Some back and neck pain needs a doctor today, not a chiropractor. Some back and neck pain is not a case for a chiropractor and needs a doctor the same day. Go to an emergency room, not to us, if you have numbness in the groin or inner thighs, if you have lost control of your bladder or bowels, if a leg is becoming weak rather than just painful, if the pain followed a serious fall or a car crash, if you have a fever with back pain, if you have unexplained weight loss alongside it, if you have a history of cancer, or if a headache came on suddenly and is the worst you have ever had. We would rather you rang your doctor and never rang us at all.
The massage room here is deliberately separate from the adjusting rooms, because the two jobs want completely different conditions. An adjusting room is bright and brisk and the appointment is twenty minutes. A massage room wants the lights down, the noise out and an hour that is not being watched. Sharing a space between the two produces a poor version of both, which is why we did not.
What massage is genuinely good for is muscular pain and stiffness, the guarding that builds up around a painful area, sleep, and the general state of somebody who has been in pain for a few weeks and is worn down by it. That last one gets dismissed as a soft benefit and it should not be: people who are sleeping and less wound up recover measurably better from musculoskeletal problems than people who are not.
What it is not is a treatment for a disc, a trapped nerve or a structural problem, and we will say so rather than book you six sessions. It also does not detoxify anything, does not break down anything, and does not realign anything. It is an hour of skilled hands on tired muscle in a quiet room, which is worth booking on its own terms and does not need a physiological story attached to justify it.
What it helps with
The honest list.
Muscular pain and stiffness
The most straightforward use, and it works. Broad, sustained work through a whole region reduces tenderness and increases range for a period afterwards. It is particularly useful across the shoulders and upper back, which take the brunt of desk work, stress and carrying things, and which respond well to being worked on for longer than a clinical slot allows.
The guarding around an injury
When something has been painful for a few weeks, everything around it has been working harder and holding on. Treating that broader area often produces more relief than treating the original site, and it is one of the reasons we sometimes suggest a massage alongside a course of chiropractic care rather than more chiropractic visits.
Sleep
People consistently report sleeping better after treatment, and given how much broken sleep worsens pain, that is a genuinely useful effect rather than an incidental one. If you are three weeks into a painful episode and not sleeping, that is a good reason to book an hour rather than a reason to dismiss it as indulgent.
Being worn down by pain
Several weeks of pain is wearing in a way that people underestimate and are often reluctant to mention. An hour in a quiet room where nothing is expected of you is not a trivial intervention for someone in that state, and its effects on how well the rest of the treatment works are real.
What it will not do
Because plenty of places will sell you a course of it for these.
Treat a disc or a nerve
Massage will not resolve nerve root irritation, a disc problem or sciatica. It may make you more comfortable while those settle, which is worth something, but if leg pain, numbness or weakness is your problem, the answer is a proper examination rather than a course of massage. We will tell you that rather than book the sessions.
Realign anything
Nothing is being put back, straightened or repositioned by soft hands on muscle. Where somebody's posture looks different after a massage, it is because the muscle is less guarded and they are more comfortable standing up straight — which is a real effect with an unglamorous explanation.
Detoxify you
No toxins, no flushing, no lymphatic cleanse. Drink water afterwards if you want to; you are hydrating, not detoxifying. We mention this on every page where it might come up because it is the single most common false claim in this field.
Replace the exercise
An hour of passive treatment is enjoyable and it does not build any capacity. If your problem is that a tissue cannot currently tolerate what you are asking of it, only loading changes that. Massage sits alongside that work comfortably; it does not substitute for it.
Booking one
Practical detail so nothing is a surprise.
Sixty or thirty minutes
Sixty covers the whole back, shoulders and neck without rushing, or two regions properly. Thirty covers one region. If you are not sure, sixty is usually the right answer for a first booking, and whoever treats you will tell you afterwards what suits you for the next one.
Tell us what you want
Pressure, areas to concentrate on, areas to leave alone entirely, whether you would rather talk or not. None of these is an awkward request and all of them make the hour better. Saying you would prefer quiet is completely normal and nobody will be offended.
If you are a patient here
Whoever is treating you can say whether a massage is a sensible addition to what you are already doing or whether it is a substitute for a visit. Sometimes the right answer is a massage instead of a follow-up rather than as well as one, and we will say so — it costs less and it suits some weeks better.
