The Other 40%

I recently got back home from the International Massage Therapy Research Conference in Alexandria. If you’re not familiar, basically this is a nerd conference where massage therapy nerds can nerd out together. It is exactly up my alley, and I left feeling mostly inspired, energized, and just a little bit smarter.

On the surface, most of the conference was about pain. Chronic pain, the opioid epidemic that grows from (mis)treatment of chronic pain, the efficacy of massage as a treatment for all kinds of pain. For me, however, one other theme emerged from the conference, and that theme was: Health Equity.

During the first panel, three presenters talked about integrating massage therapy as a way to address the opioid epidemic. The first presenter threw out a sentence or two about cost, and quickly moved on to other things. The second presenter talked about integrating massage therapy and other integrative practices into the VA healthcare system, and the positive results that followed.

Yay, massage, right?

But as I sat there, I grew more and more uncomfortable. What about people who didn’t have access to either money or the VA healthcare system? What about the many (many) people in chronic pain who don’t have the extra income to spend on massage therapy, or other integrative practices that are not included in health insurance? What about the many (many) people in chronic pain who have no health insurance?

I struggle with this at some level almost every day. I am a sole practitioner…