Nerve Mobilization Massage, Santa Barbara, Goleta, Ca

What is nerve mobilization?
 
Nerve mobilization is a therapy used to find the pain that is caused by the compression of certain nerves in the body. Sciatica is a common condition that forms as a result of compression on the sciatic nerve.

Does massage help with nerve damage? 
 
Massage therapy may be beneficial for patients with nerve damage or tingling and burning sensations in the skin, hands, and feet. Caregivers may administer massage therapy, but a trained therapist can be more effective in pinpointing the proper areas and using the right amounts of pressure.
 
What type of massage is best for neuropathy?

Connective Tissue Massage or Fascial Stretch – Connective tissue massage involves working with the body’s fascia, or soft tissue, to relieve pain, stiffness, and discomfort. Connective tissue massage (CTM) is a manipulative technique that facilitates the diagnosis and treatment of a wide range of pathologies. Observation and subsequent manipulation of the skin and subcutaneous tissues can have a beneficial effect upon tissues remote from the area of treatment. These effects appear to be mediated by neural reflexes that cause an increase in blood flow to the affected region together with suppression of pain. CTM is becoming accepted more widely as research confirms the claims of an expanding population of practitioners.
 
Is tingling a sign of nerve healing?
 
It is important to differentiate this tingling from the pain sometimes produced by pressure on an injured nerve. The pain is a sign of irritation of the nerve; tingling is a sign of regeneration; or more precisely, tingling indicates the presence of young axons, in the process of growing. Each neuron in your brain has one long cable that snakes away from the main part of the cell. This cable, several times thinner than a human hair, is called an axon, and it is where electrical impulses from the neuron travel away to be received by other neurons. A neuron typically has one axon that connects it with other neurons or with muscle or gland cells. Some axons may be quite long, reaching, for example, from the spinal cord down to a toe.
 
Is Deep heat good for nerve pain?
Nerve Pain

It’s best to use cold when the pain is still sharp and move on to heat once that sharpness has subsided. The heat will increase blood flow and help tissues heal faster.
 
 
How do you calm down neuropathy?
The following suggestions can help you manage peripheral neuropathy:
  1. Take care of your feet, especially if you have diabetes. …
  2. Quit smoking. …
  3. Eat healthy meals. …
  4. Massage. …
  5. Avoid prolonged pressure. …
  6. Set priorities. …
  7. Acceptance & Acknowledgement. …
  8. Find the positive aspects of the disorder.
How bad can neuropathy get?
 
If left untreated, neuropathy can gradually damage more nerves and cause permanent damage. As a result, a person may suffer from foot ulcers and other complications that can cause serious bacterial infections or lack of blood flow. This, in turn, leads to Gangrene, or the complete death of body tissue.
Neuropathy is damage or dysfunction of one or more nerves that typically results in numbness, tingling, muscle weakness, and pain in the affected area. Neuropathies frequently start in your hands and feet, but other parts of your body can be affected too.
 
What are the signs of nerve damage?
The signs of nerve damage include the following:
  • Numbness or tingling in the hands and feet.
  • Feeling like you’re wearing a tight glove or sock.
  • Muscle weakness, especially in your arms or legs.
  • Regularly dropping objects that you’re holding.
  • Sharp pains in your hands, arms, legs, or feet.

 

What does neuropathic pain feel like?
The pain is usually described as a burning sensation and affected areas are often sensitive to the touch. Symptoms of neuropathic pain may also include excruciating pain, pins and needles, difficulty correctly sensing temperatures, and numbness.
 
What is the best painkiller for neuropathy?
 
The main medicines recommended for neuropathic pain include:
  • amitriptyline – also used for the treatment of headaches and depression.
  • duloxetine – also used for the treatment of bladder problems and depression.
  • pregabalin and gabapentin – also used to treat epilepsy, headaches, or anxiety.
 
What is the best vitamin for nerve damage?
 
1. B vitamins for neuropathy
  • B vitamins are useful in treating neuropathy since they support healthy nervous system function. …
  • Supplementation should include vitamin B-1 (thiamine and benfotiamine), B-6, and B-12. …
  • A deficiency in vitamin B-12 is one cause of peripheral neuropathy.

 

Nerve Mobilization Massage

Therapists use a variety of movements to assess for sites of irritation. Sometimes patients may test negative, but this does still not rule out nerve irritation, in these cases, a more refined assessment along the entire path of the involved nerve may be needed.

Neurovascular bundles may be exposed to mechanical irritation at many different points. Prolonged irritation may result in the release of inflammatory mediators, known as “inflammatory soup”. 

In some cases of peripheral nerve, inflammation may contribute to ongoing symptoms without overt nerve damage. In these cases, five minutes of passive mobilization may help to diminish intraneural edema and/or pressure (Boudier-Revéret et al. 2017). This will have a modulatory effect on peripheral and central processes.

In longer standing cases the development of fibrosis may contribute to peripheral nerve dysfunction. If implemented early the application of manual therapy may attenuate tissue fibrosis and restore motility of peripheral nerves (Bove et al. 2016).

There is a fair bit of research to support the use of nerve mobilizations for musculoskeletal pain. Furthermore, a biopsychosocial framework of manual therapy helps put into context the interconnected and multidirectional interaction between physiology, thoughts, emotions, behaviors, culture, and beliefs.

Neural Mobilization

Precision Neural Mobilization is an approach to identifying and treating various mechanical disorders of the nervous system.

