Ifs, buts and maybes. Welcome to the world of health.
A business person recently challenged me as to why I couldn’t guarantee a cure to pains and ailments. He was challenging on my language around “we support people who are living with long term pain. “People living with pain want solutions, not support,” he said. I can’t help but agree with that statement.
He went on to say, “Let’s take headaches for instance. Can you say with absolute certainty that massage can cure a headache? If you can’t then you’re nothing but a fraud. Someone is just supposed to suck it and see if what you do is effective?”
I would love to offer a 100% satisfaction and money back guarantee on our work. But the body is not that simple, and when it comes to getting well from chronic conditions treatment options are full of ifs, buts and maybes.
Recently, I listened to a scientist talk about medicine and pharmaceutical results. He said something along the lines of, “No medicine works as effectively as penicillin against streptococcus. If you have a strep infection and take penicillin, there is almost a 100% guarantee that strep will die and you will be well.”
A near 100% track record in the world of pharmaceuticals. Unfortunately when it comes to health, nothing has the track record of penicillin.
Wouldn’t you love to go to the GP or a specialist, or a body worker and be given the guarantee of “take this” or “do this” and you will get the results you are looking for.
When it comes to pain, things get complicated. There is no one cause to back pain, or neck pain, or neuropathic pain etc. There are usually a multitude of factors. Some are easily addressed, others are a matter of trial and error. For some persons, the best result we can achieve is to help that person to feel comfortable.
Pain is felt mainly in the brain. Sometimes the body “remembers” injury and fabricates the pain to protect you. Some injuries, like a whip lash, have a strong neurological component. Sometimes an injury is just too advanced for complete recovery.
The health industry is full of charlatans selling weight loss (95% of diets fail in five years) and miracle cures – essential oils, machines and supplements that make your wee expensive
Even a surgeon who trains for a minimum of 14 years can at best give you the odds of success based on experience.
Medicine and health care is not always evidence based. Think of how medicines might be introduced to you, “we’ll start you on this and monitor you to see how you go, if you don’t respond then we’ll try something else.” There is a large degree of trial and error starting from conservative treatment through to aggressive surgical intervention where necessary.
This is because or many, conditions are syndromic, complex or have been with us for a long time. And as humans we are all individuals – each of us respond differently, and symptoms as a conglomerate can mimic a multitude of causes. So treatments are determined on the knowledge, experience, compassion and fortitude of well-educated health professionals.
At MYOMASTERS we do not believe in keeping persons in unnecessary treatment. We do get some outstanding results and occasionally the miraculous does happen. For many who live with chronic pain (like myself) the best result is enjoying many pain free days and managing the bad ones.
Our guarantee and promise to you is that when we do work with you it will be honesty and the best evience we have available. Yes we’ll probably want to see you a few times because it’s rare for problems to disappear in a single treatment. And we’ll tell you if we believe that we cannot help you any further than we have already. And maybe he best we can do is to help you to feel more comfortable than you are today.
At MYOMASTERS we love using massage to help you to move better, feel better and recover faster so that you can love the body you have and have the strength, energy and ability to do the things you love.
Massage is not a magical cure-all, but for many people, it really does help manage injuries, reduce pain, reduce headaches (caveats apply) and to promote feelings of calmness during anxiousness and stress.
Are you someone who is going to benefit?
Schedule your next massage, and let’s find out together.
