In our Medical Massage Clinic we focus on reducing pain, building posture, and gaining Range of Motion (ROM). To do this we use a lot of massage and manual therapy techniques. So, if we can help you get all this, what is the use of going to a physical therapist? Isn’t that what physical therapists do too? (Except that Medical Massage Pros is generally less expensive?)
You might think that coming to us is all that will help, but honestly we’re just a piece to your healing journey!
I had the opportunity to interview with Align Therapy’s Physical Therapist (PT), Dr. Gary Huntington, to help clear the fog on what PT’s do to help people improve not only their health, but also their lives.
You see, at Medical Massage Pros, we can help you lessen or totally get rid of your pain for awhile, but what Dr. Huntington does is help you strengthen your weakened area(s). And this is SO important!
When you strengthen the areas of your body that are hurting they end up healing and usually stay in good, working condition – as long as you continue to take care of yourself. But this is the point!
There are a lot of people who I work with and all they need is some structural and/or fascial work to release them from being in pain or experiencing limitation. That’s perfect. But, I’ve learned over the years that people who come weekly and continue to still experience recurring pain should see a PT to help strengthen their sore and weakened area(s).
The same is true with people who are meeting with us to improve their structure, but keep reverting back to misalignment. When that happens then the science says to strengthen the area.
That’s where Dr. Gary and Aligned Therapy comes in.
Aligned Therapy
Scoliosis
Dr. Gary Huntington has an amazing specialty that is not well-known: he is trained in the Katharina Schroth method for treating scoliosis! What more, he is the only person from San Bernardino, California to Lehi, Utah trained in it and practicing! And he’s right here in lovely St. George!
So what does this entail? Well first, remember how I often like to quote, “If you weren’t born with it you can reverse it,”? Just like I believed, and ultimately found, a way to regrow my once crushed lumbar disc back with Dr. Gibson – now I have been blessed to find an amazingly personable doctor who specializes in helping people get their spine back into alignment when they have either a lateral bend, rotation of their spine, and/or a torsion of their spine!
If you have spine problems, or even scoliosis, you can treat it! What is interesting is that most western medicines state that scoliosis is incurable. And perhaps they’re right (although I personally would argue that) but, with Dr. Huntington you can get your spine back to a very functional structure!
Dr. Huntington doesn’t just include physical therapy approaches, but he also incorporates a breathing regiment that helps patients bring correct structure back to their spines and bodies.
This is a prime example of how training and exercises can strengthen and maintain a body for health and longevity.
Not only does a person learn how to do certain exercises and stretches to help with their spinal problems, but they also learn important breathing techniques to help restore proper body structure. If you know anything about breathing it is a potent, positive, effective medicine.
Dr. Huntington shared with me that if you suspect that your child has something going on with their spine to get them checked early on in their life. Don’t wait it out (like some doctors share to do) because that causes the bones to set in incorrectly and more work is needed for the person the longer they wait to fix their back.
Another key thing that Dr. Huntington shared with me that he has personally seen is that children who get treated early gain structural confidence. This then converts over to psychological confidence and is very helpful in adolescent development (Santrock, 2020). During adolescence children go through puberty and body image changes. Girls take this the hardest and their self-confidence generally goes down. Gaining structural confidence has been shown to greatly improve self-confidence.
TMJ Also Known As TemporalMandibular Joint Disorder
Another thing Dr. Huntington specializes in is in helping you fix your jaw.
So many people have TMJ (or really TMD for temporalmandibular disorder). The American Family Physician journal states that, “Temporomandibular disorders affect between 5% and 12% of the population and present with symptoms such as headache, bruxism, pain at the temporomandibular joint, jaw popping or clicking, neck pain, tinnitus, dizziness, decreased hearing, and hyperacuity to sound (Matheson et al., 2022).”
Dr. Huntington can help you treat this. He shares how relaxing the neck muscles (like the traps and sub-occipitals) can help a ton here. He also has a unique positional release technique called the “strain counter strain” technique which he says is light, but very effective at getting rid of the pain that a person experiences.
One of my most favorite things he shared with me is how learning a new tongue posture in your mouth can have drastically positive effects on this disorder. I’ll also share a link here too that talks about just how important it is to have correct tongue posture
Another effectively helpful modality Dr. Huntington uses is Dry Needling to get rid of tension and tightness in the neck, head, and jaw muscles.
Dry Needling
Dry needling is where a person gets a very small and almost painless needle put into a muscle knot. This modality is very similar to trigger point therapy because Dr. Huntington works specifically on the trigger point spot itself.
The nice thing about dry needling is that it’s a very fast and effective modality at reducing pain. Combine that with Dr. Huntington’s other PT therapies and you could be pain free indefinitely. This is serious business here. Dr. Huntington can help you to have lasting relief.
Dr. Huntington was extremely kind and let me try out dry needling personally. I’ve never experienced it before. I wanted one side worked and the other side not worked in order to feel the differences afterwards.
Now, I’m a person who is terrified of needles. I’ve given plasma a ton and no matter how many times I’ve been stabbed, needles still scare me and I tense up. I had Dr. Huntington work a spot on my foot and also a spot on my forearm to see the differences in pain and sensitivity. I’m happy to report that neither one felt terrible and sitting here typing the next day I still feel a significant difference between the side I had worked and the side I didn’t have worked. Dry needling is effective!
(If you don’t like needles though, keep coming to see us and we’ll work trigger point on you to help you get the relief you need.)
Sources
Attractive Face or Not? It depends on Tongue Posture. (2019). YouTube. Retrieved August 30, 2023, from https://youtu.be/zbzT00Cyq-g?si=Etpq513wY14PkrMY.
Matheson, E. M., Fermo, J. D., & Blackwelder, R. S. (2022, December 31). Temporomandibular disorders: Rapid evidence review. American Family Physician. https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2023/0100/temporomandibular-disorders.html#:~:text=Temporomandibular%20disorders%20affect%20between%205,hearing%2C%20and%20hyperacuity%20to%20sound.
Santrock, J. W. (2020). Life-Span Development (18th ed.). McGraw-Hill Higher Education (US). https://capella.vitalsource.com/books/9781260471984
Conclusion
PT is a great tool to use in addition to our medical massage. PT uses manual therapy to help get rid of pain and strengthen affected areas of your body. Dr. Huntington is specialized in treating scoliosis and TMJ disorders as well as in performing effective dry needling. He is the doctor that I highly recommend visiting for treatment of these conditions. After visiting with him in person I have felt less pain and honestly, more loved as a human being. He genuinely cares about the people he works on and knows his medicine!
To contact Dr. Huntington’s office:
Address: 1054 E Riverside Dr Ste 201, St. George, UT 84790
Website: https://aligntherapyutah.com/
If you get the voicemail during working hours you will get a text message to respond in order for him to reach back out to you.
