Is Daniel's Nerve Rescue a good fit for you?

The type of therapy I offer is a combination of traditional restorative practices (massage/bodywork/needling) with targeted exercises to promote balance and resiliency as you pursue your activities, hobbies, and goals. Let's explore more about why I do this.

Manual Therapy

One of the most ongoing divisive topics among physical therapists is the role of manual therapy. Some therapists use it all the time and others sparingly if ever. A lot of this has to do with overall therapy goals and a therapist's assessment of how much a person will benefit from manual work versus exercise. As a therapist, I am considering where you are in the stages of healing and what forms of treatment are most beneficial at this specific timepoint.

The research on manual therapy generally points to non-specific benefits related to pain and ROM, typically shorter duration in impact. This means the actual treatment technique matters to some degree, but its benefit is also completely tied up with the other benefits from working with a professional therapist (we call this the therapeutic alliance), so it's nearly impossible to say definitely one treatment is clinically better than another. Whether a physical therapist uses joint mobilizations, soft tissue work, needling or other techniques, the general clinical benefit is strongly related to how the client experiences that form of treatment. Does it feel relaxing and settling or does it increase tension/guarding? Does it relieve pain and induce a sense of ease - or does it feel overwhelming and anxiety producing?

The tricky part about all of this is understanding that most of the benefits from manual techniques are directly related to nervous system modulation. It's unlikely I truly lengthened your fascia and adjacent muscles/tendons within an hour. Rather, the bodywork serves as a chemical stimulus allowing the nervous system to modulate the experience of pain and sensation, such that afterwards you can have significantly greater range of motion, flexibility, and muscle activation after the treatment.

Therapeutic Exercise

Once the pain is better, the key to therapy is to work your muscles and joints to make the movement feel 'normal' again. For example, we have to retrain your body to be able to stretch your hamstrings without eliciting a pain response following a hamstring strain. This is where exercise if essential. If we don't implement exercise into our weekly schedule, the benefit of our therapy session is much less durable.

At this stage of the game, the point is to make the uncomfortable - comfortable again. We are expanding the parameters under which your body can exercise/move safely and this kind of change is long-term. It's not always easy to know what to do to achieve this on your own, and I can help make this process straightforward and achievable.

Why does this matter?

If you are someone who gets a lot of relief with therapeutic massage, yoga, or meditation, you will feel really great with this kind of therapy. It's designed to make you feel regulated not only in your body but also improves more subtle aspects of being by balancing your autonomic system and releasing excess 'mental energy' that can prevent you from being able to truly rest.

Your body has amazing potential for healing, and my goal is for you to experience that firsthand.

Once you experience a sense of relief and ease in your body again, you will naturally want to explore what ways you can be active. That's where I can instruct you in specific exercises that are the building blocks to achieving your goals. I try to keep this as straightforward and easy to implement as possible. My goal is for you to have 2-3 exercises you complete throughout the week to promote the long-term desired changes in your body.