Magnet therapy and self massage or massage therapist.

I am a licenced massage therapist in Washington State, retired to a homestead and I am active on magnet therapy forums. Therefore I started this subject to give a place for permies to ask questions on those topics.
I originally found permies.com because Ask.com said the question "Whitch is bettera scythe or a string trimmer/" needed to be answered. I have been here answering questions ever since. Yes if done correctly swinging a scythe is good for the spine. I call myself an Antalgic Posture Pain Specialist. Which means explaining why trying to avoid pain causes pain.
Reflex Posturology is what I call the science of it
Because I love answering questions my web sites have a form on most pages to ask questions. After 80 years I may have a good answer.

Hans, thanks for starting this thread!

My mother relies on a monthly massage to help with pain management, which isn't possible right now. She has some carpal tunnel, inflammatory arthritis, and one leg shorter/significantly weaker than the other due to an old break and surgeries. Her shoulders are very tight/sore most of the time, a lot of the tension seems to come from her bad leg. She uses a lot of heat and rolling on the floor on tennis balls in a sock to manage it, and is rather obsessed with good posture and ergonomics and good shoes with orthodics.

Having missed her monthly massage, she is in more pain than usual.

Do you have any suggestions for additional things she can do to manage through this time?

Catie, I am sure Hans can offer a better solution for your Mother than I can though these are my suggestions.

I believe in self massage.  I have a technique that I reed that horse therapists developed. I am sorry I don't know the name of it.  It uses small rounded massages with the fingers.  It has helped me tremendously.

I use it on my temples for headaches.

I have a knee that probably would have been replace years ago if I had seen a doctor.  When it gives me problems, which is almost every day, I use those small circular massages and the pain goes away for several days sometimes.

I have also found that 100% natural Magnesium Chloride bath flakes to be very helpful to use with the massages.  I dilute them 50/50 with water in a spray bottle.

I hope this helps and that Hans can offer some suggestions as well.

Catie George wrote:Hans, thanks for starting this thread!

My mother relies on a monthly massage to help with pain management, which isn't possible right now. She has some carpal tunnel, inflammatory arthritis, and one leg shorter/significantly weaker than the other due to an old break and surgeries. Her shoulders are very tight/sore most of the time, a lot of the tension seems to come from her bad leg. She uses a lot of heat and rolling on the floor on tennis balls in a sock to manage it, and is rather obsessed with good posture and ergonomics and good shoes with orthodics.

Having missed her monthly massage, she is in more pain than usual.

Do you have any suggestions for additional things she can do to manage through this time?

Thank you Anne Miller as you have found those are all effective tools to use.

Catie: A simple point t share with your mother is that pain is your body's message to the conscious brain that something has to be done different. All the tissues are in constant communication through the central nervous system and we are not conscious of the messages they are just responded to automatically. Her short leg if she is not wearing a compensating orthotic sends a message"I have not reached the ground yet.  The weak parts send a message when they can't take any more load or repetition. I am sure she is a very determined woman but if she has trained her mind to ignore these messages eventually they will be elevated to pain level to get her attention.
Touch is another form of communication with the conscious mind. When her therapist touches her brain pays attention and new programming is developed to deal with the overload. The tennis balls likewise send new messages about the tissue condition they are pressing on. It should not be a heavy pressure. The rule is a light pressure will have a profound effect, a moderate pressure has a moderating effect and a heavy pressure turns the message off. As mentioned turning the message of makes it louder the next time so should be used cautiously with the intention of changing the causing condition while it is off. Even more effective than rubbing with the fingers  as Anne mentioned or the balls is to hold them still on the tender spot and moving the armor leg listening to the messages for when the pain is less or goes away then rest in that position for 2 minutes to give the nervous sytem time to reprogram the muscle tension. I recommend The play balls sold at Walmart. The different sizes have different uses. I will cover that in another post because my inbox is full of other responses from permies.com.

