Shannon D. Stone, CMP

Paul Brown Massage Therapy Pain Relief Center in Sacramento is pleased to announce that 16 year veteran Certified Massage Practitioner, Shannon Stone, has joined our practice. Mr. Stone specializes in “Results Oriented Therapy” which makes him an ideal fit for the pain relief center.

Shannon attended the Healing Hands School of Holistic Health in Escondido, CA, and was the top graduate in his class. Mr. Stone has worked with professional athletes, bodybuilders, Hollywood actors and musicians. He uses his knowledge of anatomy and deep intuitive abilities to help clients achieve their bodywork goals.

Shannon is available for appointments on Sundays and Mondays and is happy and excited to be working at the Center.

“It felt good to be working here,” Shannon said after his first day of working.

Welcome to the Center, Shannon!  Here’s hoping your practice is long and fruitful.

Need a quick gift idea for the holidays, birthday, anniversary or whatever occasion is approaching? Well, look no further! An Instant Massage Gift Certificate is right for all occasions!

I have partnered with The Gift Card Cafe to sell instant gift certificates that you can either print out or email to your special someone!

Imagine the delight your special someone will feel when they see the gift certificate arrive!  And imagine how much more delighted they will be after they have received their massage.

Just click the “Buy Gift Certificates” link at the top of this page!

After four years of working with Instant Scheduling, I have moved to a new online scheduling system, Full Slate. The new system lets me embed the schedule into my website, so my new URL is http://paulbrown.net/book-now/ so if you have bookmarked my old system please update your bookmark, and while you’re at it, book a massage in my Sacramento Massage Studio!

Summer Activities are a perfect reason to book a massage!

As Summer’s golden glow continues to warm us, the allure of the outdoors beckons, and we get more physically active.  Hiking, swimming, boating, kayaking, camping, softball and other team sports – all of these things are great fun, and we all want to be the best shape we can be to participate, right?

Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork is the perfect complement to all this outdoor fun!  By helping to relax your body, improving the range of motion in your shoulders, hips, back, neck, you are more pain-free and able to enjoy life more!  And who doesn’t want to do that?

Book a Massage Session Now, and Get Outdoors and Enjoy Life!

So many clients come and see me with low back pain. One of the common factors between clients is a sedentary job – long hours spent sitting in front of a computer.  If you’re like them, you might have some low back pain, too.

While it sure does feel good to have one’s low back massaged – I know I enjoy having done to me, too – very often the culprit to that low back pain isn’t the back muscles, but the hip flexors.  The hip flexors? I can hear you asking that question.

But yes, and specifically, the iliacus and psoas (pronounced “so-az”) major muscles, collectiviely called the iliopsoas, the deepest muscles in the body.  The job of the iliopsoas muscles is to flex the hip, which is what happens every time we take a step.  Since the legs can be heavy, these muscles need to be very strong.

You can see in the illustration that the psoas major (and in about half the population, psoas minor) attaches on to the front surface of the lumbar vertebra, travels down through the ilium before attaching on the femur at the lesser trochanter.

Why the hip flexors?

Our bodies adapt to the situation in which we put them.  If you sit all day, you are keeping your hip flexors in a shortened state.  Sitting position is nearly fully flexed for these muscles.  So, the body adapts to this situation and starts to “think” that short is the normal state.  The problem with this is when you have to stand up – the muscle starts to lengthen and the body wants to return the psoas to it’s “normal” state – shortened.  Meanwhile, the erector spinae muscles in the back, which extend the spine, keeping it upright, are contracting to get the body to stand up.  The iliopsoas and the erector spinae muscles get into a tug of war within your body, and the back muscles usually lose this battle, and ouch!  Back pain.

Release the KrakenPsoas

This is where skilled bodywork can really help.  The massage therapist works from the front, slowly massaging deep into the hip toward the navel.  The massage therapist coaches the client in breathing and works out the tension in the iliopsoas muscles.  As these are the deepest muscles in the body, and there are many structures, like bursae, lymph nodes, the intestines and the femoral artery very near to the psoas, this work is performed only by therapists with training in releasing the psoas.

Releasing the hip flexors is one of the most important strategies in relieving and eliminating low back pain.

Book Now with Paul Brown Massage Therapy Pain Relief Center Today!

Sciatica… just hearing the name evokes a sympathetic shudder.  That deep pain in the buttocks that radiates like burning lightning down the leg to the knee (and sometimes into the calf).  It’s a fairly common pain with people, and there are several causes, and and fortunately a number of treatments that can really help relieve, manage, or even eliminate sciatic pain.  Let’s talk about it!

