22. February 2012 by admin.

Heated or Cooled Thermalball therapy

Whether helping relax, heal from an injury or decrease pain, thermalball therapy works. Massage works because you’re committed to continually learning and honing your skill in the modalities you practice. Taking continuing education, studying with therapists who have been in practice or who are especially adept at particular modalities, all combine to make you a better massage therapist.

And when dealing with your clients, knowledge is power—especially when using modalities that have the potential to harm. Following, you’ll learn more about how to safely practice with hot thermalballs.  These are the same practices that you would follow with hot stones, but thermalballs are much safer.  The insulated encasement keeps the heat (or cold) “in” and not at the surface of the ball.  The interior is much hotter or colder than the “skin” of the ball.  You know how much the thermalballs have improved your technique (even if only to reduce your hand pain due to acupressure and trigger point therapy as well as long strokes gliding over bony prominences.

(the technique)

As with all massage therapy treatments, many factors will guide you when determining how to incorporate hot thermalball techniques into a client’s session—if at all. For example, a thermalball session with a client who has multiple health problems will be necessarily different than a session where the client has no health concerns.

When using hot stones, too, you want to make sure that you don’t overdo it the first time you use the technique with your clients.

The thermalball modality, like most massage techniques, is meant to build over a period of weeks, and your clients should always leave the session feeling revived, energized, relaxed and supported. If a client feels sick or in pain—or the temperatures overworked their internal systems—they may rethink returning. Remember, your goal as their massage therapist is to help them realize the gentle benefits of receiving ongoing thermalball massages.

Thermalball therapy can be used with several massage modalities, including Swedish massage, as well as placed on the client’s body. When placing thermalballs, however, you DO NOT have to remember to use a sheet or towel or clothing between the client’s bare skin and the heated ball!  You must remember to use a sheet, towel or clothing between the client’s bare skin and a hot stone!!! During thermalball placement, the heat takes 1 to 4 minutes—depending on the size of the thermalball —to fully penetrate before your client can accurately discern if the stones are too hot. (This average time varies, too, according to the internal temperature of thermalball, as well as the health of the client, and size and placement of balls.)

(the musts)

KNOW YOUR CLIENT. Especially with hot stone massage, ensuring your clients fill out a detailed intake form is necessary. Massage therapists need a full understanding of the client’s health to determine what temperature would be appropriate. Be sure you know if your client is suffering from any injuries, dealing with chronic tension, taking any medication or plan to have any other treatments (For example, if a client is receiving multiple treatments throughout the day at a spa, one heated treatment in a six-hour timeframe is an acceptable guideline to follow.)

Keep in mind that the client’s health not only dictates the temperature of the thermalballs, but also how long heated (or chilled) thermalballs can be offered to a client’s body.

PROPER HYDRATION. Hydration is vital when doing a heated thermalball massage, both internally and to the client’s skin. Without proper hydration, burns may not occur as they often do with hot stones, but checking if the client’s skin appears dry, applying some form of moisturizer, such as massage oil or lotion, is a must.

Keeping the client’s internal system hydrated is just as important, however. Have clients drink water prior to, during and after their thermalball session. Think about it like this: Adding temperature to Swedish massage, for example, demands the body respond not only to the modality, but also to the increase of blood flow encouraged by the temperatures. Again, proper hydration is a must.

HEAT THERMALBALLS PROPERLY. First, the fastest way to heat thermalballs is by microwaving them in a Kewler Krock with the balls submerged in water.  Direct Microwaves, hot plates, slow cookers and ovens—to name only a few—are never appropriate places to heat thermalballs.

Also, the only safe way to heat thermalballs is in water, as you can accurately control the heat of the water, making sure the thermalballs don’t get too hot. You should invest in a calibrated thermometer, however, to test the temperature of the water instead of relying solely on the thermostat of the heating unit. Any heating unit you purchase should have a temperature control so you can adjust the temperature of the water as needed. Generally, water between 110–130 F will get your thermalballs to the proper temperature. If you haven’t purchased a Kewler Krock, a large microwaveable bowl filled with water, so that the thermalballs are completely submerged.  You need to make sure the entire ball is covered.  The reason for this is that if the non-toxic proprietary thermal fluid boils, the steam can reach high enough temperature to deform the encasement.  If this happens, retire the thermalball to cold use only.

JUST RIGHT. How will you know if your thermalballs are a safe temperature for your clients? A good indication is if you can hold the balls comfortably in your hands. Squeeze or hold the stone in your hand for a count of five seconds: If the balls are too hot for you to hold then they are too hot for the client.

