My personal experience with sciatica
My wife has regular bouts with sciatica. Sometimes she comes home from work (she is a massage therapist and instructor) complaining about burning pain in her lower back, buttocks and legs, shooting all the way down into her toes. These are classical sciatica symptoms.
Few therapists know exactly what to do about sciatic pain. It is a real specialty that requires a good understanding of the problem and a very specific knowledge of the appropriate techniques to apply.
Luckily I do know what to do about sciatic pain. In my 20 years of practicing and teaching Thai Massage, I have found that this modality can be amazingly effective for sciatica.
My wife’s sciatic pain reminded me how important it is for therapists to understand and deal with this very common and often excruciatingly painful condition.
I see how sciatica is affecting her, and I know that there are millions of people in the world who are suffering from it.
So instead of advising her to take an aspirin and lie down, I am in the fortunate position to know exactly what to do about the problem.
Where does sciatica originate?
The sciatic nerve is the largest and longest nerve in the body – as thick as a finger where it originates – and it branches out to many areas.
That’s why any pinching of it can radiate pain out to many areas. My wife sometimes feels it from her lower back all the way to her toes.
There are two hot spots where the sciatic nerve can get compressed or pinched. One is in the lower lumbar vertebrae area where the sciatic nerve leaves the spinal canal.
The second hot spot is the piriformis muscle in the buttocks. This muscle can put pressure on the sciatic nerve, and the result is what’s called “Piriformis Syndrome”
Sciatica relief from Thai Massage
It feels really great if you can help someone effectively with their pain. In the case of my wife, I have been able to help her with her sciatica many times.
Thai Massage has excellent techniques for both the lower back and for the piriformis. I have had many clients whose sciatic pain was greatly reduced or had completely disappeared after a session.
I do get to practice what I preach right in my own home since I live with this client! Actually my wife and I work a lot on each other, and it is one of the reasons why we have a wonderful relationship.
Learning how to treat sciatica with Thai Massage
After many years of working on sciatica clients, I decided to make my experience available to therapists worldwide.
This became a very specific and in-depth online training course, Thai Massage For Sciatica.
This course was a true labor of love for me and it was also a real family production.
My inspiration to create it came from my wife’s sciatica problems, and the model for the course is our daughter. Here is the crew for this course:
It is absolutely essential for your success as a therapist to expand your therapeutic massage skills in your professional practice. Specialists are always in higher demand compared to therapists who only know a fixed routine.
The Thai Massage For Sciatica course will teach you unique and highly specialized skills to help your clients, build your confidence and advance your career.
On a more personal level, since the creation of this course was inspired by my wife’s problems, it always reminds me how valuable it can be to use our skills on those who are most important in our lives, those whom we love most.
Thai Massage is ideal for therapeutic applications
Thai Massage has always been a therapeutic modality. To this day it is used by millions of Thais to deal with their aches and pains, and even more serious conditions.
Although Thai Massage is often done as a mere routine sequence of pressure points and stretches, there is a deeper level of this ancient art where highly effective therapeutic work can be done.
Thai Massage For Sciatica is an online training course that is taught at this much more profound level. There are very few Thai Massage therapists, or massage therapists in general, who know how to work on sciatica effectively.
This course will make you an expert on this subject. It covers all the theoretical background, the anatomy, the actual techniques, and even has a section for self-help exercises.
For more information about how to become an expert in sciatica treatments, click the link below:
The author, Shama Kern, is the founder and director of Thai Healing Massage Academy. He has been practicing and teaching Thai Massage for 20 years and specializes in therapeutic applications.