Last updated 10:29, Tuesday, 11 November 2008

No pain, no gain, or so the saying goes. Anne Pickles tested the theory with a massage promising plenty of both

Lisa gives Elaine Ellis a massage

• Slideshow: see Lisa giving a massage

She can do any world-weary woman a power of good with her particular skill for personal pampering – but for goodness sake, don’t ask Lisa Alexander for a manicure. There’s nothing cosmetically frivolous about Lisa’s healing hands.

In fact, if truth be known, her hands are not always that gentle. As a qualified masseuse and expert holistic therapist, Lisa could never be accused of being light fingered.

“Tomorrow you might feel you’ve been hit by a truck,” she warned cheerily as she blended aromatic oils of almond, rosemary and lavender for a deep tissue massage. “But I promise you it’ll be worth it.”

She was right on both counts. A day later I did feel as though I’d been run over by a bin lorry, big enough for a fortnightly collection round. And it was several days before there had been noticeable benefit. But that was entirely my own fault.

Too many years spent hunched over a keyboard and peering into a computer screen – curled up with a book or slumped in front of a TV for leisure – with little or no remedial treatment of scrunched muscles, had produced the inevitable... a painful rigidity in neck, shoulders and back to make rigor mortis seem infinitely more healthy.

Not the sort of problem you’d want to take to a GP’s surgery but it was screaming for attention.

The Brampton Therapeutic Centre, in High Cross Street, Brampton, opened only a few months ago but is already gaining a reputation among the walking-working-wounded seeking relief.

A menu of all kinds of treatments from a collection of therapists is available – hot stone massage, acupuncture, reflexology, Reiki, Indian head massage, sports massage, lymphatic drainage, ear candling and sinus drainage among them. But a detailed question and answer session soon confirmed it was the remedial deep tissue massage I needed. Pain for gain.

Lisa pulled no punches during her questioning, covering details of diet, exercise, sleeping pattens, health problems, past surgery, stress levels and...

“You’re tilting your head and deforming your posture.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“I bet you’ve done that since childhood. The head’s a heavy piece of kit. Hold it straight!”

“Straight. Right.”

“And you look as though your stress levels are slightly above average.”

“That’s encouraging... I think.”

“Cut coffee down gradually to three cups a day and drink more water. After a heavy day at work add Epsom salts and cider vinegar to your bath.”

“That’s not very glamorous.”

“We’re not here for glamour. We’re here to make you feel better.”

Originally from Baltimore, Maryland, USA, Lisa was a wetland biologist until she realised it was time she addressed her preference for plants and animals over human company and put her hands-on-healing talents to use on people – for a change.

She has lived in Brampton for 17 years and worked from home before opening the Therapeutic Centre in July this year.

So, on went the mood music, down dipped the lights and in went Lisa for the kill – deeply kneading out knots and deposits, loosening up muscles with fingers, thumbs, knuckles and forearms. The full 45 minute treatment on back, neck and shoulders cost £25; the first appointment, including diagnostic questioning cost £35.

It hurts. Even when bravely denying any discomfort, there’s enough to make you gasp a bit. But the sensation of unwelcome, inhibiting rigidity easing away is real and immediate. Accompanying euphoria and sleepiness is apparently natural... and you wee a lot for the rest of the evening.

“That’ll be the lymphatic stimulation,” says Lisa. “All’s well.”

Indeed it is – until the bin lorry hits. But once that has been allowed to run its course, benefits strike like a light on the Damascus road. I wasn’t growing suddenly old, stiff and immobile at all – I was just locked into my own entangled muscle.