You also need to consider how the thermalball will be used during the session to gauge the proper temperature. For example, using thermalballs during a massage is different than placing a heated thermalballs on the spine, and you need to take this difference into consideration when heating your thermalballs. Massaging with heated thermalballs, for example, will improve the heat transfer, sometimes rapidly.

Conversely, thermalballs resting on a client’s body might hold their temperature for a longer period of time.

UNDERSTAND THE BODY’S REACTION. Applications of heated thermalballs (or chilled - icyball) produces a series of internal responses. Working with temperatures acts as a derivative—decreasing blood and lymph in one area by increasing blood and lymph in another.

Prolonged application of heated thermalballs to a reflex area causes dilation of the blood vessels of related organs. In other words, the use of heated stones on isolated areas pulls blood from the reflex organs to the tissue in those regions, resulting in warm, flushed skin. Often, this result opens the door for therapists to work even deeper on trigger points or really tight muscles.

The amount of time you use heated thermalballs on a client’s body is determined by how strong your client’s body is at the time of the massage therapy session. The stronger the constitution of your client, the more time you can introduce heat to the body; the weaker your client’s body, the less time you’re going to want to offer heated thermalballs. Remember above all else, however, that if you are in doubt about how a client can handle hot thermalball therapy, you should always error on the side of caution and limit the time you use heated thermalballs.  If the client has been exposed to and enjoys hot stone massages, then they will be absolutely energized by a thorough thermalball or icyball massage.

Why Clients Get Burned with HOT Stones

When done properly, there is no reason for a client to get burned during a hot stone session. That’s not to say, however, that burns never happen. Many times, if not in all cases, a burn could have been prevented.  The best way to prevent burns is to use thermalball products instead or in addition to hot stone therapy.  The single most quoted reason for switching to thermalball only therapy is the reduced risk of “burns” from hot stones and the balls ability to glide over bony prominences as well as the bonus therapy they provide to your own hands!

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13. February 2012 by admin.

The common symptoms of back pain can be related to an injury, an underlying problem, or lifestyle issues. 

The typical image that often springs to mind when one thinks about back pain is of a person lifting a heavy object and then wincing in agony. It’s true that trauma caused by heavy lifting, injury, or accident can all lead to back pain, but there are also many underlying problems and health conditions that can cause pain as well.

Typical Causes of Back Pain

The kind of back pain experienced by most people typically falls into one of the following areas:

· Mechanical back pain. A mechanical cause of back pain means that the problem is in the mechanics of the back: the bones, ligaments, disks, joints, nerves, or meninges (the outer membranes that surround the spinal cord). This is the most common type of back pain.

· Sprains or strains. A type of mechanical back injury, sprained/strained muscles or tendons (tough, fibrous tissue that connects muscle and bone) account for 85 percent of lower back pain cases in the U.S.

· Sciatica. The symptoms of sciatica are distinctive: Sharp, shooting pains originating in the back that travels down through the buttocks into the legs. Sciatica usually affects only one side of the body.

Underlying Conditions That May Cause Back Pain

While a sudden jolt or other form of stress to the back can result in pain, there may be an underlying cause that weakens your back, making it more vulnerable to trauma.

Often, however, there is no single explanation for back pain. According to the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, common causes of back pain include:

· Aging of the spine, ligaments, and discs. As your spine ages, the discs can protrude or even collapse, which can cause pain and can also put pressure on the nerves that run through the spine. According to Andrew Sherman, MD, head of medical rehabilitation at the Spine Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, spinal problems are the most common reason why middle-aged people develop pain and even disability.

· Arthritis. The lower back is one of the areas most commonly affected by arthritis, which can lead to spinal stenosis, or a narrowing of the space around the spinal cord.

· A poorly aligned spine. Some people have back pain because their spine curves in an exaggerated or irregular way, or even curves to the side, a condition known as scoliosis.

· Osteoporosis. If your bones are weak and brittle from osteoporosis, a condition in which the bones become fragile and brittle due to loss of minerals, the vertebrae of the spine are more vulnerable to fractures.

· Being overweight or obese. Excess weight can put a constant strain on your back, resulting in pain.

Back Pain: Chronic or Acute?

When your back pain comes on fast and strong, this is known to doctors as acute back pain. This is most commonly caused by an injury or by an event that jars the structure of the back.

While most acute back pain symptoms typically begin to improve after a few days, for some people the pain continues beyond the initial phase and becomes chronic.

