What Massage Therapy Can Help With

These are the concerns we help with regularly at Cascade. Consider it a starting point rather than a full reference. If yours isn't on the list, raise it at your appointment and your therapist will tell you straight what massage can and can't do for your situation.

This page is general information, not medical advice. Massage therapy sits alongside care from a physician or specialist; it doesn't replace their diagnosis or treatment.

Low-back and mid-back pain is the single most common reason clients book with us. The source varies a lot — years of desk work, one muscle pulled at the gym, a pattern that flares up whenever you push the mileage — but the targets on the table are usually the same. Tight muscles, joints that have stopped moving freely, tissue that's been carrying too much for too long.

Your RMT takes a health history first. How long has it been going on, what makes it better or worse, is there any pins-and-needles or numbness running down a leg. From there the work goes to the structures most likely driving it: deep tissue in the gluteals and erectors, myofascial release along the thoracolumbar fascia, or something gentler if you're mid-flare and everything is guarded. Our therapeutic massage and deep tissue massage pages cover how those sessions are structured.

Almost every client mentions it. Hours at a screen, a long commute behind the wheel, a heavy bag on one shoulder — sustained postures shorten the trapezius and levator scapulae until they develop trigger points that refer pain up into the neck and head.

The treatment is fairly direct: release those trigger points, lengthen the muscles that have shortened, and free up the joints of the upper thoracic spine that tend to stiffen alongside. Most people feel more range of motion and less of that dull ache by the time they get off the table. A therapeutic massage session is the usual starting point.

You know the kind — it builds through the day and settles as pressure behind the eyes or across the forehead. Tension headaches are often driven by tight muscles at the base of the skull, through the neck, and along the upper trapezius. Loosen those off and many clients get fewer episodes, and milder ones.

Migraine is a different animal. Massage won't switch off the underlying neurological sensitivity, and we won't pretend it does. Where it earns its place is in two things that feed migraine for a lot of people: muscle tension and poor sleep. Easing both can mean fewer or gentler attacks. So if you get migraines, keep your GP or neurologist in the loop and use massage as one moving part of that plan — for us, usually a therapeutic massage session working the suboccipitals and upper cervical muscles.

That sharp, shooting or burning line of pain from the low back through the hip and down the leg usually has a muscle component on top of whatever the structural cause is. The piriformis and other deep hip rotators can clamp down on the sciatic nerve where it passes through the glutes, producing symptoms that closely mimic disc-related sciatica even when no disc is involved.

Releasing the piriformis and the muscles around it takes the compressive load off the nerve. When the sciatica is mostly muscular, that often brings real relief. When the root cause is a disc herniation or spinal stenosis, massage won't fix the disc, but it can settle the secondary spasm and make you more comfortable while you work through other treatment. We'd reach for our deep tissue massage or therapeutic massage session depending on how you present.

Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders involve the jaw joint and the muscles that work it. The result is pain, clicking, a jaw that won't open all the way, or a clenching habit that radiates up into the neck and skull. The massage work targets the masseter, temporalis and pterygoids, plus the neck and upper-back muscles that almost always get pulled into the pattern.

Suzanne Malinowski-Plaquin, one of our RMTs, focuses on TMJ and nervous system regulation in particular. If jaw pain is your main concern, book with Suzanne specifically rather than the next available therapist. This work is done within a therapeutic massage session.

Registered massage therapy earns its keep two ways for active people: it keeps muscle and soft tissue in good enough shape to lower injury risk in the first place, and it speeds recovery once something does go. The presentations we see most are hamstring strains, IT band syndrome, cranky rotator cuffs, ankle sprains once they're past the acute stage, and the slow-building overuse tightness that creeps in across a long training block.

Bryan Rempel, one of our RMTs, focuses on chronic pain and sports-related injury(returning September 2026). For ongoing maintenance between events, see our sports massage page; for focused work on a specific overused muscle group, our deep tissue massage page covers it.

As posture shifts and the load grows through pregnancy, the discomfort tends to land in familiar places. Low-back and sacral pain. Tight hips and piriformis. Heavy, tired legs, plus the neck and upper-back tension that comes with the postural changes. Massage therapy adapted for pregnancy — prenatal massage — can take the edge off all of it.

You're positioned side-lying with full bolster support, so you stay comfortable start to finish. For healthy pregnancies it's appropriate across all three trimesters. Our prenatal and pregnancy massage page goes into safety, positioning and what to expect. If your pregnancy has any complications, please clear it with your midwife or OB first.

Sit long enough with your head pushed forward at a screen and three things happen: the neck extensors load up, the hip flexors shorten, and the mid-thoracic spine slowly compresses. Most desk workers recognise the result. Tight neck and shoulders, an ache parked between the shoulder blades, lower-back stiffness by lunchtime, and a headache that shows up most Friday afternoons.

Booking in every three or four weeks for maintenance breaks that cycle. You're releasing the overloaded muscles before they tighten enough to start sending symptoms. Some clients want the focused treatment work of a therapeutic massage; others just want the wind-down of a relaxation massage. Your RMT will help you pick at the first appointment.