Quote Originally Posted by mlededee
the only times i've had truly painful massages was when there was an injury to the area to start with and the massage was a means to fix it. for instance, i had a hernia in my upper back due to an injury and my chiropractor did deep tissue massage on and around it in order to loosen it up and get the muscle to go back to its normal state. of course that hurt, because it was already painful, but the massage was neccesary to get the muscle to relax enough to de-herniate (is that a word? ). the absolute most painful massage i ever had was one done on my calf muscle after it cramped and wouldn't uncramp--i think i actually levitated off of the table during that massage.

in any case, i don't think that you should be in that much pain from a normal, working out the knots massage. maybe try a different massage therapist next time and see how that goes, but i might go ahead and mark this person you went to off the list.
Calf cramps are the worst IMHO. I've only had one really bad one and I ended up getting out my mom's rolling pin and mega rolled my leg. Was sorta a trainwreck situation, hurt so much but in some twisted way I found pleasure in it. Then when I got out the knot I just had a rubbery feel-good leg.

...and yea, Imma try another next time.