How Might I React After a Treatment - and Why?

By Paul Doney - Chiropractor | Craniosacral Therapy & Myofascial Release

“We’re all individuals!” (to quote Monty Python)

As individuals our reactions to treatment are going to vary - sometimes widely. However, with enough experience practitioners identify a range of reactions that patients experience to treatment. I generally tell patients how I think they are going to feel. I give them warnings of reactions that they might not expect and explain why those reactions are good. Not everyone experiences all possible reactions but following are a range of possibilities.

General, simple reactions are for patients to feel lighter and more energised, and if they are experiencing pain for it to be alleviated or removed all together. You will feel lighter because when muscles are tensed the brain interprets it the same way as when you are contracting your muscles to carry a load. Removing the tension is interpreted as having put down the load, hence you feel lighter. Less tension means doing less work with your muscles and therefore there is more energy left over for you.

More subtle reactions include: a sense of calmness, a lightening of spirits or lifting of depression, an increased ability to deal with stress and reduced anxiety.

Stronger reactions that might concern some people, but are actually good include: tiredness for 1 to 2 days, muscle soreness in areas other than where you have been worked on, tender skin and aching joints. These reactions may seem undesirable but they point to important underlying, beneficial change.

Excessive tiredness can occur as your body goes into a recuperative mode. It is the same sensation you may have experienced when you go on a long overdue holiday to a beach resort. You’re in the middle of paradise and all you seem to be able to do is sleep for the first couple of days.

Muscle soreness in areas where you haven’t been massaged or manipulated is due to you body using itself differently. Muscles, tendons and ligaments that have been having something of a holiday due to uneven biomechanics now have to do their fair share of the work. For a couple of days they may complain about it. It’s similar to the feeling you get when you exercise after a long break from activity.

Tender skin and aching joints occurs when the increased blood supply to, and lymphatic drainage from, tissues that have been working under too much strain washes built-up waste products into the blood stream. This irritates nerve endings in other tissues such as the skin and joints. The solution is to drink lots of water over the 2 days after a treatment to allow your kidneys to filter out all of the excess waste.

The deeper the treatment and the larger the change that has occurred the more likely you are to experience these types of reactions. But don’t worry, it’s all good.