Manual therapy is a broad term used to describe various soft-tissue techniques that chiropractors use to treat their patient's muscles and nerves.  Depending upon your condition, Dr. Flaskey may decide to include some of the following in your treatment plan:

Stretches
Certain muscles often become overstressed and tight due to poor posture, athletic injury, repetetive overuse and even from sitting too long.  Dr. Flaskey can identify and isolate these muscles using specific stretching techniques in the office.  In order to continue your care outside of the clinic, he may also give you a list of stretches with instructions so that you can continue your treatment at home. 

Triggerpoint Therapy
Triggerpoints are areas in the body where toxic chemicals produced from muscles build up and cause irritation of the surrounding nerves, and they are also known as "knots".  Often, triggerpoints will produce pain in parts of the body far away from their own location.  This pain can be a burning or aching pain in the arm or hand, even though the triggerpoint may be in the upper back.  Dr. Flaskey is specifically trained to locate and treat these triggerpoints, wherever they may be in the body.  After he locates the triggerpoint, gentle pressure will be applied to the area.  This therapy works to break up the area of toxic chemicals and to allow the natural blood flow to wash them away. 

Myofascial Release
After a muscle injury, scar tissue often replaces healthy muscle tissue during the healing process, much like a scab forms on cut skin.  If this scar is not eliminated during the healing process, it can decrease the function of the muscle as well as trap nerves that can lead to pain when the muscle moves.  Myofascial release techniques strip the muscle of this scar tissue and help align the muscle fibers, so that they heal in natural alignment.  This leads to a significantly stronger muscle that heals at a faster pace than one that is left untreated.