Spotlight Series: Jessica Ferrer

Jessica Ferrer, a licensed massage therapist with a unique background in pre-med and functional movement training, discusses her comprehensive approach to massage therapy, emphasizing the importance of integrating with healthcare professionals and understanding clients’ unique health histories. She shares her specialty trainings, ideal client profiles, and several unique case studies that highlight the effectiveness of her methods. The conversation concludes with Jessica providing her contact information for those interested in her services.

Physiotherapy Boston (physiotherapyboston.com) is located at 70 Cross Street, Unit B, Winchester, MA 01890 and 1 Overlook Drive, Suite 4, Amherst, NH 03031

Interviewer: All right, everybody, with me here today is Jessica Ferrer. She is a massage therapist, and she works in a couple different locations, but she is one of our top providers that we know of in the area that we refer to quite a bit for our clients and clients that need massage. So we wanted to highlight Jess today. And Jess, we just wanted to, you know, give people a chance to get to know you a little bit and know a little bit about why they should come see you. So, from my perspective, Jess is one of the most well versed and well educated massage therapists that I know of. A lot of people, you know, can go to an elements massage or whatever and get someone that has just a general training. But Jess is actually out there teaching courses to physical therapists and teaching courses to massage therapists. And just in the conversations we’ve had, there’s a lot of intellectual insight there and academic knowledge that I haven’t seen a lot of therapists have. So, Jess, thanks for taking the time today to come on here. And, yeah, just tell us a little bit about how your background is kind of, maybe a bit more unique than most other massage therapists that are out there.

Interviewee: Sure. Thanks, Brett. Thanks for having me on this podcast to introduce myself. My name is Jessica Ferrer. I have two office locations currently, one in Winchester, Massachusetts, and one in Amherst, New Hampshire. I am a licensed massage therapist, and I also specialize in functional movement training from the aspect of fitness, yoga training, pilates training, general physiology and movement kinesiology. My background does come from a pre med foundation. College was all pre med. I was heading down the track of, set my sights on orthopedic and sports medicine, and then it just kind of steered the way healthcare was at the time when I was in school. So I have always had body work as an athlete all my life, since I was four years old. And I played many, many sports, from individual sports to team sports. And then I also coached at the collegiate level and then scaled it back to youth sports and everything. So currently, my background is so comprehensive that I incorporate my education, my knowledge base from that premed background, science, research, staying up on the current applications of surgical interventions or non surgical interventions such as PTOT physiatry. Is that it? Yeah. And other elements of massage therapy. But massage is very broad, and where I fit is kind of on the upper end of it, wherever I. I do work a lot with healthcare professionals because I understand at the base of pathologies and conditions and also where a client is coming from and also the team that they’re working with, meaning the rehab, prehab, post op kind of stuff. And also sometimes having conversations with the doctors themselves to find out what it is that they really are looking to achieve after or around their treatment plan. So that’s where I come in. When you come to my office, you’re not just coming in. I mean, yes, I do have some people who do come in for just a general relaxation and sometimes that is part of stress reduction that contributes to their unique set of conditions. But for the most part, I. I will ask those questions. Who else are you working with? What does your healthcare team look like and what are they having you do? Are you having challenges with some of the things, the homework that you might have and kind of being an advocate from my perspective as far as soft tissue goes, that is the approach that I, that’s a lens that I look at things. But I also understand a lot of the other healthcare practitioners that are part of the team and understand what is my wheelhouse and then when to refer out.

Interviewer: Yeah. And I mean, so you’ve referred clients to us, we’ve referred some to you now. And I think one of the biggest things too is, I mean, my own personal experience with massage isn’t that vast, but anytime I’ve gone, it’s just you fill out a basically informed consent and say where does it hurt? And check a box and then just lay on the table and start working on you. Where from what I know with your protocols and processes, you are doing a full evaluation on people really to find out what areas to target. What you know, as I say to a lot of clients is the victim cries out, but the villain doesn’t say anything. So it’s not just let’s smash the symptomatic area, but like let’s figure out where it’s coming from in the first place. I think that’s one of the biggest parts there. And then, yeah, being able to speak the language of other providers is huge too. Where a lot of massage therapists don’t know how to do that, where you are integrating yourself within their own health advocacy and educating them and helping them navigate the medical system as well, which I think is huge that a lot of people, even, you know, professional providers within the physical therapy space aren’t doing enough of. So hats off to you for that. And then you’ve got quite a bit of specialty trainings under your belt too, don’t you?

Interviewee: Oh yeah, there’s a long list. It’s. The list is so long, it’s, it would be like a carpenter listing every tool that they have in their bag or their tool. Tool case. So, you know, any big ones? One of the big ones. Okay, well, basically, let’s start at orthopedic massage. What that to me means is that I take in all the medical information, even down to medications, whether they’re temporary or long term temporary, kind of like muscle relaxers or pain meds and that kind of thing, and even supplements that some clients will be followed by a naturopath. So trying to understand what it is that other practitioners are trying to address. And then I look at the body as a whole before even working on it, what systems are being affected by everything, and then where do I fit in? Or where. What does the client. What. What does a client client actually, what can they take care of on a daily basis, and what do I need to do to fit a. Facilitate that? And that’s basically, I guess what it comes down to is another thing that makes me unique, is I say that I facilitate your healing and your wellness and your recovery. Then I make you feel. Yeah, I make you feel good. But sometimes there is a little gauntlet of discomfort that you have to go through. Let’s see, what else?

Interviewer: What were we, what are your big main. Your big main special?

