Scar tissue can happen anywhere in the body. It can be created in two different ways, the first and most common that everyone knows about is after surgery. The other is when we have any type of major tissue tears, including rupturing muscles or tendons and ligaments, and when there is damage to our organs, including heart attacks, hernias and more. Massage cannot help with scarring on the organs, especially since most of them are not able to be reached, though depending on the severity of a hernia and if it has been repaired, some fascial work can be done, but additional courses should be taken by the therapist before performing such a treatment. As for scars caused by surgery, and damaging tendons, muscles, and ligaments can be treated by massage therapy.
The main issue with having scars of any kind is they can make it harder for the body’s circulatory and lymphatic systems to work properly and they restrict our movements. Because they restrict movements, it can also cause pain, especially if you need to move past the range that the scar lets you do, causing the scar tissue to tear. Scars after surgery need to be monitored as they are healing, and during that time our bodies are creating the scar, the tissues will send out fibers in all different directions, even if that tissue wouldn’t originally move in that direction, which at times can cause the scar to pucker, or bubble. In both of these cases, if they are near a joint, it can limit the amount of movement that joint can move in, without pain being present, or worse a tear in the scar causing you to bleed. The sooner that you notice something like this is happening, and let your surgeon know, the sooner that they can do something for you, which may be another surgery if the scar is becoming puckered to the bone, or they may refer you to a massage therapist, or a laser technician that has their certification with treating scars.
The treatment of scar tissue is the same for any scar. The only difference will be the positioning that you will have to be in so the therapist will have an easy enough time to be able to access the scar, and you are in a comfortable position. When working on scars that are caused by surgery, the wound must be fully healed before treatment can be started. That means that there is no longer any stitches, scabbing, and if there was an infection, that the infection is gone. This usually doesn’t happen before 6 weeks after the surgery, but if there were any complications such as an infection, it can take much longer then the 6 weeks before you can have treatment. At this same point, if you had surgery several years ago, you can still get treatment for the scar. It will take more sessions to be able to make the scarred area fully functional, the longer that it’s been since you had the surgery, but massage is still effective as a form of treatment.
The techniques to treat the scar are all called fascial techniques, which is where no oil is used, and it works on the fascia, which is the connective tissue that surrounds every muscle, muscle group, organ and bone of the human body. It is this tissue that creates the fibrous strings to connect to other tissues to try to protect the injured area. Because we are breaking apart scar tissue as our main focus in this treatment, it can be uncomfortable, will cause the skin to turn red, as blood will be able to get back into the tissues, and sometimes there can also be some swelling, which helps flush out any debris and toxins that were trapped within the scar tissue.
After the scar has been worked on, lymphatic drainage and a relaxation massage is done. Sometimes if you are tense or are nervous about the treatment, a relaxation massage or even a gentle treatment for the tense muscles and trigger point therapy may be used before the fascial work is done to your scar to help with decreasing your discomfort. If the therapist does do this, then the oil or lotion that they are using will be wiped off before they start their fascial techniques. To make the scar fully functional it will take several treatments, depending on how the scar healed, will determine how many treatments it will take, but unfortunately, it will take more than one session to be able to make it fully functional. You should be able to start noticing a bit of a difference after the first session, however.
Some Registered Massage Therapists may use Microcurrent Point Stimulation techniques. This is where they use 2 handheld devices over the scar and it sends microcurrents between the devices, to help break up the scar tissue. During this type of treatment, it will make the area very warm, and the client will be able to feel the current going through the scar, however, it isn’t painful. During your first session with this type of device, the therapist will only do a few passes back and forth through the scar, and with more sessions the more times that they will pass through the scar. The number of times that they pass through the scar will also depend on how large the scar is. Many patients notice an instant difference after this treatment, and therapists who do perform this type of treatment have noticed that patients who have this type of treatment done on them, generally need less treatments before the scar becomes fully functional. Therapists do have to take additional courses after they are registered to be able to learn how to use this device and perform it on clients. At this current time I do not have this course completed, and only took an introductory class about this type of scar tissue treatment. However other therapists offer it, and if you are interested in trying this type of treatment, you can always ask at the clinic that you are booking with if the therapist there has this type of training and performs it there in that clinic.