Other Conditions That Can Lead to Back Pain

There are also other conditions that have nothing to do with the back but can still cause lower back pain, including bladder infections, kidney stones and other kidney diseases, ovarian cysts and endometriosis, and twisted testicles.

In rare cases, back pain can be caused by more serious ailments. If a tumor or infection is present in the spine, it can cause the symptom of back pain. Usually, you would also have other symptoms, such as weight loss with cancer or a fever with infection.

Also linked to back pain is cauda equina syndrome, a serious neurologic condition that results from acute loss of function of the bundle of nerve roots of the spinal canal, known as the cauda equina. It causes weakness in the legs, numbness in the groin area, and loss of bladder or bowel control.

Most back pain cases aren’t due to a serious medical issue. But if your aching back lasts more than a few days, seeing your doctor is the best way to get relief.

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31. August 2011 by admin.

How to Stretch the Plantar Fascia — Thanks ehow

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23. June 2010 by admin.

Talk knowledgeably with your clients about their product concerns with help from

Icyball and Thermallball products were designed for managing your pain without toxic ingredients

Other notable Sources (from the personal care site):

• Cal/EPA – OEHHA Toxicity Criteria Database
• California Proposition 65
• California Proposition 65 Chemical List
• California Safe Cosmetics Program
• California Safe Cosmetics Program Cosmetics Companies Page
• The California Safe Cosmetics Program Chemical List

• Icyball – Non-Toxic Pain Relief!
• Alltop – Beauty News
• Barcodes and Ecom
• Cato Institute
• Clean The World
• Cosmetic Design
• Cosmetic Design Europe
• Cosmetic News
• Cosmetics & Toiletries
• Cosmetics Business
• Eco-Office Gals
• Fair Trade Federation
• Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO)
• GCI Magazine
• Global Exchange
• Good Guide
• Green Living Ideas
• Green People
• Green Products Alliance
• HAPPI
• Internet Archive
• Junk Science
• Natural Cosmetic News
• Premium Beauty News
• Recycle Bank
• Skin, Inc.
• Smart 2 b Green
• Sweet Scam
• The Center For Consumer Freedom
• The Nature Conservancy
• TransFair USA
• Tree Hugger
• WWD

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3. November 2009 by admin.

So you think you’ve got swine flu? Now there’s help at the click of your computer mouse.

An interactive Web site is being offered to help people decide just how bad their case is. Microsoft is teaming up with Emory University to offer the online help, designed to simulate the very conditions that doctors use in the office to decide just how bad a person’s flu case really is.

At the Web site www.h1n1responsecenter.com just type in your age (must be more than 12), answer some questions about fever and other symptoms and your underlying health.

Presto! The program will likely conclude you’ve got the swine flu — and then decide if you need to see the doctor or just take it easy at home with fluids and plenty of chicken soup.

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9. August 2009 by aaron.

One of the things to do is ice the knee before and after using the CPM (continuous passive motion) machine or having a physical therapist work with on post op knees. This is what most people are told to do:

Take paper cups and fill with water. Place in freezer. When needed, take a totally frozen paper cup and peel around the cup edge exposing the ice surface. While holding the paper cup, rub the ice around the knee area. You can either put the rest of the frozen ice back in the freezer to use later or toss away.

Icyball therapy is more convenient is reusable, sterilizable and more effective.  This tool can be used on many parts of the body that need icing.

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7. July 2009 by admin.

Dear All,
For everyone who works daily on a computer or administers massages with their hands, you can avoid this condition by following the below techniques and using thermalballs in your therapy toolbox . The mistakes daily mouse and keyboard usage will result in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome! Use the mouse and keyboard correctly. View below for the surgery of a patient suffering from Carpal Tunnel Syndrome followed by the
RIGHT TECHNIQUES for usage…. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Treatment technique

AVOIDANCE TECHNIQUES:

Keyboard

Mouse

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11. May 2009 by admin.

This new study is much more promising.

Migraine patients take note: I think this team from Brisbane may be on to something big.

———————————————————–
Chain of events
———————————————————–

Researchers at the Genomics Research Centre at Brisbane’s Griffith University have been doing their migraine homework.

Previous GRC research reveals a cascade that begins with a mutation of a specific gene, which prompts higher homocysteine levels, which disrupts the cells that line blood vessels in the brain, which triggers migraines in some patients.

With that in mind, the GRC team recruited more than 50 subjects who had migraine with aura. Subjects were randomly divided into two groups to receive either placebo or a regimen of B vitamins that have been shown to help control homocysteine levels: 2 mg of folic acid, 25 mg of B-6, and 400 micrograms of B-12.

