Taking anti-inflammatory medications like naproxen or ibuprofen will help decrease the inflammation that occurs, but if you don’t want to mask the pain with these medications contrast bath is a very good alternative. If you decrease the pain with the anti-inflammatory medications but continue to participate in an activity, which causes the inflammation, you are not allowing your body to heal naturally.

Contrast Bath or Hydrotherapy also takes advantage of water’s unique ability to store and transmit both cold and heat. Cold-based hydrotherapies, such as ice packs and cold compresses have what is known as a “depressant” effect on your body. Cold decreases normal activity, thus, constricting blood vessels by numbing nerves, which pushes lymph fluids away from the treated area.

On the other hand, heat-based hydrotherapies, such as whirlpools and hot compresses, have the opposite effect. As the body attempts to throw off the excess heat and keep body temperature from rising, dilation of blood vessels occurs, providing increased circulation to the area being treated, thus, bringing blood nutrients and oxygen needed to nourish body-part being treated.

These theories on hydrotherapy have not been proven to work nor not to work, so with that said, I personally have used contrast bath for treating my hands and whole body as part of my health regime for past 11 plus years as a massage therapist. Preventing inflammation or reducing inflammation is a medical industry bankroll. It is the number one prescribed medication. With proper rest, diet and exercise we can stop inflammation from forming.

Equipment Needed:

• Two deep buckets or other receptacles deep enough to completely covering your wrist and preferably up to your elbow you would like to use in the contrast bath. Buckets can be replaced with a kitchen sink that has two compartments. One for HOT and one for COLD (ice can be used here).

• Thermometer – a cooking thermometer will suffice (optional)

• Timer – watch or clock

Procedure:

• One bucket should be 2/3 filled with water at a temperature of between 95-105°F, and the other 2/3 filled with water at a temperature of between 55-65°F. Or as hot and cold as you can tolerate. The greater the contrast the better (but not necessary for this to be effective)

• Place the hands/wrist to be treated in the hot water, leave it there for 1 minute, then place the part in the cold water and leave it there for one minute. Alternate from the hot to the cold water for a period of 10 minutes, beginning and ending with the cold water.

• The ratio can be 2:1, hot to cold if you want to speed up the process. Place the part that needs to be treated in Cold water for 30 seconds than alternate to Hot for 1 minute. Go back to Cold for 1 minute than alternate to Hot for 2 minute. Increase by 30 seconds when you go back to Hot every time. Do this for about 4 times.

Here is a Method of Making your Own Ice Packs. This is an alternative to contrast bath when you want to reduce inflammation/swelling and pain relief.

A quick and easy recipe to make a reusable slushy ice pack is to combine 4 parts rubbing alcohol to 1 part water and ice cubes in a plastic seal up baggie (freezer bag) Place this in the freezer for a few hours and when it is ready you will have an inexpensive ice pack.

The reason this works is that the specific temperature of the rubbing alcohol is low enough that it will not freeze in a normal freezer allowing the contents of the bag to form slush rather than a solid.

I also found that if you take dishwashing liquid and freeze that, it will become slushy as well. Make sure to double bag it to make sure it doesn’t leak.

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Are you looking for that “oh it hurts so good” type of massage session? If so, you are in luck, Robert Vignoli is an expert at trigger point therapy and he is now, back on schedule taking new clients.

And what if I told you that if Robert does not deliver EXACTLY what you are looking for, your massage session is FREE!

With over 11 years of experience, he knows his stuff and his massage sessions are 100% guaranteed. So with nothing to lose, Roman Paradigm Massage and Robert invite you to come in for a 75 minute massage special.

A Yelp Review

“Truly Robert is a talented and intuitive Masseur…I was in a few car accidents in 2006 and one day I was in so much pain from traveling last month (Dec. 2007) that I made a last minute appointment just looking for some relief for the pain in my shoulder blades but Robert was able to find a number of things going on inside my muscles that truly surprised me…He knew things my body had been through and asked me about them before I said anything….I would Definitely see Robert again and hope to on my next trip to California.”

Trishann C.

Fire Eyes Photography, Seattle, WA.

Robert also specializes in deep tissue massage, stretching and active release techniques and he uniquely combines all these different methods into your massage session. Each massage session is designed for your specific needs and goals that you will discuss with him, he will often share with his clients on what he finds and educates you as to why you are hurting or having trouble recovery from old or present injuries.

