Registered Massage Therapists: Symptom Vs. Root Cause
Symptom Vs. Root Cause
Have you have had an injury, or dealt with chronic pain, and worked with a Registered Massage Therapist? If so, you may have heard the term “Symptom” Vs “Root cause”. You may have received treatment in a different area than where your symptoms reside. Did you find it frustrating, to receive treatment in one area of the body, when another is screaming out in pain? The goal of this article is to shed some light on how symptom and root cause are connected.
An injury, or area that has been inflamed, will tend to develop less mobile fascia tissue, as part of the healing process. Through time, this area may become an area we tend to pivot and move around, rather than through. In this way, a strongly gathered area can set an imbalance in motion, as a less mobile area will pull surrounding areas toward itself, leading to stretched, stressed, compensating tissue near by.
Gathered compressed tissue often does not cause pain. Stretch, distortion, and compensation created by the pull of a gathered area, does tend to cause pain. The body, muscle in particular, is not designed to be held in a stretched position. A stretched, distorted muscle will send a signal to the central nervous system that it is in trouble.
In this way, the pain is not always where the symptom lies. The root might be a hidden, less painful, gathered compressed area. The stretched, painful area that is sore from chronic compensation, will remain stretched, and will only have temporary relief from being treated with massage. It will remain in a purgatory state until the area forcing it into a chronic compensation is finally addressed.
This concept is one of the basic principles of manual fascial approaches to pain in the body. Maybe this explanation will help you relax into the process of uncovering and softening / releasing a hidden less mobile area in the body in your body.
Many of the Vancouver Registered Massage Therapists at Broadway Wellness use an approach of assessing and treating underlying causes of pain. You can read more about them here.
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Broadway Wellness is a Integrated Health Care Clinic focused around a core group of Vancouver Registered Massage Therapists. We also offer Naturopathic Medicine, Registered Acupuncture, and Reflexology, in an expansive clinic on West Broadway and Willow, overlooking False Creek. Click Here to Book an Appointment.