Revarie Massage Therapy

03/02/2026

💯. (We probably didn’t shave ours either 🤷🏼‍♀️ 😆)

Friendly reminder: Your massage therapist doesn’t care whether your legs are shaved or not!

02/20/2026

Come meet some of our adoptable dogs!
Feb 21st, at Aylmer Country Feed, 26 Beech St W, Aylmer.

We'll also be selling tickets for the amazing prize of 2 Club Seats (Lower Bowl) for the London Knights game on February 27, 2026.

02/17/2026

Need a massage? We have appointments available!

02/07/2026

Busy St thomas clinic needs an RMT asap! Please send resume to relax@revariemt.ca!

02/03/2026

This is why we don’t recommend deep tissue for everyone. There are also other conditions or medications not covered in this article that can cause problems during or after deep tissue massage. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out!

Not everyone is sturdy enough for a “deep tissue” massage — not even seemingly healthy people — because many underdiagnosed pathologies, genetic quirks, and medication side effects can make muscle and fascia more fragile at any age.

[UPDATE: Obviously not all strong massage is harmful. No need to comment to that effect. 🙂 That's not the point I’m making. The point is that there is probably more POTENTIAL harm than most people suspect.]

The NON-RARE possibilities include: hypermobility, hypothyroidism, vitamin D and iron deficiencies, a bunch of inflammatory myopathies, and perimenopause or other low-gonadal-hormone states.

The DRUGS that can make us more “breakable” are the statins, oral corticosteroids, and fluoroquinolone antibiotics.

Most of these are minor, but not all, they are EXTREMELY common, and all of them can quietly lower tissue load tolerance, impair repair, and make muscles, connective tissue, and even tendons and ligaments behave less like tough rope and more like aging rubber bands — still stretchable, but slower to rebound, easier to irritate and damage. There are many more examples that are relevant to body pain in other ways, but literal FRAGILITY is the emphasis here: easier tearing.

But wait, there’s more!

There are also several RARE diseases that do this, but they are NOT rare when considered together. All kinds of rarer diseases collectively affect at least 4% of people worldwide — that’s 400 million people, well established as a bare minimum. Several of those cause soft tissue fragility: facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), mitochondrial disease, Loeys–Dietz syndrome, Marfan syndrome, eosinophilic fasciitis, and amyloidosis, sarcoidosis, and lupus.

People with these conditions often have body pain that motivates them to seek out help for it. A great many of them don’t know they’re vulnerable, and neither do most of the professionals they hire to, say, dig into their “knots.” But there are elevated risks for all of them if they get deep massage, acupuncture, dry needling, forceful fascial stretching, scraping, or other high-intensity manual therapies. These methods can easily overshoot unsuspected biological limits, provoking soreness, micro-injury, or flare-ups rather than recovery. And occasionally the consequences are even worse.

Even chronic pain itself is a kind of vulnerability: not from physical fragility, but from sensitization. Painful treatment can make a bad situation worse in a neurological way.

These conditions may also make people more vulnerable to postural and ergonomic stresses, but this is probably still a minor concern compared to the risks of intense massage.

This is why manual therapy intensity should be a clinical safety variable, not a badge of therapeutic virtue. Gentler, graded inputs make far more physiological sense in most cases.

That was the “abstract” for a whole new article that I have impulsively written and published in the last couple weeks, somehow finding time in the cracks for something that wasn't even on my project list. The topic has been on my mind for years and it suddenly seemed high time when I referenced it in a recent blog post (“Ideas for improving pain care”).

So there’s plenty more detail where that intro came from, if you’re interested! Ten times the words, references, and a full audio version. Link in the comments.

THE NEW ARTICLE:

“Sneaky Soft-Tissue Fragility: Many underdiagnosed health problems reduce the resilience of muscle and connective tissue, increasing the risks of “deep” massage”

~ Paul Ingraham, PainScience.com publisher

01/20/2026

A litte PSA based on an experience we had at the clinic today:

Any aggression or abuse directed towards our staff will not be tolerated.

Aggressive or abusive behaviour includes language (whether verbal or written) that may cause staff to feel afraid, threatened or abused and may include threats, personal verbal abuse, derogatory remarks and rudeness. The use of swear words in written or verbal communication will not be tolerated and these communications will not be responded to. Swearing at staff members will not be tolerated.

We also consider inflammatory statements, remarks of a racial or discriminatory nature and unsubstantiated allegations, to be abusive behaviour.

A demand becomes unacceptable when it starts to, or when complying with the demand would, impact excessively on the work of our staff. Or when dealing with the matter takes up an excessive amount of staff time and in so doing, disadvantages other members of the public.

For example:

- Repeatedly demanding responses within an unreasonable timescale

- Insisting on seeing or speaking to a particular member of staff when that is not possible;

- Repeatedly posing a question time and again, when a response has already been given, because the individual may not like the answer they have received.

Any staff member who directly experiences aggressive or abusive behaviour has the authority to deal immediately with that behaviour in a manner they consider appropriate to the situation and which is in line with this policy.

Staff will end telephone calls or communication if they consider the caller aggressive, abusive or offensive. Our staff have the right to make this decision, to tell them their behaviour is unacceptable and to end the call if the behaviour then persists.

If behaviour persists in future correspondence, we will tell the person in writing that we will not permit any further contact from them.

Where someone repeatedly demands a response on an issue on which they have already been a given a clear answer, we may refuse to respond to further enquiries from the person.

We have policies in place for a reason and will consider them on a case by case basis. If you do fail to comply with the policies, you may not appreciate the results and being abusive or aggressive will not make us change our decision.

01/20/2026

Book online at revariemt.ca! If you’d like to book tomorrow, please call, text or email us.

01/14/2026

Please send a PM or call/text 519-521-5310 for more details!

12/25/2025

Merry Christmas!

We would like to wish all our members who celebrate a very Merry Christmas!

12/21/2025

I’m at the clinic now and the smell is gone. I’m airing it out and will wash all the sheets and blankets today. We should be good to go for tomorrow!

12/20/2025

There is a strong sulfuric smell in the clinic right now from sulphuric acid being used in a drain upstairs. We are doing our best to reschedule appointments until it is ventilated but as this is our busiest month of the year, we may not be able to reschedule until January. We will keep you all updated in the meantime and hope to have this resolved ASAP.

11/11/2025