“A tight muscle is like; a light bulb that is on, but when you walk into the room to hit the switch off, the lights stay on. A tight muscle is “on” continuously (contracted) working even at rest.

A weak or faulty working muscle is like, walking into a room and flipping the light on, yet it just flickers on and off, a weak muscle will never work properly when ask to.” by RCV

Many of the problems associated with our muscle pain is related to shortening of muscles (tight muscles) and the direct relationship to the opposing muscles, which are made weak. This shortening of our working muscles will often lead to a muscle constantly being “on” even at rest, and over a period of time, a lack of tone and fatigue to its opposing muscle or antagonist muscle groups. Once this condition is observed, the correct approach will be to deal with the shorten muscle groups first. Most often when you release chronically short muscles, the opposing muscles groups will regain some of their strength almost immediately.

Currently, he is co-authoring an alternative health ebook on prevention and recovering strategies for carpal tunnel syndrome. His carpal tunnel syndrome case studies are seeing remarkable improvements with their CTS symptoms. If you are someone who suffers from carpal tunnel syndrome please let us know at the time of booking your massage appointment.

Hours of Operation for Robert

Wednesday, Friday and Saturday

10:30am - 8:00pm

You can book your appt online

www.rpm-therapy.com

We are what we eat, you can encourage and maintain healthy hands again just by watching what you eat. Reduce the pain and swelling that you suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms, by dieting?

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Symptoms are often made worst by what we eat and drink daily. Coffee, alcohol, high sugar intake and processed foods are just some of the major contributors that keep your hands from ever feeling better. Our hectic lifestyles daily, weekly and monthly create a situation for us internally that is just not healthy, our bodies will absorbed only as much as it can. And when it can’t take anymore you will feel tired, fatigued and even depressed which only then we eat and drink more C. R. A. P. (caffeine, refined sugar, alcohol and processed foods) to our bodies going, not good.

Just by eating a well balanced diet, that includes consuming eight ounces of water every two hours to help flush out the system and eating healthy fresh fruits and vegetables. Eating more whole grains and lean proteins such as soy, bean and lentils is a great start as well as getting such drinks as green tea to help reduce swelling. Including vitamin B6 into your diet, especially if you already take vitamin C, which depletes the body of vitamin B6 will offer many benefits. A deficiency of vitamin B6 can increase the susceptibility of experiencing pain and numbness, which is associated with carpal tunnel syndrome. Vitamin B6 encourages the maintenance of healthy tissue for the nerves while relieving inflammation, controlling pain sensations and improving the blood circulation. Here are some self massage techniques that you can utilize for your carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms as well.

What is Carpal Tunnel?

A cluster of eight bones forms the base of the palm in a U shape. The tunnel roof or the arching ligament over these bones houses the median nerve. This particular nerve controls the sensations of the fingers and thumb along the palm, while connecting to the spinal cord. When this tunnel becomes thin, the pressure cuts off the blood flow to the nerve. This then causes pain, weakness and a tingling sensation, it happens most often while asleep, but can happen at any time.

As the condition worsens, it becomes difficult to grasp or make a fist, while it begins to limit the motion of everyday life. Eventually many who suffer from carpal tunnel may lose the ability to determine cold from hot. These symptoms can happen in one or both wrists and may be the cause of pain that radiates from the shoulder to the forearm. Carpal tunnel seems to affect more women than men, although many individuals suffer from some form of carpal tunnel syndrome.

Some of the causes of carpal tunnel may include:

• Injuries to the wrist hand and fingers
• Repetitive and continuous hand and finger motions
• Hormonal imbalances during pregnancy or while taking birth control
• Inflammation from arthritis and other diseases
• Health issues such as obesity or a genetic issue

Have you noticed how many times we mentioned your work station or ergonomics? Here are some other foods that you may want to avoid when you are suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome may include:

• Saturated fats
• Salt, since it encourages swelling and dehydrates the system

We hope that you got some good information here, before you run off to have that surgery done. Don’t get us wrong there are some instances where surgery may be what you need, but if at all you are having second thoughts try these things first. Here are some more things you can do to relief the pain of carpal tunnel may include:

• Take a breaks often during the day
• Reduce swelling by use of cold compresses
• Stop smoking, since smoking does affect the blood circulation
• Reduction of repetitive or excessive movements
• Stay in a warm dry environment
• Stretching and exercising

Take care of your hands you need them for just about everything we do in our daily lives.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day to everyone!