Hey Hans,

Can you briefly explain to me what exactly magnet therapy and why it does what it does?  Maybe you already addressed this above, I might not be making the connection.

Thanks,

Eric

Eric Hanson wrote:Hey Hans,

Can you briefly explain to me what exactly magnet therapy and why it does what it does?  Maybe you already addressed this above, I might not be making the connection.

Thanks,

Eric

Magnets can be used give additional energy to electrons. The amount of energy in the electrons determines how elements arrange themselves in chemical reactions. Low energy levels in cells is a common part of illness.
Use the link in my signature line for more information.

Do you practice acupressure as well? I've been looking for a good source for a chart. Do you have a recommendation?

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Do you practice acupressure as well? I've been looking for a good source for a chart. Do you have a recommendation?

These are the links I have saved in my inbox https://acupressurecircle.com/
stress relief

Telletherapy
Though I am working on providing service by telephone and telleconferancing this post is about learning the intermediate skill Telletouch. Telle meaning at a distance.
Telletouch
A principle that you probably learned a long time ago is that every action requires an equalizing reaction.  We will take advantage of this to feel what is happening where it is hard to reach. but first we need to learn how to touch. An established principle of therapeutic touch is that a light touch has a profound effect, a moderate pressure has a moderate effect and heavy pressure turns response off temporally.
Practice for telletouch is to balance a nickle on a fingertip and try to keep it there without looking at it. Touch a finger from each hand on opposite sides of a barrier without looking and then look and see if they line up. These skills are valuable in every day life such as putting a nut on a bolt when you can not see it.
Now let us practice telletouch on our self. One of the most important reactions in our body is the movement that happens around our ears in response to movement in the hips. Not going int detail, It has to do with maintaining our balance and looking straight ahead while walking.
Are you ready to practice and start on a journey of discovery?  Find the point of cartilage at the center front of the ear and touch just in front of that light enough to just feel the point of the joint of the jaw under the skin. Are they in an equal position? One could be higher than the other one tilted in and the other out. Move the jaw slightly to feel how they move then without the teeth locked move the hips side to side and one forward while the other back. Do you feel a mirror motion under your finger tips? This is a reflection of the muscles that pull your legs together pulling on the pubic bone. Now add another point of touch at the same time touch the tips of your thumbs to the point of bone below and behind the ear lobs. This will mirror the motion of the top front corner of the pelvis, I use the term mirror because the chain of muscles pulling the hip up will pull down on the skull.
Practice walking slowly and carefully. can you get the motions to move equally and smoothly? If not you may have a protective posture pattern because of some injured place in your body. Such protective patterns cause over use of other parts of your body causing them to become sore requiring another protective pattern. That keeps multiplying until you hurt all over and get diagnosed with fibro myalgia syindrome Translation you have unexplained pain in muscles and connective tissue in eleven or more places on your body and that is making you hyper sensitive to potential pain signals.

Now let us apply this to your efforts to be a permaculturist. You are out in the field with your scythe  or hoe or rake and some place in your body starts to ache or has a pain with a certain position or motion. Doing the above routine may help you discover the protective action that is causing the problem. If you try to continue with proper motion The actual cause may manifest by sending a pain message to your conscious brain. Pain is the body's message to the conscious mind that you have to do something different. When you know the cause you can apply the correct treatment. often people come to me with a sore shoulder that relief from any treatment they have received only lasting a few hours. The actual cause was an old injury in the spine or an ankle. The protective pattern caused them to repeatedly swing the arm in an unnatural way causing repetitive use injury. Correcting the body's perception that old healed injury still needed protection permanently solved the shoulder problem.  

Hannah Smith wrote:Do you think this https://www.biomag.co.uk/portable-devices-home-care-magnetic-therapy/ can help for joint pain?

It uses electromagnetic pulses to stimulate the tissue. It has proven record of helping some people. People with adverse reactions to electromagnetic radiation will find it very distressing.   It is best to consult with your health care provider to match treatment to the type and cause of joint pain.