Are your Plastic Surgery massage treatments quality?

Approximately 47.5M people get massages every year according to the National Holistic Institute. There’s 331.9M people in the country. That’s about 284.4M people who are NOT receiving regular body work. According to the Cleveland Clinic, 15M people get plastic surgery procedures per year. Of that 15M population, how many of them are inside of the 284.4M people who don’t receive regular bodywork? And what does that mean for the Body Altering Aesthetic industry?

Key Points:

• Cognitive Dissonance
• Ambi Massage
• When you know better…
• How to find the right Post Op provider

Fact from Fiction

How can you figure out what’s good or not good when you’ve never experienced the stimuli before? Let me simplify this: How can a client tell if their postOp treatments are what they need to heal from their procedures with the best results— if they have never had surgery before, but also don’t receive regular body work?

And then when our egos get mixed in, we THINK we do a good job of adulting, butttt who’s grading us and giving feedback on how we’re doing? Who is whispering in our ear “hey, this is actually a scam wrapped in a pretty package, better options exist in your price range”? Typically the answer is your divine source energy but even that can get fuzzy in respect of making the best decisions for an elective procedure. Here’s our good ole friend strolling down these Sx Community streets: Cognitive Dissonance. 

The fun buzz words that float freely throughout the industry are “massage” “postOp”, “body contouring”, “lymphatic”. Providers in this industry have a vague grasp of the full extent of each term, and clients have even less; but everyone is talking to each other having different convos using the same fun words. 

Let’s take recovery homes for example. While recovering homes may be new to most clients, this presents the opportunity— almost as a requirement, for clients to research WHAT is a recovery home? WHAT makes a “recovery home” worthy of that title? WHAT is the difference between a good recovery home, a subpar recovery home, and a low vibration cheap bootleg recovery home? Clients do NOT rely upon their preexisting information and understanding around this part of the journey. But that same energy isn’t introduced to their post operative treatments.

Why aren’t post operative treatments held in a higher regard?

Part of the problem is attributed to surgeons still under-embracing the overwhelming benefits of manual manipulation after plastic surgery, leaving it to be an optional choice for clients. When someone offers their opinion or thoughts, we use them as life-cliff notes, typically assuming the disposition (opinions) of the person that we trust. But recovery homes? Clients use their own discernment, their own research, and their own judgements around it without a fleeting filter (the surgeon’s disposition), demeaning its importance. 

With postop massages and services, surgeons are on the fence as a whole— leaving it up to the client as an afterthought in whether to sign up for some or not. This sets the precedence and tone around “postOp treatments”. From there, clients handle treatments with ‘after-thought energy’, even if they do budget for it, the respect for the craft isn’t the same. How often to we lump people with similar traits, red flags, benefits, services, and looks all into the same category? Almost as if, anyone with that license OR (shout out to lacking cognition in 2023) anyone with those words on their social media profiles + business listings + websites is able to provide the same level of quality or experience.

In case no one has broken this down and you were today years old, let’s rip this bandaid off:

Whether someone falls into the category of 284.4M who don’t receive regular bodywork or not, most will attest to this fact: massages feel really really really good! That’s one of the biggest things that attract bodyworkers to their respective industries. We fell in love with he craft because WE GOT ONE! But when we merge vanity + science + anatomy + trauma + bodywork wellllllll we wind up with a recipe needing better educational ingredients than any massage therapist is trained to provide without CSL Therapy inclusions.

Quick history lesson

As the industry continued to develop, the plastic surgery demands surged, flooding the Body Altering Aesthetics space with more clients than in-the-know providers. Lacking regulation, gray areas and healthcare loopholes, mixed with “by any means necessary” ambitions cultivated a culture of rogue providers we have coined “Ambi Therapists”. 

CSL Therapy uses little to no oil. It is dignified by massage strokes that do not push fluid down towards already congested lymph nodes. And is donned with a focus on aesthetic skin integrity presentations that guide customized protocols for clients at every single appointment. 

But that isn’t what the masses of Ambi Therapists were doing, and unknowing clients were left to sift through the madness… whileeeeeeee receiving treatments that FELT REALLY REALLY REALLY GOOD! Moving your hands in a circular motion exploded onto every social media platform in 2018, overshadowing proper treatment, and ignoring the fact that it further congests a clients system encouraging them to heal more slowly with complications.