I hope that most of you had the day off today, Martin Luther King Jr. is definitely a man to be celebrated for his work. Even the online community got involved to honor Martin Luther King. Now that we know who will be in the Super Bowl is there anyone excited about it? Other than the 2 cities that are involved. For myself, nah. I think that the NY Giants are going to get spanked against the Patriots, I don’t even think it will be a good game.

Real quick I just wanted to let everyone know that Shonn Piersol the founder of MassageSpace.net is on digg.com. You are probably asking yourself why am I telling you this? Ok you got me, there is a small favor that I wanted to ask of everyone who sees my blog, please go there and if you are not a member of digg.com, sign up, its free and digg it for me.

As many of you know already I am involved with Shonn and his online massage community website, I think it is a great idea and if you are not sign up for Massagespace.net you should be. All massage therapist, bodyworkers and other holistic providers should be a member, it has so many features, I am calling it the MySpace, Facebook and Youtube for massage therapist.

Here is a sample list of some of the features MassageSpace.net offers…

1. Chat rooms (private and public)
2. Article submission
3. Upload Videos
4. Upload images
5. Online forum
6. Special groups for like minded individuals
7. A directory to post your business
8. A marketplace for advertising your products or services
9. A blog
10. A links page
11. An events calender
12. An online scheduling system
13. A guest book

Do you see what I mean, it is just loaded with all the things that most social networking websites have and then some. Eventually, what I see for this website in the near future is a chance for you to make some residual income promoting products and services that you have created or that someone else’s. Imagine, getting paid on products and services that you did not even have to spend 1 ounce of your time or money to make.

Ok well here is the link the digg.com article. Please digg it.

Do you run 26 miles just to improve your previous time? Do you go on century bike rides just to hang with the boys? Or would we find you at the local Country Club working on your golf stroke? How about any 12 year old female world Gymnastic championship potentials out there? If so, we invite you to come in for a professional consultation with John Dodson. He will certainly make sure that you continue with your “high output” training schedule with minimum down time due to recurring injuries.

Or would you be an individual who has a past injury that did not heal right? Maybe you have been in a car accident from which you suffer from constant migraines and headaches? If so, we still like to invite you to come in for a professional consultation with John Dodson.

RPM Therapy of San Jose, Ca. is happy to announce for 2008, that John Dodson, our in house deep tissue massage specialist, has joined our growing team of professional bodyworkers. John brings with him a pool of talent and skills that only a small percentage of massage therapist in this industry have. I have been in the industry well over 11 years now, and can personally vouch for that. We are pleased to have him on board and so will you. His pressure is deep and intense, so you must like or have gotten this type of massage work done previously.

John prides himself as an individual who takes a holistic approach to promoting health and well-being through his bodywork. His ultimate happiness is take an individual at any stage of health who seek his services and help them through massage therapy to identify any postural imbalances and develop a systematic plan for correction. When stress is managed effectively and human performance is improved, for both, at work and in athletics, a MIND-BODY Connection is felt like no other. Post rehabilitation, personal training and nutritional counseling are all part of what makes John so unique. “Dedicate 2 visits a week for 6 weeks and I can correct most any problems your body is suffering from,” promises John.

Book Your Massage Online Now

John is also an A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer and Lifestyle and Weight Management Consultant. In addition to training individuals of all shapes, sizes, and ages to reach their own fitness goals, he specializes in Sport-Specific Training emphasizing proper progression and development of all sports performance factors. In combination with his personal training and mind-body connection consulting, he helps overweight individuals lose weight and lead healthier lifestyles through a simple but comprehensive Weight Management Program.

Hours Of Operation ( for John )

Every Tuesday and Thursday 10 am - 8 pm

And some Saturday’s

Book Your Appointment with John Online:

www.rpm-therapy.com

Whether you want to lose weight, change your body shape, overcome a health challenge or optimize an already healthy lifestyle, this book will teach you how to achieve all your goals!

Currently, this is our recommended resource for our carpal tunnel syndrome case studies, a must read for reducing inflammation associated with carpal tunnel syndrome.

