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What is Remedial Massage?

This question is actually not that easy to answer! When I was a student studying for the Diploma of Remedial Massage, I asked several lecturers to give me a definition of Remedial Massage. It seemed to take them aback, as this is what they were teaching, yet they could not define it!
If you Google ''Remedial Massage wikipedia' you will note there isn't an entry. The closest is Medical Massage. In Australia we call it Remedial Massage, everywhere else in the world calls it Medical Massage!

There are many benefits of a relaxing massage. However, people generally come to me because they have aches, pains, headaches, migraines, stress, poor posture. Remedial massage endeavours to address the specific issues you have, yet in a holistic way.

Which conditions can Remedial Massage help with?

In general terms, if aches and pains are caused by tight muscles and other soft tissue, I aim to lengthen these tissues in order to:

• Reduce discomfort to 3 or less out of ten by the end of the session

• Increase range of motion at selected joints of interest, eg to be able to turn head further and more freely without discomfort or to bend the knee further

• Improve posture

More specifically, Remedial Massage can assist with many more conditions than most people would suppose. Remedial Massage can help with:

• Relieving and preventing headaches and migraines

• Golfer's Elbow

• Tennis Elbow

• Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

• Plantar Fasciitis

• Knee pain and inflexibility

• Frozen Shoulder

• Sciatica

• Jaw problems (TMJ dysfuction

• and much more besides!

Can you claim health fund rebates?

I have a Hicaps machine which processes claims for ALL health funds, including the ADF Family Health Card. You have to pay the gap fee, which can be done with EFTPOS, PayID or cash. The bank's are profit gouging like Qantas with their merchant's fees for HICAPS and EFTPOS transactions, so PayID and cash have the advantages that I don't pay merchant fees and I get the money straightaway! Many people use a digital health fund card on their phone these days. Should you not have your card, I ask you to pay the full amount and issue a receipt for you to claim back yourself. Most health funds have an app to allow you to do this. The exception is Medibank and its subsidiary, AHM, which require a computer generated receipt which I email to you. Moral here? Please bring your health fund card with you!

When is massage not appropriate?

The fancy name for reasons not to have a massage is contraindications.

Some contraindications include:

• Colds and flu

• And Covid!

• Uncontrolled high blood pressure. If high blood pressure is being controlled, massage can actually help reduce blood pressure by improving blood flow and circulation.

• Blood clots

• Some prescription medications

• Advanced diabetes

• Flareups of certain conditions. Ok to massage if you have rheumatoid arthritis as long as it is in remission, for example, but not in the middle of a flare up.

What is craniosacral therapy?

This therapy is based on the cranium, the sacrum and what lies between, the spine and the spinal chord. I studied Craniosacral Therapy in 2005. I have tweaked and improved this technique over the years and call my vastly modified and more effective version 'CranioDural Therapy'

The cranium is the head, the sacrum is the triangular bone which ends in your coccyx or tailbone.

Strange though it may seem, if your sacrum is not sitting in your hips properly, it can cause a slight rotation all the way up the spine and cause headaches! The skull or cranium contains 22 bones, 8 of which are considered cranial bones and 14 facial bones. The 8 Cranial Bones are :

The Ethmoid Bone
The Frontal Bone
The Occipital Bone
Two Parietal Bones
The Sphenoid Bone
Two Temporal Bones

It used to be considered that these bones were all fused together, but in fact there is a certain amount of give, a bit like a jigsaw puzzle.

Craniosacral therapy can be used to try and free up or gap some of these bones after trauma and impact injuries or to relieve headaches.

The occipital bone is at the base of the cranium at the back and plays a key role in anchoring muscle attachments so the muscles can pull your head in various different directions.

After performing the atlanto-occipital release (below), I love to stretch your spinal chord. Many people spontaneously tell me it feels good, partly because they have never had it done before! Stretching your spinal chord is great for your nervous system. The spinal chord is only attached at the second vertebra in the neck, C2 or the axis, and again in the sacrum.

What is atlanto-occipital release?

First let us talk about the top two vertebrae in your neck. They have special names, the atlas and the axis.

The atlas is the largest of your vertebrae as it supports the weight of your head, around 8 to 10 kilos. It rotates with your head and pivots around the axis, which stays where it is. Because it rotates, the atlas does not have such a pronounced spine sticking out as do the other vertebrae. The atlanto-occipital release tries to free up the atlas, as it can sometime get wedged and be the cause of headaches. Likewise, trigger points in the muscles below the base of the cranium (skull), can cause headaches. The atlanto-occipital release is designed to relieve these trigger points, which can improve the range of motion of the head in looking up, looking down and to the left and right, and also reduces the frequency and severity of headaches.

This release is so important, I not only do it twice, but I also traction the spine.

Why should you look for someone offering Health Fund Rebates?

Why should I look for someone offering health fund rebates?

Massage is, like hairdressing, an unregulated industry. It is buyer beware!

An electrician cant put an ad in the local paper without producing a licence.

However, anyone can advertise their services to do massage. Some people go on a weekend course, emerge with an attendance certificate and advertise that they are qualified!

Even if you are not in a health fund, you should look for someone offering health fund rebates because you can rest assured that they:

• are members of a professional association which also means that they:

• have a Diploma of Remedial Massage from an accredited RTOs (registered training organization)

• have a current first aid certificate

• have public liability

What is lymph and lymphatic drainage?

Blood is pumped out in the arteries. The arteries keep on dividing and subdividing into smaller and smaller arteries called arterioles. Here the blood leaves the arterioles to take nutrients and oxygen to every cell in the body. It returns in two ways. One is via the veins, which returns the blood directly to the heart. The other is via a colourless liquid called lymph which collects all the toxic wastes. Not many people know too much about this system, but it maintains the body's immune system. The lymph is transport via tiny channels close to the surface of the skin to the nearest lymph nodes, which is where the toxicity is removed from the lymph. The lymph eventually returns to the blood stream and back to the heart. If the lymph channels are blocked, swelling known as edema is the result. A poorly working lymphatic system means that toxicity remains in the body, and this can be a cause of cancer. Bras can reduce the transport of lymph in breast tissue. Over time this can lead to breast cancer, so it is important for ladies to learn how to do some lymphatic drainage on themselves rather than wait until they are 50 to have a mammogram.

Can massage help with cellulite?

Massage and lymphatic drainage can definitely help, if used in conjunction with diet and exercise.

Why is this website so easy to find in Google?

And why should I be telling competitors?

Because I welcome improved standards in the profession and that includes marketing ourselves in a positive way.

So here is my version of How To Improve Your Rankings in Googles search results.

I wont repeat all the blogs and forums and Google's own guidelines as to how to get a top ranking, but the three main things I have focussed on over the years has been content, content and content.

Google thrives on content! It hates all those flashy animations! Dull, boring text does the tricks, and a few graphics with ALT tags. Throw in some meta tags and the job is done!

• Content - Plenty of it but avoid duplication
• Content - Use the relevant keywords in the content, but dont overdo it as Google regards it as spam and lowers your ranking
• Content - Relevant - use a different title tag and meta tags for each page

Pretend the user is blind!!

Vision impaired people use software which reads your content to them. Images are great for humans to see, but google is vision impaired!!

So, while people are drawn to flashy animations and graphics, google loves my dull, boring (visually at least) text! Google loves my grammar and punctuation, not just the text!

Include a robots.txt file