If you are not
You do not need to be a chiropractic patient to book a massage, and you do not need an examination first. If anything you mention during the session sounds like it needs looking at properly, we will say so and you can decide what to do about it. Nobody will be pushed into a consultation.
Therapeutic Massage in western Queens
An hour in a quiet room with the lights down. Genuinely useful for muscular pain, sleep and stress, and honestly described rather than sold as something it is not.
Every course of care here starts the same way: a full hour, a proper history, an examination, and then a plain statement of what we think is going on and how confident we are about it. You are told what we propose, roughly how many visits it ought to take and what should have changed by when — and we agree a date to stop and look at whether it worked. If the honest answer at any point is that this needs somebody else, you get that instead, and we write to them the same week.
Chiropractic care is not a substitute for medical diagnosis. Chiropractic care is not a substitute for medical diagnosis, and nothing on this website is medical advice for your particular problem. We are not physicians: we do not prescribe medication, we do not perform surgery, and we do not treat disease. What we do is examine how your spine and joints move, work on them by hand, and give you something to do between visits. If your problem turns out to be outside that, we say so and refer you — which happens often enough that you should expect it as a normal outcome rather than a failure.
What chiropractic does not treat. We treat musculoskeletal problems: the spine, the joints, the muscles and the nerves that are irritated by them. We do not claim that adjusting a spine treats asthma, allergies, ear infections, colic, digestive disease, high blood pressure, infertility, immune function or any other internal illness. Chiropractors who make those claims are making them without good evidence, and you should be wary of anybody who does. If somebody has told you that spinal care will fix a condition on that list, we will tell you honestly that it will not.
Questions
Therapeutic Massage — the questions we are asked most
Do I need to be a chiropractic patient to book a massage?
No. You can book a massage on its own without any examination or consultation first, and plenty of people do. If something you mention during the hour sounds as though it should be looked at properly, we will say so and leave the decision entirely with you. Nobody here will convert a massage booking into a sales conversation about a course of treatment.
Will massage cure my sciatica?
No. Massage will not resolve nerve root irritation or a disc problem, though it may make you more comfortable while those settle. If your problem is pain, numbness or tingling travelling down a leg, what you need first is a proper examination, because a small number of those cases need imaging or a referral rather than any hands-on treatment at all. The sciatica page covers what that means.
How much pressure should I ask for?
As much as gives you a strong ache you can breathe through, and no more. Deeper is not better — tissue that you are bracing against does not relax, so excessive pressure makes the session less effective as well as unpleasant. Say lighter or firmer at any point; it is expected, and adjusting as we go is part of doing the job properly.
Should I drink water afterwards?
You can, and it is a perfectly good idea for the ordinary reason that being hydrated is pleasant. It is not flushing toxins out of your muscles, because there are none there to flush. We say this every time it comes up because the toxin story is so widespread that people feel they have done something wrong if they skip the glass of water.
Is it normal to be sore the next day?
Mildly, yes — similar to the ache after unfamiliar exercise, usually gone within a day or two. It is more common after a first session and after deeper work. What is not normal is significant bruising, sharp pain, or feeling considerably worse for several days. Tell us if that happens, because it usually means the pressure was more than the tissue wanted.
Can I have a massage while pregnant?
Yes, with a therapist who is set up for it, side-lying and properly bolstered rather than face down. Tell us when you book how far along you are so the room and the positioning are ready. If you have any pregnancy complications, check with your midwife or doctor first — that is their call rather than ours, and we would rather you asked them.
Related
Often seen alongside this
Hands-On Therapies
Soft Tissue Therapy
Hands, thumbs and elbows applied to muscle and the tissue around it. For a lot of stiff necks and locked-up backs this is where most of the relief actually comes from.
Read more
Hands-On Therapies
Spinal Decompression
A motorised table that applies slow lengthening through the spine. It suits some disc-related problems well and does very little for others — and we will tell you which we think you are.
Read more
Hands-On Therapies
Rehab Exercise
The least glamorous thing we do and the one that carries the most weight. Two or three specific things, written down, ten minutes a day, reviewed and progressed.
Read moreA fee agreed before the visit, not after it
Book an appointment
Pick a chiropractor and an hour from the calendar — it shows only the times each of them genuinely has free. A first visit is a full hour and costs $95 for the examination on its own, or $145 if we treat you at the same appointment. You decide which after the examination, not before.