In the chapter, “You Are What You Eat,” Chek takes on the hotly debated nutrition questions that have risen in the United States and have become a major public concern. In this chapter you will learn how:

• The nutritional value of buying organic foods and the dangers of processed and genetically modified foods (Page 55)
• Eating a variety of fruits and vegetables will keep your body in balance and how grains are the leading contributor to chronic diseases (Page 63)
• Drinking raw milk will protect you against dangerous antibiotics, hormones and pesticides (Page 65)
• Which fats are essential to your diet and which fats should be avoided (Page72)
• The dangerous toll sugar takes on our bodies and the many diseases it causes (Page 75)

“How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy” is an all-inclusive eating and exercise guide that recognizes each body type is unique and allows you to design a program that will work for your individual needs.

With Chronic Pain,

Lead researcher Dan Hasson, RN, an acupuncturist, in a study he conducted, reported early in 2004 in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. Hasson’s study examined massage versus mental relaxation. Of the 129 patients, half received 30-minute massages (1 or 2 times a week) during the 5-week study. The remaining patients listened to a mental relaxation tape 2 times a week.

“During the treatment, there was a significant improvement in all 3 main outcome measures: self-rated health, mental energy, and muscle pain in the massage group,” said Hasson. At the 3-month follow-up, the results were quite different. The massage group reported significantly worse pain. The relaxation group did not report changes in symptoms. The patients with increased muscle pain reported less mental energy as well as feelings associated with depressed moods. Hasson concluded that his study supports the theory that depression and lower mental energy are related to long-term worsening of chronic pain.

My first thoughts were who would benefit the most from a study like this? Yeah you guessed it….

The Pharmaceutical Companies, here is the full article as reported in the Pharmacy Times, “Practical Information for today’s Pharmacist”

I find it hilarious that these guys would think we are stupid enough to believe them, even if it were true how can anyone take them serious, I mean they are reporting for the “pharmacy times” come on guys don’t you know that the only reason why that group in your research reported, significantly worse pain was because they were hoping to get another 5 weeks worth of massages for FREE.

Do you get up in the morning and find it harder to move your arms, legs, and back than you used to? Do you feel more tired when taking long walks in the park, at amusement parks, or shopping in the mall? Do you find yourself having more aches and pains than you ever did before, and just knock it up to old age? Well, unless you are an elderly person feeling old like this due to aches and pains in your body is not normal—at all. If you are feeling old, it could be due to old scar tissue and muscle adhesions in the tissues of your body that are causing you to feel this way; luckily a massage therapist can do something about it.

What are Muscle Adhesions?

The concept of muscle adhesions is pretty advanced but in laymen’s terms, muscle adhesions are your body’s way of repairing damaged muscle tissue in your body. If you have ever pulled or even torn a muscle, hurt your knee, hurt your back, or severely injured some other important muscular group in your body chances are that you have muscle adhesions in that area of your body underneath your skin and inside your muscle tissue. Since it is your body’s natural muscular band-aid, muscle adhesions are not a bad thing but they can cause pain and discomfort as your body gets older and more worn, and that can be what has you feeling so old. Along with other scar tissue under your skin, muscle adhesions can be a nasty culprit for something that once did your body such good.

The Problem with Muscle Adhesions

There is some problem with muscle adhesions, even for those who have not yet reached the point where it can make them feel older and stiffer. Muscle adhesions are like bandages that can lie across the muscles and tendons and hinder the way that they are able to stretch and move. This normally is not a problem, but a serious athlete who takes pride in being strong and flexible will find that although they may feel more powerful, they are less flexible.

What to Do About Scar Tissue and Muscle Adhesions

Muscle adhesions and scar tissue in your muscles can be a nasty problem for an athlete, and a nasty problem for a person who is just beginning to feel their age—or older than it. It can reduce the quality of life for an active person, and outside surgery it can seem like there is nothing to be done about this painful problem. There is one way of treating this issue, and it is an issue that many people fail to consider when they have an ache or a pain in their body. Soft tissue massages are great for helping to ease out muscle adhesions and bring back strength and flexibility to a pained area! Trained professionals that are licensed and have their massage therapy certifications know everything about the muscles that there is to know, including how to repair and ease the pain of scar tissue and muscle adhesions in the body.

