We Asked: What is the best result of massage therapy that you've witnessed?

Here is what you told us...

I have a client who has Motor Neuron Disease (MND). With the physical discomforts of MND, such as trigger points in muscles, my client has experienced less stiffness and improved circulation [due to massage]. As far as emotional benefits are concerned, simply having someone provide the healing power of touch has reduced his anxiety level. He has a painful future ahead, possibly a very short one, and if nothing else, massage can help to comfort him emotionally.
Marie Barbieri
via e-mail

I worked on a man who was a metro transit driver and a police officer. He had frozen shoulder* and was in an immense amount of pain. He was a big, tough-looking man and he took quite a bit of pressure as I worked his shoulders, upper back, chest and neck for a full hour and a half. He got off the table moaning and groaning. I returned and he was skipping around the room, waving his arm above his head, tears in his eyes, calling for his wife. He hadn't had range of motion like that in years!
Kathy Gruver
Santa Barbara, California

*Learn how to assess and address a Frozen Shoulder.

One of the most dramatic experiences I had was with a stroke patient. He no longer recognized his wife. I was hired to massage him 15 minutes a day, seven days a week. The first week, he never recognized me. By the third week, he began to roll up his sleeves when I walked in, and by the sixth week, he said, "Where's my massage?" I started humming songs from Nat King Cole; he jumped in during "Paper Moon" and "Unforgettable," and the nurses would gather around shocked as we serenaded each other. His wife started playing old tunes from their years together, and his long-term memory very slowly started to return. When he was first checked into the hospital, the surgeon who put in the shunt said that he probably had another six months to live. I recently got a letter from his family saying that he had passed on - and how they felt that our sessions were an important factor in his six-month prognosis turning into six-and-a-half years of borrowed time.
Lois Barth
New York, New York

A friend of mine had several neck surgeries as the result of an accident and could not turn his head anymore - meaning no driving or most other things we take for granted. It took me three years to persuade him that massage could help him. After only eight sessions he had full range of motion restored.
Laura Allen
Rutherfordton, North Carolina

One client was in her 60s. When she was 45 she'd had an accident that involved both a concussion and a dislocated shoulder. Since that time she had suffered from chronic pain, headaches and insomnia. She enjoyed the Swedish work that I did, but I thought she would be a good candidate for craniosacral therapy. Her craniosacral rhythm was rather slow, but had increased by the time I finished. When she returned for her next session, she was elated. The headache from which she had been suffering for three months had gone away within an hour of leaving my office. She had slept well and deeply that night, and for several nights thereafter. Her pain level was down, her energy was up and she was feeling like a miracle had occurred.
Selina A. Rifkin
Trumbull, Connecticut