When you know better…

You do better. But what is “better”? What could be better than feeling good during such a difficult time? How about proper treatments that may be slightly uncomfortable but definitely not painful that’ll end in ideal desired body goals? A broken clock is right twice a day so sure, the feel-good-strokes of Ambi Massage provide instant gratification— and maybe someone else on that providers portfolio and social media posts healed well; flat; looked good. But that isn’t the norm. Are you going to risk your investment on “broken clocks”?

What categorizes Ambi Massage treatments? (this is not an exhaustive list)

• Too much lubricant
• Too much pressure
• Massage strokes going in directions that will clog lymph nodes (usually going down)
• Hand techniques go in the same patterns with no regard to body presentations
• Strokes are entirely too swift
• Session lengths are too short
• Sessions don’t include legs or arms in the treatment
• The providers have never taken a CSL Therapy sanctioned method lecture
• Providers are unable to create treatment plans that vary every session to match client presentations
• Providers are unable to explain with science why the body is presenting in the manner it is

PostOp treatments shouldn’t ever be excruciating. They honestly shouldn’t even hurt. There should be a level of discomfort that you can breathe through as the energy passes— you did just have real live surgery— but “pain” isn’t the key word to describe post elective surgery sessions. If it is, it’s being done wrong.

Ambi massage sessions push fluid against the valves of lymphatic vessels, overwhelming them and encouraging congestion. Fluid sits within the skin layers waiting to be processed and starts to harden. Reabsorption turns into fibrosis. Skin integrity isn’t smooth, flat, and natural looking. Lower extremities start to build with low levels of edema that aren’t noticeable at first but our studies have shown clients who had surgery 10 years ago and received Ambi Treatments, or MLD treatments without a focus on gravity and oncotic overload are now showing signs of liposuction lymphedema. Youth, clean diets, and just luck are all apart of the “broken clock being right twice a day” in some clients heal “fine” (note: check in with these same clients in 10 years).

How to find your postoperative provider?

Whether you’re looking to have the best experience of your life or you just want the extra skin gone + to finally do something for you for a change— the answers fall along the same spectrum of researching your post operative journey.

1. Start by asking how long your provider has been practicing.
2. Inquire where they studied CSL Therapy and if it’s with one of the sanctioned methods.
3. Check out their portfolio and testimonials.
4. Ask about their respective existing medical licenses and trainings.
5. Request them to explain your pending treatment plans and how they come up with what techniques and treatments they plan to do at each appointment.
6. Ask them to describe the flow and comfort levels of their sessions.

And be honest with yourself: do you actually care? I want to say yes; the answer should be yes. But there are people who focus on just the price and live in the moment of “everyone they work on seems to heal fine.” Looks are deceiving (this couldn’t be more true in this industry thanks to photoshop), and so are people— they lie. A lot. BUT if you’re being honest with yourself, and ask self “Self, do we care about HOW we heal?” and self says yes, now you can move along this spectrum from an informed standpoint about how much you care, and what specifically you care about. Maybe you don’t mind that your provider has never taken a proper peer-reviewed postOp class BUT it will highlight the thought of “what else may my provider NOT know?”

Conclusion

We make decisions based own a duality of who we are in the moment, and who we want to become. PostOp treatments should not feel like a massage. They should not “feel good”; they should “feel necessary” and impactful. They also shouldn’t be painful. If you lack discernment from previous elective surgery experience, don’t place your research or emphasis on “feels” or even “vibes”. Base it on empirical data, research, and a provider’s ability to answer your questions about your body investments.

The gold standard has become CSL Therapy. If you feel you deserve the best, or you want to come as close to it as possible (not every state has a CSL Therapy provider yet), then dig a little deeper than “Oils + Circles + Down” and a pretty spa. Courses can be expensive— but not only are you worth it, but that also isn’t your problem. You paid a lot of money and have invested a lot in this industry to get to this point; don’t have that ruined by someone who didn’t. Your body isn’t a playground for people to practice YouTube University Sx Spa Life on.

Instagram: @thetosimethod

For quality Postop-indur courses that teach the comprehensive details of what’s going on with your clients during each stage of their postoperative journey past standard Advanced MLD courses, The TOSI Method is the solution you’ve been searching for. Check out our FAQ section, visit our “How To Get Started Map“, and sign up for a FREE Blueprint Call to discover the 3 TOSI Phases + enhance your Cosmetic Self Love educational journey.