First thing is your Health History, which is the paperwork that you will have to do during your first appointment. It is so that the therapist will have the chance to decide whether or not you should have a massage or if you should see your doctor and make sure that it is okay for you to have a massage. This will also help the therapist know if you will be needing some modifications to the treatment to better suit you. So if you need to bring glasses to be able to read the form better, make sure you have them on hand.
Some clinics are a bit more in depth then others, and may include permission to contact your doctor, your insurance information if you have any, emergency contacts, and a special consent form for sensitive areas if they need to be worked on in the future, not just this appointment.
To better prepare yourself, make sure you bring a list of all the prescriptions you take, and what they all treat. Since some people have several prescriptions this will make it a lot easier to remember them all. And don’t forget any and all medication is relevant, even if you are on the birth control pill. Also having a list of surgeries and injuries that you’ve had can also be helpful, especially if any of them include bones, joints or glands/organs, as they may affect the treatment. Even some injuries or surgeries that you had when you were a child can explain some postural or gate issues you have.
Other things to know are, conditions (cardiovascular, digestive, respiratory, skin, muscular, nervous, reproductive, and skeletal) any infectious diseases (athletes foot, STDs and cold sores), any family history of some conditions like arthritis and if you have any allergies. You will also need your contact information and that of your doctors, if you have one.
Next, the therapist will go through your health history with you, usually asking what you are coming in for, but they do like to make sure that you didn’t happen to forget to write something down.
If you are coming in for a relaxation massage, there won’t really be any other questions that you’ll be asked other then where you want your massage, such as full body or just back, neck, and shoulders.
If you are coming in for treatment however, then you will be asked several questions, such as what you are coming in for? How long has this been an issue? Was there something that caused it to happen in the first place? What type of pain you are feeling? How long do you feel the pain for? On a pain scale of 1 to 10 what is your pain at? Is there anything that you can do that makes it feel better? Worse? How often do you feel this pain? And what level is your pain at today? There may be more questions depending on what your answers are to these questions, but these are the basics, so if you want to make this go quickly, you can think about your answers before you go to your session. Especially when it comes to the question of when did it start.
Then there’s assessments. These are tests that are performed before the treatment when you are fully clothed so the therapist can better figure out what condition you have as well as how far advanced it is, before they start the treatment. Unfortunately the Orthopedic assessments are tests that are meant to recreate the symptoms that you are already having, so they can be a bit unpleasant at times, but they are very effective in figuring out what is really going on. If the symptoms are recreated in theses tests then it means that this is a positive test, pointing the therapist in the proper direction, and if they don’t recreate your symptoms, then it is considered as a negative result. These tests range from palpations (touching the area to check for temperature differences, swelling, tightness…), range of motion for the painful joint and the joint above and below, to see when the pain starts and to see if there are any restrictions in the joints themselves.
Depending on what you are coming in for, the therapist may use one of these types of tests or possibly all of them, so it can take a bit of time before you are able to start the massage. If you know you are going to be strained for time, make sure that when you book your appointment, you ask if assessments are included in your time. As an example, if you book a 1 hour massage and it takes 15 minutes for the assessments, you need to know if you’ll only be getting 45 minutes for your massage or if the therapist will be still doing the full hour after your assessments. This varies between therapists, and some may give a restriction for how long the assessments can take them to get through before they start docking it from your treatment. Either way, this will help you to know roughly how long you will be at the clinic and if you will have to shorten the length of your treatment yourself, just because you need to be somewhere else right after.
Be very careful about what you are going to be wearing when you are coming in for your first treatment massage, just because of the assessments. Try not to wear anything really baggy or layers, such as sweaters. Clothes that are too tight can also be a problem, especially if they stop you from moving as well as you would with something a bit looser. Lastly, ladies if you are coming in with hip problems please do not wear a dress or skirt; the last thing you need is the therapist needing to bring your knee to your chest as a way of testing range of motion for your hip. Truly the ideal clothing to wear would be T-shirts/tank tops and yoga pants/bicycle shorts.
After all the assessments are done, you and your therapist will have a short discussion about what your goals are for the treatment. This way they can let you know if those goals are realistic or not. As an example, if you’ve been in pain for 3 months, and after one massage expect you won’t feel the pain anymore, that won’t be very realistic. A therapist can tell you approximately how many sessions you may have to do. However, if you say that you are only willing to be treated for as long as you have insurance coverage, that will be respected.
Now for the fun part, starting the massage. The therapist will let you know what position they want you in, and that you can undress to your level of comfort. Some therapists do like to make sure that the client knows that it is easier for them to work directly on the skin, but it isn’t necessary for you to have to take those articles off. Remember, you are in control, and that includes what you are wearing during your massage. With the only exception of your shoes, and possible jewelry. Once you are ready, the therapist should be back shortly after washing their hands, and they will do the massage for however long you booked for.
At the end of the massage, every therapist has their own way of letting the client know that they are done, some just say it, others do a particular technique that they only do when the session is over. Myself, I prefer to do both. Plus I remind people that they need to get up slowly. You’ve been laying down for at least 30 minutes, if you get up too quickly, you could feel light headed or even dizzy. The last thing that anyone wants is for you to fall getting off the table after having a massage. If you need help to get up, make sure you let the therapist know before they leave the room to let you get dressed. If you don’t need any help, then you can get up and get dressed once the therapist leaves the room and then your session is complete.
The only thing left is your therapist letting you know if there are any exercises they think that you should be doing at home. Unless the clinic is able to do direct billing to your insurance company, payment will be processed, and if you would like to book another appointment you can also do so. Now your appointment has been completed.
Hopefully you are able to go home and relax for the rest of the day, rather then going back into work.