Massage and Lower Back Pain

In the City of London where our clinic is located there are many centres that offer massage and apparently many workers who seek this type of care for a variety of ailments, my guess being that neck/shoulder and lower back pain are amongst the most common complaints that are treated.

Sitting at a desk all day in cramped postures is most certainly going to place the muscles of the neck/shoulder area under great strain. This is primarily due to the fact that they are working in a static manner – i.e. work without movement. No movement prevents the circulatory system from providing energy and removing waste products from the muscles which then begin to ache. The aching in turn results in additional muscle tension – and the vicious circle begins.

Massage – coupled with appropriate exercises – is probably the best therapy for conditions of this type. Neck/shoulder pain is likely the most common ailment amongst City workers.

Every syndrome will have a muscular component

There are certain conditions in which muscular pain is the primary source of pain – see above – and other conditions in which other tissues are the primary source of pain but will also result in increased muscle tension which will most often exacerbate the pain.

Examples include disc pain. Everyone has seen someone struggling down the street all bent over or looking like a question mark. Most people think that this is a muscular problem when in fact the most common cause is a disc issue. The brain instructs the body to minimise the amount of weight bearing that the injured area of the spine must carry and instructs the muscles to find a posture which minimises this weight. However, walking around in these postures is indeed going to negatively impact the muscles which in turn will add to the pain. So, while the disc issue must certainly be addressed forgetting about the muscles is not a good idea. Here is when appropriate massage therapy kicks in.

There is ample evidence that massage is a most useful treatment in lower back pain conditions, both sub-acute and chronic.

Multidisciplinary Care

At Broadgate Health Clinics we have a multitude of practitioners including chiropractors, physiotherapists, physicians, acupuncturists and so forth. We do NOT do a “one size fits all” form of therapy and regularly refer to one another as appropriate. All of us use our excellent massage services and cannot imagine running our clinic without this service.

Like all other professions, there are good, less good and poor therapists. We are delighted to have excellent and experienced massage therapy at our clinic and can highly recommend massage at Broadgate. It not only helps, but it feels good as well.