practice remains temporarily closed

I hope each of you is healthy and faring as well as you can. If you have been following along with Governor Lujan Grisham’s various phases of re-opening in New Mexico, you would know that she gave the green light for massage services to begin in a limited capacity starting today, June 1st. After much thought, research, and discussion with fellow colleagues, I am choosing to remain closed for all of June, and potentially through August. While our numbers in NM look promising, I feel better about giving more time to see how these phases of reopening go, and to learn more about this disease.

United and cohesive guidance from massage and bodywork boards from both national and state levels has been sorely lacking, leaving these types of decisions to fall primarily on practitioners themselves. At the end of the day, these decisions are deeply personal, and while my choice is made by informing myself as much as possible, I’m primarily making this call from a gut level. I do so without judgement for other folks in the industry who are choosing to re-open. 

There is no risk-free way to practice touch-based work right now. Symptom screening is in no way fool-proof, as studies show vastly varying symptomology, and of course the presence of a significant percentage of folks who are asymptomatic. Even with extensive sanitization protocols and acquisition of proper PPE (which I question the ethics of using when many healthcare facilities in the country are still having trouble sourcing enough, not to mention the amount of waste created) OSHA guidelines are still impossible to adhere to, given the nature of a session. In my case there is of course the impossibility of maintaining six feet, for the duration of 60-90 minutes, compounded by the lack of ventilation provided in my windowless office with an HVAC system that is shared with other practitioners in the office suite. 

I also question the ethics of re-opening when we still know so very little about this disease, and what we do know is changing rapidly. If you are interested in a little physiology, here’s an article with discussion about the coagulopathy factor associated with Covid, and another article considering the possibility that Covid may actually be more of a blood vessel disease than a respiratory one. This is of particular concern because blood clotting is an already existing contraindication for massage.  None of this is intended to create fear, but share the medical information I am using to make my decisions. 

I am also continually brought back to one of the main reasons I do this work to begin with. Beyond manipulating tissue, the point is to help people feel safe in their bodies and down-regulate the sympathetic nervous system. To try and achieve this with so much existing risk and uncertainty feels insurmountable. 

Thank you so much for your time and attention if you’ve read this far! I miss seeing everyone, and I will definitely be in touch if anything changes and when I move closer to opening back up. Please be well and feel free to reach out if you have any questions.