care professional should be consulted for a diagnosis.  This newsgroup is
read by many people with great talent, however none of them can diagnose or 
treat ailments or injuries solely over a network connection.  If there is a
serious problem then it should be dealt with promptly by a health care
professional.  

        Richard Karasik advises:
    If you insist on asking for advice then you'll have to provide
    some details.  For example, have you ever been diagnosed with any
    osseous deformities, e.g. 6 fingers on one hand, arthritis or any
    ligamentous tears?  Do you exercise regularly?  If so, what
    exercises do you do?  When was the first time you noticed the
    pain, what were you doing in the 24 hours prior to that. Do you
    have headaches associated with the pain?  Describe the pain in
    detail -- is it sharp, radiating or local?
        The description you give may suggest muscle tests you can do
    yourself to isolate the areas of dysfunction -- the causality you
    will have to puzzle out further than that -- but even isolating
    the muscle groups affected and determining how they are affected
    will help you when you consult (in person) with a health care
    professional. 

        Terry Norman advises:
        Soft tissue massage may be only one of several types of
    modalities necessary to bring about a complete rehabilitation of
    an injury.  You can't tell exactly what the appropriate therapy is
    to pursue without a complete physical exam by a competent
    physician.  It's not always a waste of time and money to consult
    one before starting on a course of physical rehabilitation.

        If you are seeking advice about treatment not diagnosis then you
might find useful information in the archive.  At the time of this writing
(April 1995) there are files about: back pain, fibromyalgia, wrist and hand
pain, massaging bruises and knots, neck aches, scoliosis, massage as an
adjunct to cancer treatments, headaches and chronic pain.  There may be
much more by now.  Information about the archive is in question 5.1.2.
--
Jamie Blustein  `No trees were destroyed to make this post'   <jamie@csd.uwo.ca>
                 The disclaimer is the subject of question 0.6
               See also http://www.ii.uib.no/~kjartan/backrubfaq/
    This document is archived in ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/alt.backrubs/