Danger of irresponsible amateurs

 For months I have been suffering significant consequences from a session with an egotistical masseuse. I bitterly regret ever having met the woman but I wasn't to know massage could end so badly at the hands of someone so full of themselves.

It started well enough with a voucher for a massage from a kind friend who also used this woman's services. I therefore started from a position of trust. All went well the first time though there was one odd part to the visit which I will relate because there is considerable misinformation on the 'benefits' out there.

It started with an ionic foot bath detox. That was new to me and with some past medical training I couldn't for the life of me work out how it could anatomically work. You put your feet in a basin of water that has electrodes in it connected to a machine that controls a current. Salt is added to the water and you wait 30 minutes for toxins to be eliminated through pores in your feet? During that time the water starts to change to a brown/yellow colour and then some scum appears with dark bits. Hmm... that's interesting. 

I was informed that each colour that appears means a particular toxin has been eliminated from my body ie heavy metals etc. There was a brochure beside me, I read it and asked how exactly it worked. "I have no idea. I don't really understand those things," she said. So she's doing stuff she doesn't understand to another human being. I wasn't convinced so did some internet research. In amongst all the well-being/spa bumph I found results of such equipment tests. Yep. Bullshit. The colour comes from the rust on the electrodes which degrade over time.

However, no harm done. The next couple of massages, though sometimes painful did no harm and may have done a small amount of good. Then she went away on a retreat to learn lomi lomi massage. When next I saw her she wasn't interested in doing the usual massage. She insisted on doing this new one."You might find this quite sensual", she said. Well no. She was digging her elbow into me while climbing onto my back. She performed a very 'pointed' deep massage on my intestines, following them around. She then decided to do a chest massage. "I won't be too hard", she assured me as it is obvious I have had open heart surgery. Well it was rather heavy and I was  so glad when she stopped.

Lying on my back I found my knees bent up and being rotated in extreme rotations while she leaned on them. It wasn't massage, it was more physiotherapy. I am not young and was desperately hoping nothing would go wrong. At the time I thought I had gotten away with it but there was nothing healthy or sensual about any of it. I told her I found the massage painful and not at all sensual.

Two hours later the consequences started to arrive. The leger lists those, some have been suffered for 5 months and cost both me and taxpayers a lot of money.

• Significant bowel infection/diverticulitis
• Chronic sternal pain from open heart surgery wires where previously there had been no pain
• Increased back pain
• No improvement with shoulder pain
  
• Hip problems whereas I had never had so much as a twinge from them -Diminutive anterosuperior labrum with tearing extending into fraying of the superior labrum with adjacent synovitis.
• Possible mild hip tendinosis straight head rectus femoris.
• mild hip trochanteric bursal oedema/ bursitis
• Likely chronic hip ischiofemoral impingement

 I expect to have to have hip steroid infiltrations in future.

This person has no official massage qualifications nor has she physiotherapy qualifications to my knowledge. She is, I believe, not registered with any professional organisation but has run a successful business doing massage and also yoga classes etc On the surface it all looks good. Good until things go badly wrong and you notice trendy bullshit scams in evidence. She has no medical knowledge at all and seems not to understand consequences for doing certain things because she sees the skin and not the problems that may exist underneath.

I sent her an email to let her know what had happened and asked her to go back to previous forms of massage. She wrote back and said she had cancelled all my future appoinments and not to come back. No real remorse at all. She washed her hands of me. This made me feel worse.

Both my GP and the initial physiotherapist asked me if I would like to lodge an official complaint. To Whom? I asked, there is no governing body for the unregistered. This has cost me a lot of money and nearly 5 months of multiple sources of pain. I nearly ended up in A & E.

ACC does not pay GP costs, nor all imaging costs nor all physiotherapy costs. It does pay a fair bit of specialist costs, thank goodness. I am still in a lot of pain with ongoing treatment. I may also need to get the stainless steel wires around my sternum removed to eliminate pain I hadn't had from them previously.

It is worth noting that I was having regular massages in Auckland between 2000 and 2010. I never had any problems. In fact massages worked really well in tandem with the professional belly-dancing I was doing much of that time.  This amateur masseuse had gone on a retreat to learn lomi lomi massage supposedly originating from Hawaii but in my opinion what she was doing was not reasonable massage.

She had never asked me to fill out a questionnaire on past and current health issues, as a professional would. Just looking at someone's body exterior is not a responsible healthcare strategy.

FYI:  Hawaiian, 'lomi lomi' translates to 'rub rub' - and this is exactly what a lomi lomi massage involves. Using long, deep strokes, the massage therapist will use their hands and forearms to relax your muscles and promote blood circulation throughout your body.Overall, Lomi Lomi Hawaiian massage is more passive and relaxed than Thai massage and more general than Reiki; it involves calming smooth therapeutic touching with gentle pressure.

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/foot-detox