An existing client of mine would like me to massage her mother, who recently has been diagnosed with 3 herniated discs. she's been having back pain for around a year and is currently wearing a kind of brace or corset. her doctor is not advising surgery yet.
i've never encountered this problem before and would like advice from the forum on how to proceed ie. right questions to ask, if massage is appropiate, advice on massage techniques and areas etc.
thanks!
personally, I'd suggest that the lady see a chiropractor/osteopath first to treat the disc injury itself, with massage being appropriate once improvement starts becoming significant.
If she's wearing a brace already, that should tell you that the Dr is wanting as much stability in the area as possible, something that relaxed muscles would work against (although I personally disagree with this approach, it can be necessary short-term).
As a rule of thumb, I'd suggest chiro/osteo care until the pain has started centralising, bringing in massage and rehab at around the same point there. That's certainly what we tend to do here.
thanks for that. i've done some more reading around the subject and opinions differ [what's new]. however, as you make the valid point that her doctor has prescribed a brace I will err on the side of caution and leave well alone. personally i don't think light massage will do much harm, or cause much instability but as I have no experience with this condition I don't want to take any chances.
I agree that in all probability it wouldn't hurt (though it's unlikely to help at all until the neural irritation is removed). but there's still the risk that it would hurt; my advice was fairly rule-og-thumb advice, and I also have the advantage of working in an integrated way like that