I’ve been searching for a reliable massage therapy place that did foot massages. My feet have hurt constantly over the past year. I only knew of one place, an Asian massage place way out on Erie Boulevard (I live in Liverpool) but they only do foot massages in the evenings and it’s the kind of massage where it feels good for maybe a couple of hours afterwards but then the pain comes back.

My feet felt wonderful!

Not that there’s anything overly wrong with that. Sitting back while someone rubs your feet with those healing salt and sugar scrubs and you’re soaking your feet in warm water while sitting in a vibrating chair is nothing to sneeze at. But I had to wonder if paying for only a couple of hours relief was really benefiting me all that much… although I thought it was the only thing I could do.
 
I tried finding places online that did foot massages, and most of them were difficult to get into and quite pricey. Many of them added pedicures; ain’t no way, never, not again! Others were salt or sugar scrubs, but they all charged way more than the Asian place did.

In what I thought was a last ditch effort I reached out to my buddy Melissa of Armory Massage (that’s not her in the above picture lol), whom I wrote about almost 5 years ago, to see if she knew anyone in town that gave foot massages. She got back to me saying they did; I was stunned. I set up an appointment and couldn’t wait to get there.

I got to the location on a Monday early afternoon and realized I couldn’t park where I did the last time I’d been there. If you ever go to the location you need to know there’s a outdoor paid parking lot just around the corner, and a parking garage at the end of the street; park there if you don’t want to get towed; Melissa showed me that.

Once I parked I went inside and we talked briefly. She must have remembered that I had a problem with one of my legs (something called a IT band, or Iliotibial Band Syndrome) because she said that she was going to have to include my legs up just past the knee to really help with the problem I was having with my feet. I had no problem with that because I felt I was getting much more attention than I normally would… that and I got to lay down on the heated table (ahhhhh….).

After I got half of my body disrobed and under covers, Miss Melissa herself came in and went to work on me. Initially it felt pretty relaxing… and then the real work took over.

I’m not going to lie; about half the time she was working on me I was in minor pain. Whereas my knees never felt any discomfort, my legs and poor feet sure did. At one point while working on my right calf I said to her “Would you be surprised if I told you that hurt a bit?” She said “No.” What I thought was amazing was that she noticed something was off immediately. She did the initial evaluation, looked at my legs and said “Something looks wrong”, and I told her that one of my legs was about 1/2 inch longer than the other. She knew that accounted for my pain, as we talked about orthotics and how they might help (and why I hadn’t done it yet lol).

At another point she said to me “Am I tickling you or are you in pain.” I said “I’m in a little pain; how did you know?” She said “Because your leg keeps rising above the table; could you please put it back down?” I had no clue! lol

Just before the end she was rubbing my feet and, I’m not going to lie, I felt like they needed to be rubbed. When she said it was over and left the room I wondered what I was in for when I stood up. I did so… and I had no pain! I mean nothing except a little bit of tingling in my toes, which I’ve always had along with the pain, but even that was reduced a bit.

Once I was dressed and went out to pay my bill I told her that I amazingly had no pain and that I was in shock. She said that’s what real massage does and that my feet would continue feeling pretty good over the next few days.

She turned out to be right. By Friday I was starting to feel the first twinges of pain once again but can you imagine how good I felt not having pain for 4 days after having constant pain for over a year except for a couple of the other type of foot massages that lasted a couple of hours?

Fabulous; brilliant; wonderful stuff! I have to say that I’ve never felt this good when having my shoulders massaged and someone’s digging their fingers into them; that always hurts when it’s being done and it hurts afterwards, and I’ve never felt better for it. This time I felt really good, and I can’t even tell you if she was actually digging or not since I was already in pain.

Thanks Melissa! I hope I haven’t told any of your secrets. I can’t wait until I have the funds to do it again so I can keep piling on the steps. 🙂