Breast massage (yes, that’s right- for happy, healthy tatas!) is a beautiful therapeutic treatment for breast health that optimizes blood and lymphatic circulation. Unlike other areas of the female body, breast tissue has no internal muscle or joint motion to move your breasts and promote circulation. Tight clothing may also reduce your normal tissue motion, and poor posture may further reduce breast tissue circulation leading to pain and degenerative tissue change. Breast massage is recommended for tender and painful breasts, fibrocystic breast lumps and pain associated with menstrual cycles, breast discomfort and pain due to pregnancy, breastfeeding, weaning and mastitis, reducing scar tissue after diagnostic procedures, surgeries or breast trauma. This massage can also addresses surrounding muscular trigger points that refer pain to the breast, as well poor pectoralis major muscle tone following submuscular breast implant. The treatment includes education in self breast massage. Breast massage is a lovely compliment to your personal goal of becoming more comfortable with your sweet breasts. If you have breast pain, please consult with your primary health care provider first.

Manual lymphatic drainage is a deeply relaxing array of techniques designed to assist your lymphatic system’s optimal function. Lymph movement is vital for proper immune function, tissue repair and cellular health. Gentle, slow, rhythmic strokes lightly stretch your skin and lymph vessels in both a parallel and a perpendicular direction to encourage more efficient lymph fluid movement. Manual lymphatic drainage is ideal for your general wellness, pregnancy related edema, as well as pre- and post surgery and scar healing including immediately after Cesarean birth.

Medical massage therapy focuses on alleviating pain that accompanies medically diagnosed conditions with symptoms of soft tissue pain and dysfunction exacerbated by stress – rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases, migraines, and fibromyalgia just to name a few. Working closely with you and your primary health care provider, we focus on reducing your pain and stress with appropriately adapted massage therapy while improving your quality of life.

Myofascial release relieves soft tissue pain and increases range of motion and function. “Myo” means muscle, and fascia is the body’s beautiful continuous soft tissue web connecting your muscles, nerves, organs and bones running from head to toes. Stress, inflammation, scar tissue, injury, trauma and poor posture may cause restrictions in both your muscles and fascia, and because fascia is a continuous soft tissue web, myofascial restriction in one area of your body may affect other areas. Myofascial release tends to be slower in pace to find, isolate and mobilize adhesions between structures. Active and passive stretching techniques is often added to further restore your range of motion and soft tissue function. Learn more about fascia at Why Fascia Matters.

Neuromuscular therapy is an amazing and effective variety of techniques that can reduce your pain and restore optimal function to the neuromuscular system. Nerves control the contraction and stretch of muscles, and neuromuscular therapy focuses on interrupting painful nerve impulses and normalizing muscle tone and function with techniques including positional release, muscle energy techniques (post isometric relaxation and reciprocal inhibition), hydrotherapy (hot and cold water therapy) as well as myofascial release and trigger point therapy.

Swedish massage is the most popular style of massage therapy in the United States and was originally developed by Pehr Henrik Ling, a Swedish physiologist, in the early 1800’s. Swedish massage includes five basic strokes – effleurage (gliding strokes), petrissage (kneading and compression), tapotement (percussion), friction and vibration,  which are applied with oil or lotion to the skin and underlying soft tissues. Swedish massage can assist our body’s optimal function by increasing relaxation, increasing delivery of blood and oxygen, decreasing tension and reducing pain and inflammation in the soft tissues throughout the body.

Trigger point therapy developed by Dr. Janet Travell, is the use of deeper, static pressure to tender muscle fibers that relieves tension, pain and dysfunction. Trigger points are common and may be caused by injury, trauma, poor posture, overuse and other chronic physical and emotional stressors. Trigger points cause referred pain, numbness and tingling to another area of your body. A classic example of trigger point pain is temporal and frontal headache pain cause by trigger points in the nearby trapezius muscle of the neck and shoulders. Other examples include back pain caused by trigger points in the adjacent iliopsoas and abdominal muscles, and shoulder and arm pain caused by triggers points in the nearby muscles of the rotator cuff.