RPM-Therapy Can Help You

If you are starting to feel your age and you aren’t sure what to do about it, it could be those muscle adhesions calling your name and punishing you for years of football, track, softball, swimming, or whatever it is that you did to stay healthy and have fun. They can certainly prevent you from having fun now, but not if you do something about it. Our licensed massage therapist are trained to take care of this problem, and we have the power to help you overcome the obstacles that muscle adhesions can put in your path.

Selling Services is the Heart of a Massage Therapy Business. But How do You Sell an Intangible Product?

I came across this book about 8 years ago but it did not speak to me then as it does now, I highly recommend this book to everyone who has a massage business and to anyone who wants to improve their services.

A Field Guide to Modern Marketing

Named one of the ten best business and management books of all time, Selling the Invisible: A Field Guide to Modern Marketing explores how markets work and how prospects for services–as distinguished from products–think. A treasury of strategies, Selling the Invisible will open your eyes to new ideas in this crucial branch of marketing, including:

• Myths of Marketing: Why focus groups, value-price positioning, discount pricing, and being the best usually fail.
• The Emotion that Matters: The critical emotion that most influences your prospects–and how to deal with it.
• Four Key Forces: The vital role of vividness, focus, “anchors,” and stereotypes.
• The Effect of Effects: The importance of Halo, Cocktail Party, and Lake Wobegon Effects.
• Lessons from Unexpected Places: Marketing lessons from black holes, grocery lists, the Hearsay Rule, and the fame of the Matterhorn.

The first guide of its kind, Selling the Invisible will help anyone marketing a service–as it has over 650,000 people worldwide, in 23 translations.

Please bookmark my blog posting and don’t forget to optin to my email feed if you haven’t already, thank you.

RPM-Therapy is conducting a case study on preventing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome with massage therapy. if you are an individual who has Carpal Tunnel Syndrome or other Repetitive Strain Injuries symptoms or you are a Massage Therapist/Bodyworker who has clients that are affected by CTS or RSI injuries, sign-in to my email optin list to subscribe for a CTS ebook coming soon.

By taking breaks, Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI) and Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) has been scientifically proven by Taft Laboratories of the National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health (NIOSH), to be the most successful prevention strategy that sufferers of these symptoms can implement.

The common thought amongst most computer users is that Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and other Repetitive Strain Injuries are primarily caused by computer use. RSI injuries are commonly caused by localized inflammation resulting from forceful and repetitive movements. Whereas, CTS injures are caused by postural dysfunction or compression on nerves as a result from inflammation. Computer use does require some repetitive movements but the force in which we keyboard is not forceful. to cause RSI, nor is using the computer necessarily going to cause inflammation directly.

Underlying Causes: The Hidden Factors

In your daily functions and the movements required to use your computer does not require you to use any force. But the primary reason why long hours on the keyboard, is harmful to us is the constant static strain that our fixated postures are held in for prolonged periods of time. Fixed focal concentration and sustained muscle tension, gripping the mouse and holding the phone to your ear and our diet is more damaging.

There are many more factors that will contribute to your RSI and CTS related injuries than using the computer, here is a list of some of them.

• A lack of sleep, causing muscle to fatigue faster.

• Women who are pregnant and who are menopausal

• Slouching posture

• Your genetics, relatively small carpal tunnel and wrist

• A poor diet and lack of water intake.

The Need for Breaks, how effective is it?

The common approach to repetitive strain injuries and CTS injures have been geared towards ergonomically positioning workers and their computers correctly, with very little effectiveness. The UK Institute of Occupational Medicine reported this after adjusting hundreds of workstations and adjusting for age and gender. They found that the single most key factor for developing symptoms of RSI was the amount of time spent on the computer without taking any breaks.

In the NIOSH study described above the authors looked at the effect of introducing supplementary breaks to a working regime which normally included only a couple of breaks each day. The conclusions was,

”In addition to their positive effects on ratings of musculoskeletal discomfort supplementary rest breaks also led to decreased levels of eye soreness and visual blurring”.

NIOSH also found that

“Increases in discomfort of the right forearm, wrist and hand over the course of the work week under the conventional schedule were eliminated under the supplementary schedule”.

A very important finding was that

“These beneficial effects were obtained without reductions in data- entry performance”.

In fact, it was found that there was actually a slight increase in work rate after the breaks which I would think would more than compensated for any time lost taking more breaks. So taking more breaks can increase your production at work, now all you got to do is to convince your boss of this, good luck.