Fellow Health Care Practitioners:

    When I first became certified in massage therapy, I knew I had finally found my niche in life. The ideal job for me…nurturing, healing, touching on so many levels. (Not to mention ideal working conditions, comfortable clothes, soft music, and the gratitude of my clients.)

    Little did I realize the several years down the road, I would start to experience some of the pain in my body that my clients were feeling. (To clarify: my pain was not from fibromyalgia, but rather arthritis, which is often associated with fibromyalgia.) Suddenly, massage wasn’t just a great job for me, it was necessary to keep myself from pain. The complaints of my clients became much more of a reality. I started to take their symptoms much more seriously (not that I hadn’t before, but sometimes you need to have been there to really understand.)

    As I continued to be approached by patients with fibromyalgia, I realized how little information there was for the massage therapist. Although we know that massage is one of the best therapies for fibromyalgia, there isn’t a lot of information on the specifics.  Never being one to take no for an answer, I decided to unearth the answers and spread the information myself.

    You, too, obviously, want to perform at your best for your patients with fibromyalgia, or you wouldn’t be reading this now. You are sure to find, as I have, that by giving them your best, you will reap multitudes of rewards for them and for yourself.

Dr. Deanine Picciano AP, LMT