Potential Effects of Massage (healing crisis)

Congratulations. You have chosen to help your dog to a better quality of life with PetMassage_™. There is a difference between adequate health and optimal health. With PetMassage_™ you are influencing the systems that when working optimally together develop optimal health and quality longevity. Ninety percent of the time, your dog's response to massage will be a feeling of relaxation, calmness, balance and overall well being. He/she will be better in body, mind and spirit.

PetMassage_™ is much more than "rubbing" your dog. It assists your dog to a greater level of homeostasis (inner body awareness). As with human talk therapy each session is an opportunity to resolve more and deeper causes for chronic, current, and potential physical issues.

As with all affective therapies, massage initiates the "process" of self-restoration and healing. The symptoms that are presented to us may not be the behaviors that need to be addressed. For example, a limp and foreleg turn-in may be the result of a torqued shoulder which is compensating for a subluxated vertebra held out of alignment by tight muscles caused by a sore hip flexor which is the result of a swollen rear hock on the opposite rear leg. The swelling could be an allergic reaction to something in the dog's environment and the root of this reaction could be an emotional upset. You see the problem in the foreleg.

After the massage, allergy-like symptoms may appear for healing because your dog received a massage to help a limp! PetMassage_™ helps your dog unpeel to his deepest layers to resolve the real issues wherever they might be.

The symptoms that you see in your dog as behaviors are often secondary to the visible effects of other underlying causes. Another way to say this is the therapeutic effects of massage affect the underlying, often deeply rooted causes that express, or show themselves as behavior called symptoms.

These unexpected responses are sometimes called a healing crisis. They surface to be acknowledged and released so that your dog can continue his life journey lightened from his dysfunctional baggage.

Each dog is an individual and will have different responses to massage depending on his/her biography. Massage, by its nature affects the entire body in unexpected and unpredictable ways. Its function is to assist your dog on his/her path however and wherever it goes. PetMassage_™ affects your dog on many levels; superficial as well as deep.

The effects after a massage may include

• Next day stiffness and soreness. Lactic acid, the chemical end product of muscle work released into the musculature has been yet been reabsorbed by the body to be filtered and excreted
• Thirst. Your dog's digestive track and metabolism have been stimulated. Lactic acid hormone has been released into the blood stream. Keep fresh water available for his/her hydration.
• Limping. It is highly unlikely that your dog will have been injured during a gentle massage. Muscle memory has been stimulated. Your dog may temporarily re-experience old unreleased behaviors and memories held in the fascia around "healed" injuries and traumas.
• Drowsiness and lethargy due to release of melatonin and other hormones into the bloodstream.
• Hyperactivity. Your dog may feel so good that he overexerts to possibly injuring himself. Restrict activity as necessary to prevent self injury from over activity due to release of endorphins and Cortisol into blood.
• Inattentiveness. Your dog's body has been in a process called re-education, or reprogramming. He may be confused with the new programming. It may take 24 to 48 hours for the new information to fully integrate.
• Diarrhea or Constipation. Your dog's digestive track, including the intestines, has been stimulated and may need time to rebalance.
• Urination. Your dog may require additional bladder emptying sessions.
• Seizures. Your dog's neural tube and dura matter have been stimulated. Unresolved patterns of earlier or suppressed health issues may surface due to rebalancing levels of dopamine in the body.
• Allergy, Colds. The sinuses and lungs have been stimulated opening bronchial passages in the body that were not performing optimally and releasing mucous toxins retained in the lymphatic tissues. Your dog may exhibit these symptoms for 24 to 48 hours after the massage.
• Fever. Your dog's autoimmune system is stimulated.
• Healing Crisis. See below.

(Ref: Healing Crisis, The Nature of Animal Healing , Goldstein, Martin, DVM, pp. 163-164, Ballantine Publishing Group, 1999)

Occasionally, in cases of extreme toxicity, the body initiates its own dramatic confrontation with disease. Then even alternative remedies may be superfluous. The confrontation, when it does occur, may even seem life-threatening, but tends to produce a recovery so radical as to seem a miracle of nature. To those holistic veterinarians who recognize it as a valid process-and not all do-the phenomenon I refer to is known as the healing crisis.

Of all the dramas of natural healing I've witnessed, the healing crises are most spectacular, and the most awe-inspiring. I've seen animals develop horrible rashes overnight, become paralyzed, or grow feverish enough perhaps to die, only to stage their own recoveries at the same breathtaking speed with which the crises began.

To anyone unaccustomed to it, a healing crisis appears to be the final stage of a terminal disease. It's not. Generally, a pet in ill health-but not in a healing crisis-will exhibit a steady decline of energy, a continuing lack of appetite, emaciation, and persistent or gradually worsening symptoms. A healing crisis, ironically, usually follows a period of seemingly renewed health. A pet's symptoms have eased, his energy has rebounded, and his owner has concluded that all will be well. Suddenly the disease seems to reappear. Various signs of increased elimination may occur: mucousy diarrhea and darker, more concentrated urine, mucus from the nose, excessive salivation, and all manner of inflammations and flakiness of the skin. The pet's fever spikes up, perhaps as high as 106 degrees. Yet the pet, though likely in pain, seems oddly engaged by the process, as if he knows something his caretakers do not.

At that point, the animal can lose his appetite and curl up in a corner, off by himself. This is no more than an extreme case of what animals in the wild do when they isolate themselves to gather strength and get well.

If your dog's condition worsens, does not appear better or back to normal in 48 hours, or if you have questions or concerns, contact your PetMassage_™ provider to reschedule for a restabilization massage session.

© 2005 - PetMassage™, LTD.

Jonathan Rudinger, Instructor and the Advanced PetMassage_™ for Dogs Class, April 2005