Holistic Healing: The Benefits of Massage Therapy Alongside Chiropractic

Manual treatments, including both massage therapy and chiropractic care, are effective ways to treat pain associated with tight muscles, poor joint alignment and tensions within the body - especially surrounding your back and/or neck.

Whilst you may find one of these treatments more effective than the other in alleviating your pain, the two treatments can actually work together to offer you the most effective solution. Read on as we discuss the benefits of combining the two in a holistic approach to relieving your pain.

Benefits of Chiropractic Adjustment

Chiropractic treatment typically involves joint manipulation, whereby a trained, professional chiropractor will use their hands to exert quick, gentle force on the body, manipulating a joint in a specific direction with the intention of restoring motion, improving function and alleviating pain.

This often brings with it immediate relief, whilst your body will then continue to heal itself following the right aftercare post-treatment, thus ensuring that the adjustment sticks.

Benefits of Therapeutic Massage

Massage therapy focuses on the relief of more topical pain and relieving muscle tension. A massage therapist will use their hands, arms and elbows to perform various techniques that can combine pressure and movement to relax the muscles and break up knots.

Depending on the intensity of your muscle tension and how deep the massage therapist needs to massage, you may experience some soreness both during and immediately after this treatment, however overtime this helps you to feel more relaxed and reduce your pain.

Combining the Two

Whilst each of these treatments can be used to address and treat pain in the body in their own ways, they offer even more benefits when experienced together.

Receiving massage therapy before a chiropractic session can help to relax and loosen your muscles. By having looser muscles around your joints, it can make it easier for your chiropractor to then assess the underlying issue behind your pain and adjust your joint accordingly.

In other cases, you may find it more beneficial to receive a massage after your chiropractic treatment. Often, when you experience a joint problem, the surrounding muscle can go into spasm, causing you more pain. By keeping these muscles relaxed and loose, then the joints are more likely to rest in their correct position, rather than being knocked back into misalignment from tight surrounding muscle. As such, once your joints have been adjusted, massage therapy may help to safeguard their realignment.

If you’re looking to alleviate your pain in multiple ways, then taking a holistic approach and using these two therapies in conjunction can be a great way to achieve your goals sooner. Depending on the cause of your pains, you may require more of one therapy than the other, but there’s no doubt that combined they can prevent any relapses and help your body to function at an optimum level.



For your free spinal assessment, get in touch with us here at The Hillsborough Chiropractic Clinic. Our team of qualified chiropractors and qualified massage therapists are on hand to help you manage your pain, joint and/or muscle problems.