When a compression or entrapment occurs, whether acute or chronic, edema and fibrosis are two of the most common consequences.

When nerves are exposed to fibrosis they lose their necessary capacity and capabilities to slide, bend and move around and through the various bodily tissues in which they traverse.

When a nerve loses this ability to move, it becomes subject to the further insult of compression and traction during normal everyday movement.

When this happens, these are precisely the people that come to our office requesting our help.

Neural Compression

Precision Neural Mobilization is about identifying what movements and postures are putting these irritable nerves on stress and showing your clients how to reduce these loads at home through either positioning or self “flossing” procedures.

The technique is also about teaching the therapist the most effective and safe methods of restoring the lost relative movement between the nerves and their bodily interface, thus restoring their function and physiology.

The symptoms that these clients will come in with a will, on the surface, present in the exact same way as other common muscular issues.

One way to determine the difference is to properly identify a neural compression or entrapment issue through assessments taught in the Precision Neural Mobilization intensive.

What makes this essential in the clinic is that the procedures for treating a muscular disorder will make a neural disorder, almost always, worse.

And what’s even more frustrating about this, is that by the nature of many neural issues, the response will be delayed, so the client may describe feeling looser or possibly more relaxed following a session only to have the complaint come on worse that night or just return unchanged the next day.

From investigators R.F. Ellis and W.A. Hing: “It is vital that the nervous system is able to adapt to mechanical loads, and it must undergo distinct mechanical events such as elongation, sliding, cross-sectional change, angulation, and compression.

“If these dynamic protective mechanisms fail, the nervous system is vulnerable to neural edema, ischemia, fibrosis, and hypoxia, which may cause altered neurodynamics.

“When neural mobilization is used for the treatment of adverse neurodynamics, the primary theoretical objective is to attempt to restore the dynamic balance between the relative movement of neural tissues and surrounding mechanical interfaces, thereby allowing reduced intrinsic pressures on the neural tissue and thus promoting optimum physiologic function. “The hypothesized benefits from such techniques include facilitation of nerve gliding, reduction of nerve adherence, dispersion of noxious fluids, increased neural vascularity, and improvement of axoplasmic flow.”

Neural Mobilization is Different From Other Types of Bodywork

Precision Neural Mobilization is highly focused on the mechanisms of injury and the precise methods of treating them in a graded manner with the patient’s disorder irritability in mind, as well as all other factors associated with the specific and individual behavior of their complaint.

Neural Mobilization has shown a definite and specific effect to identify neural issues such as carpal tunnel syndrome, sciatica, and tarsal tunnel syndrome.

In one study, after subcategorizing patients with low back pain and sciatica, they were all treated with procedures of neural mobilization.

As is common and expected with all sorts of interventions, all of the subcategories had some patients receiving positive results from the intervention.

What was unique and noteworthy was that the group that was determined to have symptoms predominately from peripheral nerve sensitivity responded with approximately a five-fold better success rate than the other back pain and sciatica groups.

Soft tissue injuries, such as strains and sprains, are common. Soft tissues are different kinds of cells that surround and support your organs and skeletal system. They include your:

  • skin
  • fat
  • muscles
  • nerves
  • tendons
  • ligaments
  • cartilage
  • fascia
  • synovial membranes
  • blood vessels

Soft-tissue mobilization therapy is used to treat some kinds of soft tissue injuries. It’s a type of manual therapy. Some people believe it can help:

  • relax tense muscles
  • reduce scar tissue
  • stretch fascia
  • lengthen fascia

Research on mobilization therapy is limited.

What are soft tissue injuries?

Soft tissue injury is an umbrella term. It covers any type of injury to your soft tissues. Common types include:

  • sprains
  • strains
  • contusions
  • tendonitis
  • bursitis
  • stress injuries

These injuries usually affect your muscles, tendons, or fascia. Fascia is the connective tissues that surround, connect, or support your:

  • muscles
  • organs
  • bones
  • blood vessels
  • nerves

Soft tissue injuries often occur when your muscles are abnormally tense. Your muscles work by tensing, contracting, and then relaxing. They get shorter when they contract, which moves the part of the skeletal system they’re attached to. If they don’t relax completely, it can lead to problems, including:

  • pain
  • muscle weakness
  • a restricted range of motion
  • misalignment of your skeletal system

Other soft-tissue injuries occur due to trauma. For example, you can twist your ankle or pull a tendon in your groin.

What types of injuries are treated with mobilization therapy?

Some people believe that mobilization therapy is useful for treating certain problems that can affect your upper and lower extremities, as well as neck and back pain.

Potential problems in your upper extremities include:

  • tennis elbow
  • golf elbow
  • carpal tunnel syndrome
  • tendinitis of your biceps or rotator cuff
  • a contracture

Potential problems in your lower extremities include:

  • tendinitis of your heel or knee
  • a strain or tear in your quadriceps tendon
  • an ankle or knee sprain
  • shin splints
  • plantar fasciitis
  • Morton’s neuroma
  • hip pain
Other Resources:

https://www.jospt.org/doi/full/10.2519/jospt.2017.7117

https://www.healthline.com/health/what-is-soft-tissue-mobilization-therapy

https://www.verywellhealth.com/scar-tissue-massage-and-management-2696639



Therapeutic Swedish Massage, Sports Massage Therapy in Santa Barbara, Goleta

*Disclaimer: This information is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat a health problem or disease without consulting with a qualified healthcare provider.
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