My Experience With Myofascial Release Therapy

A couple of months ago I bought a Groupon for a local Myofascial Release (MFR) therapist. Unlike most Groupons this guy came highly recommended by others who had used him, and he was mainly using Groupon as a way to provide a great deal for local Fibromyalgia patients.

I was able to get a 3-pack of treatments for less than $100 which was an awesome deal. The only downside is that he sold a lot of them AND he was heading out of town for vacation.

I had my first treatment back in September and couldn’t get back in again until the first week of November, luckily he was able to get my third treatment relatively quickly after the second.

Related: What is Myofascial Release Therapy

via Flickr

First off, I knew it wasn’t like a regular massage, but for some reason I was still halfway expecting it to be massage.

It’s really more like physical therapy. In fact, my favorite local PT place uses a lot of MFR in their treatment.

My friend had also warned me that his music wasn’t your typical massage music, and she wasn’t wrong.

As far as music goes, though, I was pretty happy as we have similar music tastes. The first treatment went well and I really liked Tim, the therapist.

However, I was hurting after that first treatment. It may have been somewhat my own fault for not upping my water intake after the treatment, or it may have just been that he worked on a lot of stuff that hadn’t been touched in a while.

Since it was a month or so before I got back in I had plenty of time to recover.

The second treatment didn’t leave me hurting but rather seemed to help a lot of my neck and shoulder issues.

For the third treatment (my final Groupon treatment) I asked if he could take a look at this pain issue in my abdomen. It’s been acting up again, and the more I thought about how they’d not been able to find any other answers, the more fascia made sense.

When I told him about the issue he actually said he’d had a similar issue that had been worked out via MFR so we were hopeful. He worked on it for most of the session and said it may take a few days to completely release out.

That treatment actually reduced the pain in that area by about 70% (despite hurting like hell while he was doing it). So, maybe we are onto something. I’ll definitely be going back.