Sciatic Nerve

Sciatic Nerve from Gray's Anatomy

The sciatic nerve starts in the Lumbar and Sacral parts of the spine in the lowest part of the back.  It travels laterally from the sacrum out into the posterior hip deep to the piriformis muscle.   The sciatic supplies nearly the whole of the skin of the leg, the muscles of the back of the thigh, and those of the leg and foot.  As you can see in the drawing to the left, the sciatic nerve travels out into the buttock and down the thigh to the knee, where it splits into the tibial and common peroneal nerves.  I’ll write about them in another entry.

Anyway, the sciatic nerve is huge – about as thick as your thumb, and when it becomes impinged or pinched, the results can be quite arresting.  Pain like a deep burning, throbbing ache deep in the buttocks, sometimes with paralyzing burning, electrical pain down the thigh.   I’ve seen firsthand what a sciatic attack looks like when the leg become paralyzed, and it looks like one of the most intense pains to have to endure.  It’s no wonder that so many people with sciatic pain often resort to powerful pain killers.

What causes Sciatica?

There are a number of possible causes of sciatic pain

• Piriformis Syndrome
• Spinal disc herniation/compression
• Pregnancy
• Spinal Stenosis
• Trigger Points
• Behavior

Let’s talk behavior first.  Sitting on a wallet can eventually lead to entrapment of the sciatic nerve beneath the buttocks, pinching the nerve by the piriformis muscle.  This is easily prevented by not carrying your wallet in your back pocket, and especially not sitting on it.  Also, standing for long periods at a time or carrying a heavy tool or utility belt can also cause sciatic pain.  Sometimes standing or wearing a belt will make the pain seem to come behind the knee, as the biceps femoris muscle become hypercontracted and traps the sciatic nerve in the thigh.  These are the most preventable forms of sciatic pain, as they can be mitigated by behavioral changes.

So I’ll just say this to my male readers:  STOP WEARING YOUR WALLET IN YOUR BACK POCKET!  There, I feel better already.

Next up, Piriformis Syndrome.  About 15 percent of the population has a sciatic nerve that runs through the piriformis muscle instead of beneath it.  These people are more likely to get sciatic pain because the muscle surrounds the nerve instead of sits atop it.  In these cases, release the tension in the piriformis muscle can be very helpful it managing the likelihood of sciatic pain.  And for them, it’s even more important to not wear a wallet in the back pocket.

If we look at the drawing to the right, we can see the piriformis in relation to the other deep muscles in the buttock.  Which the piriformis, which means pear-shaped in Latin, is the most important muscle relating to sciatic pain, the other lateral hip rotators – the deep six, as they are sometimes called, can also be implicated in sciatic pain.  These small but mighty muscles can become very tight and make it difficult for the sciatic nerve to glide along its pathway during movement.

When a spinal disc is compressed or herniated, the material that makes up the disc can bulge out and compress on the root of the nerve, which can send pain shooting down the nerve.  Twisting while bending and lifting is a common way to injure vertebral discs, so it’s critically important to be mindful of how we lift or otherwise use our backs.  Also, losing weight if one is overweight will put less compressive force on the spinal discs and will help to relieve the potential for sciatic pain.

Trigger points, which you might think of as knots in the muscles, in the low back and deep hip muscles like the quadratus lumborum in the back, the piriformis or gluteus minimus muscles in the hips can cause sciatic nerve pain because of how they distort the surrounding tissues – the QL muscle attaches to the top of the hip, the lumbar vertebrae, and the floating rib, and when it’s tight, it can cause the vertebrae to be compressed to the side of that muscle, which in turn can cause impingement of the sciatic nerve.  The piriformis or gluteus minimus muscles can also cause the nerve to compress, referring pain in the buttocks and down the leg.

In each of these situations, receiving deep, focused massage can help manage and even eliminate signs and symptoms of sciatic pain.  When muscles are relaxed and at their full resting length, greater space is opened up for the sciatic nerve to reside and the nerve can be untrapped and unimpinged, which in turn will allow for any inflammation of the nerve or its sheath to be relieved.

You don’t have to be in pain!

I am very experienced in relieving sciatic pain, and have developed through my years of practicing massage a highly effective treatment protocol for clients.  While each clients is unique, and all treatment sessions are tailored for your specific needs, knowing where to apply bodywork brings the best result for you, the client.

Wouldn’t you rather get on with your life instead of sitting on the sidelines, trapped by sciatica?

Call me now at 916-534-8772 for my Sacramento Massage Pain Relief Center – or book online now!

I started my massage practice back in April of 2003, and was nervous and excited about the possibilities of starting a new career. Now seven years later, I have you, my wonderful clients to thank for my practice. Thank you!

Book Your Session Now!

I was approached by the cancer website,  mesothelioma.com, to do a link exchange, and they provided this article on how massage therapy can work  to provide relief to cancer patients.

From their article:

In recent years the role of alternative therapies in cancer care has transformed the way many patients cope with illness and related side effects. An older paradigm suggested that cancer could only be effectively treated with traditional treatments like surgical resection, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. Many patients refused this notion and sought alternative therapies outside of their treatment regimen not were not only relaxing but eased side-effects associated with traditional treatment regimens, including those caused y chemotherapy drugs.

