Located in historic Inglewood – Calgary, Alberta

Why Diagnostic Imaging Isn’t Your Whole Story

by | Feb 18, 2025 | Fitness, Health Goals, Misconception

Breaking news: Diagnostics are not the ‘be all and end all’!

Sometimes your health journey can feel challenging. You may have been making progress but then somewhere along the way you hit a wall, and you start to wonder if all your efforts have been in vain. Instead of being able to look back and see how far you’ve come, you tend to look so far ahead that your path to recovery suddenly seems intimidating and unattainable. What can make those feelings of doubt and disappointment worse is when you receive results from diagnostic imaging and now you have even more proof that your body is “falling apart”.

Though diagnostic imaging has an important role to play in modern healthcare, using it as the only lens through which to understand the complexities of your health may be misleading or over-simplistic. Many medical and scientific journals note that imaging is not foolproof due to things like errors in the reading of data, getting false positives, and when any deviation in the body is assumed to correlate with a negative or definitive diagnosis.

For example, in ​an article published in the National Library of Medicine​, researchers looked at the lower-back health of 98 asymptomatic people, aged 20 to 80 years old. Within this test group, they found that “64% of these people without back pain had an intervertebral disc abnormality (i.e. bulge, protrusion and extrusion), and 38% had an abnormality at more than one level.” This demonstrates that although the imaging results warranted a high percentage of structural abnormality, the people with these abnormalities did not experience weakness, numbness, or pain because of it. Additionally, the article goes on to say that “athletically active young individuals, who were otherwise asymptomatic, had higher prevalence of disc degeneration and many other abnormalities in lumbar spine compared to normal individuals”. This again underscores how a singular piece of information like disc degeneration (observed from a high-tech machine) cannot define the complete outcome of a very complex system (your body).

When the nervous system gets ‘fired up’ during times of stress, the brain distributes a whole host of responses to various parts of the body. If we focus on capturing only one part of this equation, which may not even have relationship to the actual issue, we are not getting the whole story. It is therefore imperative that we seek to understand the interplay of physical, mental, and emotional factors in our health, integrating both objective data and subjective experience. This means acknowledging the lessening levels of pain you do feel, or the increase you’ve noticed in your mobility or movement, or the benefits you receive from new habits in your day-to-day life.

This may be the beginning of your story, or you might be in the middle of it, but putting together your puzzle of health is what we do best! ​Book in today​!

Speaking of journeys, today Theralleve toasts to being in business for 5 YEARS!! To celebrate, we will be donating a portion from every treatment booked in February to Fear is Not Love – a Calgary-based charity to which we have previously donated and that is close to our hearts. Thank you so much for your patronage.

Disc Degeneration in Lumbar Spine of Asymptomatic Young Adults: A Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study – https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9123103/
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Avoiding burnout for better productivity

by | Mar 12, 2024 | Health Goals, Self-care

Want to know an amazing secret weapon against burnout?

With only two sleeps left before I go away for a family-focused weekend, I am considering doing something that will take considerable effort: leaving my work at home.

In a world that glorifies “hustle” culture, the idea of having two full days where I don’t jump onto my laptop, review and reply to emails, search through calendar bookings, and review my ever-growing to-do list feels not only unnatural, but incredibly lazy.

Although we are certainly getting better at recognizing the need for self-care and adequate downtime, western society’s promotion of work equating to worth is proving that the practice of not working (and not attaching any negative feelings to it) is still… a practice.

In this month’s newsletter, I want to challenge the notion that being idle is synonymous with being unproductive and declare that instead, “doing nothing” can actually lead to more energy, creativity, and problem-solving aptitude.

To illustrate this, most of us have worked on at least one project where our energy was overexerted, our creative juices used up, and all we did was go over the same mental loops, only to feel frustrated, distracted, and unmotivated. In most cases, our belief was to keep slogging and though we may have finished the damn thing, we felt the worse for it. So, herein lies the secret weapon: when you find yourself feeling “blah” or coming at things from “push energy” (i.e. forcing vs allowing), trust your body and take the break. By giving yourself permission to temporarily walk away (whether mentally or sometimes physically), your chances of releasing what isn’t working are higher and you will likely return with a fresh, more productive approach.

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you. – Anne Lamott

 

Quick Tips for “better break habits”:

1. Set a timer. If you’re someone like me and “I’ll go in 5 minutes” turns into “2 hours later”, set it and when it goes off, GET UP.

2. Move it. Whether it’s going for a lap around your office/home or doing some stretches, movement matters.

3. Step away from the screen(s) and give your eyes a rest.

4. Consider meditation: With countless meditations available (some as short as 5min), pick one that resonates. Sit back and breathe into it.

5. Socialize. This is more of an in-person suggestion but sharing healthy interactions with others can boost mood and relieve stress.

Prioritizing and revitalizing your health is a key part of what we do at Theralleve.

Avoiding burnout for better productivity.

Want to know an amazing secret weapon against burnout?

With only two sleeps left before I go away for a family-focused weekend, I am considering doing something that will take considerable effort: leaving my work at home.

