The Doctor and Captain Janeway (Star Trek Voyager)

In a scene on the episode of Star Trek Voyager called "Scientific Method" we see the doctor making a .......cabin call with his massage table....let's look in:

The Doctor: "Your trapezius is as hard as a rock! You haven't been following the relaxation regiment I prescribed for you"
Captain:"I've been too busy"
The Doctor: "The usual story, have you been getting enough sleep?"
Captain:"More or less, mostly less"
The Doctor: "....and have your headaches been getting any worse?"
Captain:" No, but they haven't been getting any better they're like hot needles driving into my skull"
The Doctor:" Your symptoms are hardly surprising captain you work absurdly long hours, under constant stress, eating on the run without sufficient exercise or rest; your body is crying out for mercy!"
Captain: "It certaintly is right now!  There must be some easier way to do this doctor, a hypo spray maybe?"
The Doctor: "Always looking for the simple fix, sometimes there's no substitute for intensive osteopathic pressure therapy.  You're fortunate enough to have a masseur who can work all day without tiring!

Sound familiar?  Now granted, the crew of Voyager had invisible aliens that were conducting science experiments on  them and Janeway did indeed have needles coming out of her head but the symptoms are real, common, and plague us today.  Unfortunately, there are no "masseurs" who can work all day without tiring but wouldn't that be lovely?  We do however have wonderful massage therapists who are always looking to relieve their clients of the inconvenience that we all share of...well.....living......especially in this cutthroat economy. 

Now the trapezius muscle as seen here is a great culprit of severe headaches.  Notice how the upper traps go all the way to the occiput (base of the skull).  This muscle is responsible for helping you to remain erect, hold your head from drooping, pulling your arms back and down.  Now imagine if you are always doing that, all the time like sitting at a computer all day, or hunched over a desk.  What great headaches will occur then if the muscle never has a chance to relax.  On the right side of the picture we have rhomboids and levator scapula which also assist in the retraction and rasing of the scapula.  It is no wonder that while getting the back massaged you can feel it in the head.  The "relaxation regiments" the doctor thus prescribed can be incredibly useful to clients in between their massage sessions which, I might add, should be regular (once a week to once a month max)  We silence our body when it tries to tell us of its need because we feel we need to work more or workout more to the point of damaging it with cancer or unreparable tissue damage, bone splints, seized musculature and driving it to the point of being useless to us before a normal age.  When all one needs to do is get a massage! I'll talk about some relaxation and stress management tips in my next blog.  In the meantime........get a massage!

Client Profile: Aaron Cross (Bourne Legacy)

So this client comes in the office complaining of severe chills, fever, people chasing him, a doctor he's trying to protect and something about missing pills.  He also mentions that this doctor wants to infuse the effects of the missing pills  into his body by gene-doping via a viral delivery system.  Apparently this was done to him before with another colored pill against his knowledge and it let to him being violently ill for some time.  Should Mr. Cross get this new viral therapy this on-the-run doctor is proposing to him?  What exactly is viral delivery anyway?  Well let's see:

For the first time roles are reversed and viruses get hijacked while the pertinent information gets inserted.  The virus then makes its way on to the cells it will then infect depositing the new information that will pretty much infest the whole cell. 
Now I am no scientist, to be sure, but I would think that anything that is delivered virally will exhibit what this poor Mr. Cross was complaining about which were flu-like symptoms although most flus don't cause people to be chased by local and hidden authorities.  But what was Mr. Cross after?  What was the gene-doping supposed to accomplish?  Can massage help?

Physical and mental prowess, above normal stamina and intellect, super-soldier attributes, think quick....act faster!  Sound like a mind-body connection anyone?  And when do you achieve that more than a great work out using total body systems engagement like weight-bearing exercises that include having to use hand-eye coordination like tennis, basketball, boxing, jumping rope and then getting the body ready for the next day's physical trauma with a stress reduction massage!  Now if Treadstone had a Hollistic Health package for its employees, maybe they wouldn't have to keep trying to eliminate them! 

Batman loses cartiage, can massage help?

So I saw the movie "The Dark Knight Rises" on Friday night.  In it, Eccentric Billionaire Bruce Wayne, as he is often titled, had gone missing from the public eye for about 8 years.  When he finally decides to make a re-appearance, he goes to see his doctor who tell him, among a whole list of problems, that he also has a total loss of cartilage in the knee joints and somewhere else I forgot. 

Does Batman do the right things to help himself along?  Let's see: What can help Batman?

Weight reduction:  Bruce puts on what I'm sure is a heavy suit and runs around the city

Avoiding excessive stress on the joints:  Kicking in people's faces, climbing rock walls with no support, and helping out catwoman-no good there

Physical and Occupational therapy: gets sent to an underground jail and Alfred leaves him citing craziness!  Oh but there was a doctor in the jail so I guess that's ok

Wearing mechanical support device: mechanical knee aid given him by the good Morgan Freeman so he can kick walls in?.......ding ding ding! 

Of course he will just have to come in for pain management through massage, exercise education and range of motion exercises done at home.

Holistic Health: an inevitability? Yup!

"The words "diet, exercise, and stress management" roll off the tongue so easily that one can learn to ignore them.....Even in the recent past prevention was focused on recognized lifestyle disorders like Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, but now it is becoming clear that the body as a whole is being affected....In short, holistic health has become inevitable. A piecemeal approach to wellness doesn't fit how your body works. It is no longer "alternative" medicine that concerns itself with broad issues of holistic wellness. The need is universal, and the sooner we begin to lay down practical guidelines for living holistically, the closer we will come to higher health."- Deepak Chopra

After reading this article I could almost hear all of the holistic health care enthusiasts and Naturapathic Doctors go "well duh".  It's a shame that only now the western world is figuring out that everything you do affects your whole body and therefore it takes the health of the whole body to deliver a change in the ailing part.  Noone wants healing to come by and visit every now and then but rather have the intention of moving in on a permament basis even if it does go out every now and then.  But that doesn't happen when the body is at war with itself and constantly attacks its own family members, I mean would you want to move in with a family that was at war with itself?

From a massage perspective, healing can be easy, painless and mutually beneficial to both client and practitioner.  While it can increase circulation, increase lymph flow that helps with immune system response, and help with a variety of physical limitations, it can also help counteract the negative effects of stress and anxiety. Lots and lots more on this later........

Get a massage today!