Massage practice to aid with carpal tunnel and tendonitis

We welcome Amy Wolf as a guest contributor to our blog!  Those of you that attended this years health fair may have already met Amy.  She is passionate about the use of massage to improve overall health and treat specific problems.  This month Amy shares how massage can help with tendonitis and carpal tunnel.  Thank you Amy! 

Tendonitis and carpal tunnel are two overuse syndromes common here in Seattle where many people are on computers all day. They also occur frequently in any job which involves repetitive stress of the same muscles. Frequently, massage is not even mentioned as a possible treatment for these problems. Which is unfortunate, because therapeutic massage can reverse both of them, without surgery or cortisone injections, if they are caught early enough.
Tendonitis is a condition many think is irreversible because it hurts so much-it is not; there is a specific treatment protocol for it which works. Ditto for carpal tunnel syndrome. Don’t let anyone tell you that you need surgery without first exploring the more conservative option of treatment massage. The sooner these things are addressed
the higher the rate of recovery.
I feel strongly that many women end up on disability or pain meds or having surgery which is completely unnecessary because the medical community and the general public are not aware that a skilled massage therapist can reverse these syndromes.
Let me know if you want to know more… I am happy to explain the mechanics of carpal tunnel and why massage is the ideal treatment for it….too long to put here, but extremely
simple.

Amy Wolf, LMP Lic MA00005860
westwoodhealingarts@gmail.com
206-349-9198

Lucie Blue Tremblay featured artist at OLOC gathering July 28th - 31st

Old Lesbians Organizing for Change (OLOC) has announced their first regional gathering with an artist that shares a cause that is near and dear to our hearts at YWCA's Women's Health Outreach.  Lucie Blue Tremblay is an outspoken advocate for breast cancer and has released Changes, a music video cd about how to do self breast exams to music.  

Lucie is part of The Breast Exam Project which travels the country sharing information on the importance of early detection.  We look forward to the opportunity to see Lucie Blue Tremblay!

Pacific Northwest Regional Gathering of OLOC,

Old Lesbians Organizing for Change

July 28th -31st, 2011 in Tacoma, Washington

 Lillian Faderman, Keynote Speaker

We are proud to announce Lillian Faderman as our Keynote speaker for the Gathering. She is an award-winning author and historian who will speak to our theme: Community, Visibility and Action.
Lillian is an internationally-known scholar of lesbian history and literature, as well as ethnic history and literature. Her work has been translated into numerous languages. Among her many honors are six Lambda Literary Awards, two American Library Association Awards, and several lifetime achievement awards for scholarship. She lives in Fresno, California with her partner, Phyllis Irwin.

Lucie Blue Tremblay, Featured Artist

Lucie is a Canadian singer-songwriter who started performing when she was still a child. She taught herself guitar, and then the piano. Her first appearance in the United States was at the 1985 Michigan Womyn's Music Festival's Day stage singing a duet with another local favorite, Canadian singer-songwriter, Ferron.  If you don’t know Lucie’s music, you should!

We thank OLOC for this information.

13th Annual LBTQ Health Fair a great success

We wish to thank all of the Peer Providers who were part of the health fair!  We received such positive feedback about the impact their services had for our community members.  We know many connections were made between the providers and attendees which is a big part of what the health fair is about.

We thank the ~70 plus attendees for taking the time to care for themselves and try new modalities we offered this year.  We appreciated the feedback and will be incorporating it into next years health fair.  We will share more about the health fair in the future weeks. 

We are starting a health fair advisory board and are looking for a mix of providers and participants.  Our goal is to grow the health fair while still intimately meeting the needs of our community.  If you are interested or have feedback to share, please contact Ingrid at iberkhou@ywcaworks.com.