuries, systemic disease processes and more. It can be any one or a combination of factors that contribute to the pain you are experiencing.

As with most things, there is much that remains unknown about the causes, biological processes, and biomechanics behind chronic discomfort. I keep up on the latest research and constantly seek out new ways of working with nerve pain so I can always be sure I am providing the best care to my clients.

Inactivity, Posture, Stress, & repetitive motion

New and old injury, inactivity, posture, stress, and repeated movements, long hours sitting or standing at work, life events causing stress, or physically demanding jobs and activities can all contribute to nerve pain. Usually, restrictions or tension in muscle and other soft tissue along with mis-alignment in the body put excess pressure on nerves causing pain.

Medical massage therapy has helped many of my clients get quick relief from pain and in many cases prevent the pain from recurring. It is often possible to find ways to stop or reduce whatever is irritating the nerve by improving posture, movement, or opening up space for the nerve.

Systemic causes (Neuropathy, Inflammation)

Tissue changes caused by genetics, system wide inflammation, auto-immune disorders, and mental health challenges are some of the systemic causes that can contribute to body-wide nerve-related symptoms. Symptoms can be felt everywhere at once, or move around the body. Acute symptoms caused by specific injuries or physical challenges can be made worse by these kinds of conditions as well.

Massage therapy won't cure any of these conditions, but it can be a vital part of managing discomfort and encouraging the healing process. I have many clients with these conditions that tell me they don't know what they would do without massage. And I get it, when you're in pain more often than not, anything that gives you relief is appreciated. I am grateful that I am able to provide that relief for my clients.

So, what kind of nerve pain can massage help?

Massage can be immensely helpful for a wide range of nerve pain conditions, sometimes eliminating the pain entirely. However, it is important to understand that massage won't help every kind of nerve pain. Additionally, it is difficult to know exactly who, with what conditions, will benefit from massage and how much.

From this point of view I still want to help you make an informed decision about medical massage therapy. From experience, I can give you a general idea of when massage is more or less likely to be helpful based on some key signs and an understanding of how massage interacts with various conditions. My top priority is to help you find relief without wasting time, risking damage or making pain worse.

A woman stretching her arm high over the back of her head.

Medical massage is perfect for:

Massage therapy is great for nerve pain that originates from muscle tension, nerve compression and mild injuries. This includes conditions like sciatica, carpal tunnel syndrome, mild neuropathies, pinched nerves, and even herniated discs. Basically, anything that is causing temporary irritation to the nerve without permanently damaging the nerve.

There are many places nerve compression can happen as the nerves travel through the body: injured or misaligned joints, tight muscles, fibrotic (scar) tissue, or within the nerve sheaths themselves. Massage is great at treating these kinds of problems because it can directly and indirectly influence many of these tissues. Reducing muscle tightness and encouraging well-aligned movement of joints and connective tissue are just a couple of examples.

Medical massage won't fix(but might help):

Massage is less helpful for things like severe and permanent structural changes, nerve damage, and neurodegenerative diseases. This includes things like severe neuropathy, systemic inflammation/autoimmune disease, severed nerves, and multiple sclerosis. While massage does little to cure these types of conditions, it might still be worth considering for some clients if it provides comfort and temporary relief from related symptoms. This can happen if massage is able to reduce pain in surrounding areas, or counteract compensations that arise from the original nerve pain.

In fact, I have many clients with these conditions that still get many benefits from massage and choose to make it a core part of their care.

Will massge help with my specific nerve pain?

While it is difficult to know with absolute certainty, you can look for these signs that massage will likely benefit you.

Signs that massage is right for your symptoms

If your pain gets better and worse depending on what activities you do and for how long, this can be a good sign that the nerve is being caused by misaligned movement or tight tissue. Both of which massage can help. Additionally, if you are able to improve or worsen the pain by moving in certain ways, or applying pressure on specific points, this is also a good sign that massage will help. If you have ruled out severe injuries and diseases then massage is probably a good bet for you. It is always a good idea to seek evaluation and clearance from your physician before getting a massage if you suspect anything serious.

What to do if you're unsure

Give it a try, unless there is a clearly better alternative or risk of negative effects.

Sometimes it is less obvious wether or not you will benefit from massage. In these cases I suggest weighing your options, talking with a doctor, talking with me and discussing the possible benefits and risk to decide if you should give massage a try and see if it helps. My hope for you is to find something that helps, not to waste your time or distract you from doing more important things.

With massage it is usually easy to tell if it is going to be helpful after a single session. It might not solve the problem right away, but you will feel that your therapist connected with a solution in a meaningful way. There are very few risks of massage when performed by a properly trained professional. It also cost relatively little time and money compared to invasive surgeries, drug therapies, and other medical treatments. So, I recommend giving it a try if you can. I've had many clients surprised at how much massage was able to help when nothing else did.

What will a massage with you look like?

Different for every situation

When it comes to nerve pain and impingement, I typically begin with techniques like myofascial release, positional release, stretching, and pin-and-stretch. These techniques are very effective most of the time because they focus on immediately reducing pressure on nerves and allowing the nervous system to calm down.

However, I will often use other techniques if your body seems to respond better to something else. Each technique is applied in a unique way depending on the feedback I get automatically from your body, and verbally from you.

Assessment

Before each session I’ll observe your posture, how you move, and listen to your concerns and experience of whats going on. For nerve pain I will want to see which movements seem to increase or decrease irritation of the nerve. The majority of the assessment actually happens during the massage. I pay close attention to how your body responds throughout the session, and constantly re-evaluate what is working best for you.

How I approach nerve pain with medical massage

Making space for nerves and healthy movement

Relax Nerve Pathways
Nerves can get crushed, pinched, pushed, and pulled within their sheath as they tunnel through the many layers of tissue in your body. This causes irritation and can lead to pain and movement difficulty.
I usually focus first on gently mobilizing the tissue (skin, muscle, fascia, nerve) to give the nerve more space. I do this using myofascial release, stretching, positional release or other techniques.
Encourage pain free movement
In step 1 we find positions that feel good, relive the nerves, and calm your entire system down. Now, we need to make sure that you can move around without re-aggravating the pain.
Starting with movements that feel safe and comfortable, we will work together to solidify your nervous systems sense of safety and ease with movement that doesn't create pain.
Address Indirect Causes
Now that we've addressed your pain directly, we will integrate the improvement with the rest of the body. In the process we make sure that areas of the body connected with the problem area are balanced and functional so that they don't lead to recurrence of the issue.