Michael Carlisle LMT has been a licensed massage therapist in Washington State for eleven years. He has been working here at Cascade Chiropractic and Massage for the past 5 years.

Mike practices a very specialized type of massage therapy called trigger point therapy. Trigger Point therapy is a technique used to relieve pain, restore limited range of motion, decrease swelling, and reduce stiffness. It is a hands on therapy that works on the pain and dysfunction of recent injuries as well as chronic conditions.

Treatment typically consists of finding the patient's "trigger points", which are highly irritable spots that can occur in any muscle in the body, erasing them and then passively stretching the newly relaxed muscles. The patient is then taught specific exercises to help keep the muscles spasm-free, increase range of motion, and raise the level of fitness. In this way, the muscles learn to gradually return to full resting length in a pain-free state.

The use of myotherapy in conjunction with chiropractic is highly beneficial. Often patients find that receiving a massage treatment just prior to getting adjusted helps them relax more easily. We have found that massage therapy can be very complimentary to the essential chiropractic care in the treatment of acute injuries caused by auto and job related accidents. Typically patients who receive massage treatment as well as chiropractic care recover more quickly and have fewer long-standing problems.

Trigger Point Therapy has been proven effective in relieving many kinds of pain, even long standing problems such as back and neck pain. Mike also specializes in various disease processes such as arthritis, fibromyalgia, scoliosis, and bells palsy.

Other conditions that have been successfully treated include sports injuries, and injuries from overuse that plague anyone with a job that demands repetitive movements.