Scraping therapy, using muscle scraping tools, is one of the most beneficial types of therapy to come along in a while. It’s just one of the chiropractor tools and physical therapy treatments that can help repair soft tissue damage and get you back on the road to health and strength after an injury. Here’s what you need to know about this treatment.
What Is Soft Tissue Damage?
Soft tissue refers to the parts of your body that surround the bones and organs. This includes fat, muscle, ligament, membranes, nerves, and blood vessels. When these are injured, you can experience bruising, swelling, stiffness, or pain. Adhesions—a form of scar tissue—may form to protect the area as the body repairs itself. Treatment with muscle scraping tools can help to relieve the pain and stiffness caused by this scar tissue buildup after a soft tissue injury.
What Is Muscle Therapy?
This type of muscle therapy involves using muscle scraping tools of different types to press and scrape against the area where the soft tissue damage has occurred. This is done gently and by a professional: usually a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, an osteopathic physician, or a chiropractor.
What Does The Treatment Accomplish?
This treatment can help with strained muscles, fascia restriction, bruising and swelling, and scar tissue buildup. This therapy has the potential to:
- Reduce pain
- Break down scar tissue
- Reduce painful swelling
- Enable greater range of muscle motion
How Does It Work?
The precise way that these muscle scraping tools work is not perfectly understood, but it does stretch connective tissue. This stretching helps to realign the structure of the soft tissue, returning it to normal. Some studies have shown that the therapy appears to activate nerves and cause a reaction in the mechanoreceptors and proprioceptors of the body, which speeds up healing while minimizing pain and stiffness.
How Does it Work?
Most treatments begin with some light warmup exercise or heat treatment to get the are warmed and ready. Then the chiropractor or osteopath will scan the damaged area. Treatment will be done with muscle scraping tools, which are applied for half a minute to a minute in each area. The tools are pressed against the injured area, breaking up scar tissue.
What Happens After?
It typically takes anywhere from one to ten visits to see the final results, depending on the severity of the tissue damage and individual physiological responses. The treatment involves no medications of any kind. Immediately after the treatment, there may be some soreness. This typically fades over the course of the next hour, after which you will have greater range of motion and less pain and stiffness.
Muscle scraping is just one of the chiropractor massage tools that can make a huge difference to your mobility and comfort. If you’ve suffered a soft tissue injury or are one of the many Americans suffering from chronic pain, see a physical therapist near you to learn more about muscle scraping tools and how they can help you reduce muscle fatigue, pain, and stiffness.