After a six-month intervention, researchers reported these remarkable results:

• Homocysteine was lowered by nearly 40 percent in the B group, but only negligibly in the placebo group
• Prevalence of migraine disability fell from 60 percent at baseline to 30 percent in the B group, but no change in the placebo group
• Headache frequency and pain severity were reduced in the B group, but not in the placebo group
• The most pronounced response in the B group occurred in patients who were shown to have the mutated gene

Lead author of the study – Prof. Lyn Griffiths – was refreshingly optimistic when she considered the use of B supplements. She told NutraIngredients-USA that the trial’s success “has shown that safe, inexpensive vitamin supplements can treat migraine patients.”

———————————————————–
Your migraine arsenal
———————————————————–

The GRC study provides a welcome new advance in the growing arsenal that migraine patients have at their disposal.

In previous e-Alerts I’ve told you about several non-drug treatments that have been shown to successfully reduce migraine symptoms and help prevent migraine attacks.

“The Best Offense” (9/29/04)
As I mentioned above, riboflavin (vitamin B-2) supplements may reduce migraine frequency. In a study in which 23 subjects took 400 mg of riboflavin daily for six months, average frequency of migraines was cut in half.

“Power to the Powerhouses” (6/28/04)
In a Swiss study, researchers found that migraine frequency, total days with migraine, and total days with nausea were all significantly reduced with 300 mg of CoQ10 daily. Incidence of migraines was almost cut in half in the CoQ10 group. Researchers believe that CoQ10 helps prevent migraines by promoting proper respiration on the cellular level.

“Like Buttah” (1/19/05)
A large majority of migraine patients reported a 50 percent or greater reduction in their frequency of migraine attacks after taking 75 mg of Petadolex (a butterbur root extract) daily for four months.

Talk to your doctor about these supplements before adding them to your daily regimen. And please pass this link on to any friends or family members who suffer from migraines.

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15. April 2009 by admin.

Journals

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6. April 2009 by admin.

If you have a headache, you’re not alone. Nine out of
ten Americans suffer from headaches. Some are occasional,
some frequent, some are dull and throbbing,
and some cause debilitating pain and nausea.
What do you do when you suffer from a pounding
headache? Do you grit your teeth and carry on? Lie
down? Pop a pill and hope the pain goes away? There
is a better alternative.
New research shows that spinal manipulation – the primary
form of care provided by doctors of chiropractic, massage and rehabilitation therapists
– may be an effective treatment option for tension
headaches and headaches that originate in the neck.

Icyball or Thermalball products used cold can reduce inflammation when applied directly to the head or behind the neck.  The reduction in swelling not only reduces headache pain, but can provide a refreshing, stimulating and energetic effect.

Researchers at the Duke
University Evidence-Based Practice Center in Durham,
NC, found that spinal manipulation resulted in almost
immediate improvement for those headaches that originate
in the neck, and had significantly fewer side
effects and longer-lasting relief of tension-type
headache than a commonly prescribed medication.

Headache Triggers
Headaches have many causes, or “triggers.” These
may include foods, environmental stimuli (noises,
lights, stress, etc.) and/or behaviors (insomnia, excessive
exercise, blood sugar changes, etc.). About 5 percent
of all headaches are warning signals caused by
physical problems.
Ninety-five percent of headaches are primary
headaches, such as tension, migraine, or cluster
headaches. These types of headaches are not caused
by disease. The headache itself is the primary concern.
“The greatest majority of primary headaches are associated
with muscle tension in the neck,” says Dr.
George B. McClelland, a doctor of chiropractic from
Christiansburg, VA. “Today, Americans engage in more
sedentary activities than they used to, and more hours
are spent in one fixed position or posture. This can
increase joint irritation and muscle tension in the neck,
upper back and scalp, causing your head to ache.”

What Can You Do?

• If you spend a large amount of time in one fixed
position, such as in front of a computer, on a
sewing machine, typing or reading, take a
break and stretch every 30 minutes to one
hour. The stretches should take your head and
neck through a comfortable range of motion.
• Low-impact exercise may help relieve the pain
associated with primary headaches. However, if
you are prone to dull, throbbing headaches,
avoid heavy exercise. Engage in such activities
as walking and low-impact aerobics.
• Avoid teeth clenching. The upper teeth should
never touch the lowers, except when swallowing.
This results in stress at the temporomandibular
joints (TMJ) – the two joints that
connect your jaw to your skull – leading to TMJ
irritation and a form of tension headaches.
• Drink at least eight 8-ounce glasses of water a
day to help avoid dehydration, which can lead
to headaches.

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