Today, not only patients but also the medical establishment recognizes the importance of alternative therapies, and particularly the importance of massage therapy in comprehensive cancer care. Massage, like most alternative cancer therapies, is most effective when used in conjunction with traditional treatments.

Massage is unique in alternative cancer therapy because it is able to remedy feelings of isolation that many patients battling a difficult disease encounter. The experience of human contact is particularly important when facing a difficult diagnosis and massage can provide that unique experience to cancer patients, who often succumb to feelings of being overwhelmed by the nature of their diagnosis, family implications, and other difficulties associated with cancer treatments.

Often, the most valuable treatments to patients battling a difficult diagnosis are those which can allow the patient to be as comfortable as possible. Patients battling aggressive cancers, such as mesothelioma, often forgo traditional treatments which will put their body through a great deal of stress and discomfort in favor of those such as massage, which provide peace of mind and comfort. Patients undergoing chemotherapy often find that treatments which are able to relax their mind and body, will dramatically lessen side effects like nausea, restlessness, and fever.

As with any treatment, massage therapy may or may not benefit a particular patient’s treatment regimen. However, given the positive experience many patients have benefited from, it is certainly worth exploring. Maximizing your cancer treatment with cooperation between patient, family, and physician will allow patients to live longer, healthier, and be more comfortable, which is the goal of all comprehensive therapies.

In the course of my practice as a massage therapist and health educator, I have worked closely with several people undergoing treatment for various forms of cancer.  It’s one of the reasons I love my work so much – to see the profound relief that massage can provide to people undergoing these intense treatments.  Helping people feel better satisfies on a deep level of human experience.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=111145764444761934402.0004626e9f8031f76956c&z=16

When the first cable car went over Nob Hill in 1878, the development of Pacific Heights, the ridge across the Polk-Van Ness Valley, soon followed…

- Adah Bakalinsky

12 July 2009
11:00 – 15:00
Meet at corner of Broadway and Baker Street

This 2.2-mile stroll will take us through some of the most spectacular and architecturally diverse neighborhood. And did I mention the views? Oh, yeah, the views from Pacific Heights are some of the most amazing in San Francisco. And there are stairways, too!

RSVP on the Evite!

Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) is an inflammatory condition of the spine and other parts of the body, related to various arthritis conditions. It affects men 3:1 over women, and generally starts within second or third decade of life. Its initial symptoms typically include pain and inflammation in the hips and low back caused from inflammation of the sacroiliac joint. Over time, this inflammation can lead to fusion of the SI joints, as well as fusion of vertebrae, resulting in the inability to bend the spine and pain and loss of range of motion, sometimes known as “bamboo spine.” Also, AS can affect other organs of the body, including the liver and kidneys and eyes (iritis). In women, AS can start in non-vertebral joints, or the cervical spine instead of the sacral or lumbar spine. The inflammation often leads to a flattening out of the lumbar spine, which has the tendency to make the curvature in the upper spine become more pronounced, causing the person with AS to look hunched over, or looking down all the time. Extending the spine becomes increasingly difficult. This increased curvature of the thoracic and cervical spine collapses the chest cavity, decreasing lung capacity and making breathing more difficult and shallow.

Medical treatment for AS typically involves the administering of NSAIDS (asprin, ibruprofen, etc), physiotherapy, and prescribed exercise (typically swimming and breathing exercises). Firm mattresses and thin pillows, encouraging patients to sleep on their back to increase spinal extension are also recommended.

A client in his mid-30s diagnosed from childhood with Ankylosing Spondylitis came to me recently seeking relief from his back pain and to try to regain some flexibility. He has lost appoximately 40% of the range of motion in his spine. He works and has a relatively normal life, but doesn’t enjoy swimming, so has little physical activity outside of normal life activities.

My goal for him is going to be to work on lengthening the hip flexors (iliopsoas), and spinal flexor muscles (rectus abdmoninus, sternocleidomastoids, etc), as well as work on relaxing spinal extensor muscles. AS sets up a serious tug of war between the spine and the muscles that move it, and the increased flexing of the spine causes chronic shortening of the flexor muscles, which cause the extensors to have to compensate by increasing contraction to maintain as upright posture as they can.

So, our first session was performed in sidelying and supine positions, and focused on relaxing the erector spinae muscle group, some work in the sacral ligaments, then work in opening up the chest with work in the pectoralis major and minor to assist in increasing chest capacity.

At the end of the session, client was observed to have slighly improved range of motion in spinal extension. Client also reported that he felt some of his kidney stones start to move during the session, and later that evening he passed three stones. Kidney stones are not uncommon with people who have AS.

Recommended to the client a start of regular bodywork sessions to improve range of motion and pain relief.

Current Mood:  amused