In a world that glorifies “hustle” culture, the idea of having two full days where I don’t jump onto my laptop, review and reply to emails, search through calendar bookings, and review my ever-growing to-do list feels not only unnatural, but incredibly lazy.

Although we are certainly getting better at recognizing the need for self-care and adequate downtime, western society’s promotion of work equating to worth is proving that the practice of not working (and not attaching any negative feelings to it) is still… a practice.

In this month’s newsletter, I want to challenge the notion that being idle is synonymous with being unproductive and declare that instead, “doing nothing” can actually lead to more energy, creativity, and problem-solving aptitude.

To illustrate this, most of us have worked on at least one project where our energy was overexerted, our creative juices used up, and all we did was go over the same mental loops, only to feel frustrated, distracted, and unmotivated. In most cases, our belief was to keep slogging and though we may have finished the damn thing, we felt the worse for it. So, herein lies the secret weapon: when you find yourself feeling “blah” or coming at things from “push energy” (i.e. forcing vs allowing), trust your body and take the break. By giving yourself permission to temporarily walk away (whether mentally or sometimes physically), your chances of releasing what isn’t working are higher and you will likely return with a fresh, more productive approach.

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you. – Anne Lamott

 

Quick Tips for “better break habits”:

1. Set a timer. If you’re someone like me and “I’ll go in 5 minutes” turns into “2 hours later”, set it and when it goes off, GET UP.

2. Move it. Whether it’s going for a lap around your office/home or doing some stretches, movement matters.

3. Step away from the screen(s) and give your eyes a rest.

4. Consider meditation: With countless meditations available (some as short as 5min), pick one that resonates. Sit back and breathe into it.

5. Socialize. This is more of an in-person suggestion but sharing healthy interactions with others can boost mood and relieve stress.

Prioritizing and revitalizing your health is a key part of what we do at Theralleve.

BOOK AN APPOINTMENT
Massage Misconception #1: Pain versus Gain

Massage Misconception #1: Pain versus Gain

by | Feb 2, 2021 | Misconception

You may be familiar with the expression “no pain, no gain.” Well-known to the fitness industry, it promotes the idea that without pain we will never achieve our fullest potential. Even if we are left battered and bruised in the process, we must still be willing to do anything necessary to get an excellent result.   

The massage industry is not immune to this motto either, with many people eagerly lining up ready to hurt because they believe that is what their muscles need. However, this way of thinking is potentially harmful*.  

This is because many of us think that to see the results we want we must really feel it happening. However, when we ignore our body’s adverse reaction to something and push through anyway, we are more likely to endure injury or have an area overworked. Yet, as opposed to evaluating what is going on, we largely assume and accept that “this is what is supposed to happen”.   

Let’s say you arrive with a stiff neck and pain between your shoulder blades. Even before I physically assess any muscle, one of the many questions I will ask you is what kind of work you do. Let’s say your answer is desk work. Although some of my attention will be to focus on your back and delve into other details of your health history, my education and experience will tell me to look to your front first. That is, for as much as you might love me to drive my elbow in between your shoulder blades and torque on your neck for the next sixty minutes with the deepest, most intense, and pain-inducing techniques I can muster, I am going to refuse.  

What? Refuse? But it hurts! Hurt me more so I hurt less!!  

I will refuse because more times than not, your pectoral muscles (via your work posture) are likely to be the main culprit and prioritizing them can increase your body awareness and create a more effective massage. Think about it. When we sit in front of a computer all day our shoulders roll inward, our heads crane forward and our backs get stretched and stiff. Everything has moved forward and caved inward.   

If I only focus on where the pain feels most prominent, in this case your mid-back, I am immediately doing you a disservice. Similarly, if I only apply techniques with an intention to satisfy your desire for pain by adding more pain, not only might I (unintentionally) injure you, but I bypass the bodily responses that should be informing my actions in the first place! As your massage therapist, I want your muscles to “let me in” so I can do my work and by the end of the treatment I want you, my client, to not only have a better understanding of the postural imbalances you contribute to daily, but feel empowered using tools you now have, to create better habits. I should not be out to hurt you, and you should not be out to hurt you either.   

Being someone in the business of pain management and relief, my overarching want is to prove that a massage does not have to leave you breathless, squirming in pain, and/or sore for days after you see me. (I have a had at least a handful of my clients shudder as they recall treatments where they asked for pressure that left them hurting.)** 

Muscles deserve attention and the nervous system should be stimulated, but never should either feel under attack. That is why I am always happy when I have a client who originally wanted me to “bring ALL the pain” become noticeably impressed with how pain-free their experience was, and yet their muscles felt “worked” and a longer-term benefit remained.

So, the next time you are in pain and booking an appointment, know that you do not have to be in extreme pain to have a good massage and get the results you want.  

     

*’Harmful’ because in some situations, like someone who has osteoarthritis or who is pregnant, deep pressure is not advised. Always check with your doctor as well as your massage therapist if you are unsure about how your condition(s) can affect your massage.    

**Massage is a shared responsibility and pain is very subjective. Please speak up if you are in pain because if you do not tell us, we do not know.