Hi, I’m Kye and this is my journey with Massage Therapy. When most people look at me, they see a typical 27-year-old Woman working as a freelance writer. I’m rather average in height, average in weight, and have no outward physical symptoms at all. Couple that with my generally optimistic personality and you have a typical Midwestern Woman. Minus the small detail of my 24/7 muscular and nerve pain. I’ll share my journey with this case of nerve pain and how massage therapy helped me.
The beginning of my story starts 14 years ago with an Ulnar Nerve Injury. Prior to that, I was a dedicated teenage golfer: even competing in tournaments and hoping for a future in golf. In a moment, a freak accident of hitting my ulnar nerve on a car door jam, turned life upside down. I used traditional physical therapy for my arm injury, and I re-injured the nerve easily after 6 months. Then the pain began. It started off as random moments of stabbing pain in my left ear. Then it grew more insistent.
Eventually…the pain became never ending. Anything, from headphones, to the wind, to water from the shower caused the stabbing pain and a dull insistent thrumming was always a reminder of the potential for worse. I went from Doctor to Doctor for over 8 months trying to figure out what was wrong. Drugs, shots, and even burning the nerve in a Radio Frequency Lesioning didn’t work. When asked, “How would you rate your pain today?” in a sing-song voice of dozens of Nurses, I would always say 8 and that’s a good day.
The time I reached over 10 on the pain scale I thought I was going to lose my mind. The pain was excruciating but the treatments were worse. The build-up of hope only to be dashed away again. One doctor said to do a spinal tap. Another wanted to put me on a 14-day morphine drip without my family: I was 15 at the time. Needless to say, I said no to those outliers, and we forged on.
Then, a Doctor finally listened to me. He did an MRI of my neck and found that I had a ball of muscle pressing down on my Occipital Nerve: the nerve that connects to your head, ear, and jaw. As it turned out, my muscles had seized when I first injured my arm and physical therapy was the treatment.
Finally, I had answers. I was so excited…then it stopped working. I was in physical therapy twice a week for over a year and still my pain only dialed down to a 6. Better than nothing and I could resume some daily activities. Yet, I didn’t want better than nothing. I wanted my life back! I wanted to remember a time without pain. With advice from an Integrative Medicine Doctor, I turned to Myofascial Release. That helped but still wasn’t right. I began bouncing around from hope to hope until I finally found Massage Therapy. It wasn’t a cure all, but it worked. My pain dropped to a 3 and I was relieved.
However, I found that some days and some Therapists were worse than others. Some even made my pain worse before I could find someone to make it better again. For years, I went around in a circle until I found someone who combined a bit of Myofascial stretching with Massage Therapy to potentially alleviate my nerve pain. More importantly, she was curious. Turns out, my muscles were so tight from years of trauma and pain that the standard procedures didn’t work on me.
Instead of being deterred, she strode on with determination to find any way to relieve my pain. She adjusted holds, went deeper in some areas and lighter in others, tried new things (so long as I was comfortable), and listened when I would say stop: something a few traditional therapists didn’t allow. I also learned that Massage Therapists attempt to reach the deeper levels of tissue. Instead of traditional methods of stretching, which aggravated my pain, they move with the muscle to make it release on a deeper level.
While I still have nerve pain, I have tried to promote my success with massage therapy as much as possible. I long for the day that I will be pain free but until then, I will continue down this journey. It is off the beaten path and there are many false starts: but if you look closely, you will eventually find someone who will help you. To those in similar pain, traditional physical therapy has a limit. Massage Therapists strive to get the muscles to release, instead of telling the patient to go in the corner and stretch for 20 minutes. The right ones will take the time to learn your body and what works for you. I recommend Massage Therapy for everyone. No matter your pain, I believe they will help you find relief.
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