What to Expect after your Massage Therapy and P-DTR Session

Perhaps you just had your first session with Level Up and you're wondering what to expect over the next couple hours or days.

Over the course of your session you may have been exposed to massage therapy, cupping therapy, gua sha, photobiomodulation, and Proprioceptive-Deep Tendon Reflex (P-DTR). These techniques can address a large variety of soft tissue issues and neurological dysfunctions and thus treatment goals and results can vary. Regardless there is often things that will be similiar across most sessions.

What Massage Therapy Does?

Massage and other soft tissue manipulation helps to release soft tissue using inhibition techniques and can also help break apart rigid soft tissue like scar tissue and adhesions which I interpret as micro-contractions of muscle fibers.

Massage therapy, Cupping therapy, Gua Sha and more has benefits including:

• Increased circulation.

• Improved lymphatics (helps remove toxins that build up in the body naturally).

• Increase range of motion.

• Deeper sleep: Clients often report falling asleep earlier and getting 12hrs.

• Relaxation due to parasympathetic engagement.

• Reduction in inflammation

• Decreased muscle hyper-activity.

What are the affects of P-DTR?

Proprioceptive-Deep Tendon Reflex is all about reprogramming the nervous system and how we use our body. If we have dysfunction in the body related to physical or emotional trauma it can cause problems throughout our body in our day to day lives. This can lead to poor body mechanics, organ issues, emotional problems, hypersensitive cranial nerves and more.

Benefits of P-DTR:

• Improved biomechanics and range of motion

• Decreased pain

• Increased relaxation or less fight or flight states

• Better control of muscles

• Decreased dysfunction of organs

• Better emotional regulation

The Immediate Effects of your Session

After your session, one of the most immediate sensations you’ll notice is a deep sense of relaxation. You might feel light headed and if there was cupping therapy you may feel lighter or more open in your body from all the decompressed fascia.

That night you will most likely sleep extremely soundly and much more than normal. Clients often report they slept for 12hr following their first session and falling asleep much earlier than normal. If its a morning session be prepared for a nap.

The Days Following Your Session

Depending on how frequently you received bodywork or utilize your body you may feel extra sore the days following your first session. This is because your body is not used to being manipulated in this way and it can be jarring for the body. This is often a one time thing though and any future sessions often feel less intense.

If there was a lot of P-DTR there could be a sense of soreness from stripping away compensations and feeling underactive muscles trying to reactive for the first time in who knows how long.

You may notice less pain in your targeted areas and improved range of motion as well as overall feeling more relaxed throughout the day.

Understanding the Marks and Discolorations:

One of the most common things people think about when they hear cupping is the marks on the body. These "marks or discolorations" are often mistook for bruises. Cupping does not cause blunt force trauma or damage to your tissue. Rather we are showing what was already hiding below.

​

Sometimes a lack of circulation or old internal trauma can create a build-up of stagnant blood, toxins, and sticky fluids in the area. Cupping is great at showing off these areas because we lift it to the surface. The darker the mark, the longer and more fluids we have stored in the area making it a great diagnostic tool. The lift in the cups creates space pulling this stagnation away from the injury site allowing healthy circulation to be restored to the affected area. Cupping Marks often disappear after

Gua Sha also appears as non-circular and just pure redness and like a ton of tiny red dots jam packed together. This is the scar tissue being brought to the surface. Gua Sha also disappears in 1-4 days.

Best Recovery Method Following Your Treatment

If you find you are really sore one of the best things to do is contrast therapy if possible or just heat. This helps to increase blood flow and vasodilate. While you can do a heat packs or a hot towel ideally something that will encompass your entire body.

My favorite method for recovery in this form is a sauna, steam room, hot tub, or hot bath with epson salts.

Ideally if you can oscillate between hot and cold (maybe a cold pool) this can flush in nutrients with heat and then draw waste products away with cold. By repeating this process we can help reduce muscles soreness and inflammation while helping the body heal naturally.

Hopefully you enjoyed your session at Level Up and now you know what to expect in the coming days. Feel free to come back to continue your treatment in the future or for some great preventative care to avoid problems going forward.

Tayler

Schedule Your Bodywork Session Today:

Level Up Online Booking