As you know, my specialty is providing therapeutic massage designed for injury/surgery recovery and pain reduction. For nearly 5 years now I have treated people with injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident (MVA).

In order advocate for the patient as best I can, I bill the auto insurance company and communicate with the patient’s attorney and physicians. Here’s a tip (#286) from my experience:

Beware the IME. Your auto insurance company may request (require) you to have an “independent” medical exam (IME). Although perfectly legal and often standard practice, such a request is a red flag that demands your attention. If you do not already have a good personal injury attorney working for you, it’s time to get one. If you do have a PI attorney, alert him/her to the IME request so you can be guided properly through it. People on your medical team who are advocating for you will also want to know of this development.

If you have any questions about being treated with massage for recent MVA injuries, feel free to call me at 503.516.2108. Or visit this page within my website.

The adductor pollicis (AP) is a small, but powerful thumb muscle. The bulk of the muscle can be found by squeezing the tissue in the webbing between the thumb and the index finger. This muscle helps bring the thumb (pollicis) toward the fingers by an action called adduction.

Adducting the thumb allows us to enjoy our opposable thumb status. Because of the AP you can use utensils to eat and tools to build. You use this muscle to open jars and doors, throw a Frisbee, text your friends, and hold a brush to paint the house. Overusing, underusing, or injuring the AP can set up trigger points in the muscle.

Trigger points in the AP can refer pain to the base of the thumb, complicating or intensifying pain associated with arthritis. Deactivating the trigger points can reduce the “pain load” carried in the thumb.

I’m a big fan of the therapeutic value of walking through the neighborhood. There are so many reasons to do it and I especially like to encourage clients to do this after a session of detailed cervical (neck) massage.

Taking 10 or 15 minutes to walk through your neighborhood seems to allow for more natural neck movements than deliberately stretching. Rotate your head head to look at houses and safely cross the street; flex to admire new blooms or the dog walking past; tilt to catch the tattoo of a woodpecker; and extend to look up – yeah that was a raindrop (welcome to Portland). This seems to give you the opportunity to feel where you are gaining more freedom in motion.