Interviewee: Visceral manipulation. Neuromanipulation, those attack or attack. They basically work very closely with nervous system pathologies and conditions and visceral manipulation dealing with the organ systems and how that’s affected. Craniosacral therapy, which to me, I do take it more from the osteopathic approach and not the energetic, just energetic. There can be a lot of trauma pieces to that, but that is.

Interviewer: A.

Interviewee: Modality centralized around brain function and how it translates through the rest of the nervous system, through the craniosacral fluid. But everything that I have embraced and added to my toolbox basically comes from a science background. So, historically, if I do it, there is more of a science research and a continued research foundation to things that there is an implementation right back into what most people would consider medical.

Interviewer: And for those that aren’t aware, why would someone need a visceral manipulation?

Interviewee: Oh, well, sometimes the organs, we. We kind of just assume that they’re in the middle, and they’re just. When we. Let’s see, an example would be somebody with a right shoulder discomfort. And they have tried various other practitioners and other modalities attacking it from the outside. It can be something that has to do with, say, a digestive issue or a fatty liver condition, or say they had multiple surgeries to some of the organs. Some pieces moved and shifted through surgeries, and the viscera of the organs are disrupted and out of place. So sometimes it could be that your liver, let’s just take fatty liver. It’s swollen, it’s inflamed, it can increase in size, and then it can, this is just a quick, short version of it. It’s not exactly how it happens, but that inflammation of the organ in your thoracic cavity can pull on the right shoulder from the inside. So you could have a massage therapist and you could have a PT doing all kinds of modalities. You could have your personal trainer trying to strengthen it, saying that this is weak and this is strong, and that could be, but it may not be the primary cause of right shoulder pain for how the person’s describing it. It could be from the inside, which can only be assessed. And I addressed by checking out the organs, their placement, their motility, their mobility and that sort of thing. And that might be just the key, but it’s not something that you would feel like an owie for a muscle pain. You ran into a door and it’s right there. But you could have a massage therapist work on it every single day, hit all the muscles, make you feel sore, make you feel good, and it moves really well, but it’s still this deep ache that just, you can’t get rid of. Sometimes it is other systems.

Interviewer: And so what types of people do you typically see that, that are, you know, how would you describe your perfect client?

Interviewee: My perfect client doesn’t have an age. I do see a full range of babies. Recently, four weeks old, all the way to currently. My oldest client is in their early nineties. Most of the time, it’s just trying to stay active and stay mobile for the most part. They are complex health histories. I like a good puzzle. I like a good puzzle. So the more unique their, their whole system is and their lifestyle, the better. So I do meet the person where they’re, they’re coming from. For example, I have two clients. It’s a husband and wife. They’re 86 years old. They recently stopped. They just weaned off of doing Crossfit. They were doing crossfit in their eighties, and they moved into a retirement community away, so they can’t access the Crossfit gym anymore that they were at. And so their systems have, I’ve kept in touch with them, their systems going into the retirement community, having, you know, discontinued Crossfit. They were moving way, way, way better, almost like late sixties, early seventies. They were doing box jumps. Crazy. And they were, they were coming to see me on a regular basis every two weeks. They were doing Crossfit twice a week and their mobility was amazing. They’re still driving at 86. They have full function, they could carry things. They are more. That’s what I want to see. They want to continue to stay dynamic and moving and be able to stay independent for that age range. That’s what I see. But I do see a lot of people who have had total joint replacements and that’s also my jam, like trying to help them supplement on the soft tissue side and function when you know the usual protocol. You have that replacement surgery you have in home PT, you have outclient PT, everything else, you know, maybe some ot, depending on the person’s total state and then filling in the blank. Sometimes the self care is hard for them to do, the homework to do in between PT sessions, and they’ll come to see me to help facilitate that or help guide them to find a better way because they have something else going on. So those are my ideal clients. I do see a lot of athletic athletes of all ages. I do see a lot of youth depending on the season of the sport.

Interviewer: Makes sense. And then I guess what is one of the wildest cases you’ve been able to help someone get through that people wouldn’t think of a massage therapist being able to help them with.

Interviewee: It was, I think I had just started my practice. This is 20, I’ve been practicing for 21 years now. It was in the first month of my coming out of massage school and getting my feet right into my own private practice. I had a client about mid thirties. She just had her second baby and she also, she came to me a week after having a radical, total, radical mastectomy and total reconstruction of both breasts. She had diagnosis of breast cancer. And that’s a big deal as far as like major surgeries going and also limitation immediately following, like you can’t lift anything and so forth and so on. So she came to me a week after and I, the way I like, we started off saying I do things differently. I do like working with all the healthcare professionals that a person has access to that they’re working with. First thing was, I mean, it wasn’t for relaxation. It was basically, how can I help her accelerate or just keep her on track with getting better faster with this surgery? Because she wanted to be able to carry her baby. I mean, that’s a huge bonding thing. That’s basically the first question I asked. They said, what do you want to get out of this? And she said, I want to be able to pick up my childhood, like, sooner than later, sooner than they tell me that this is gonna take for recovery. And I contacted. She gave me permission, of course. I contacted her surgeon, found out exactly what he would have liked. He actually instructed her on what to do around the implants, and she felt uncomfortable doing it herself. I worked with her twice a week. We were able to give her more range for both shoulders, quicker. And when she went in for her first follow up post surgery, her surgeon thought that he couldn’t believe how soft and supple the tissue actually was in the range that she had. He actually thought that she had, that the implants had popped, that something was wrong, but everything was intact. The soft tissue, we just were able to keep the scar tissue away. We improved her range of motion quicker. Her recovery was quicker. And then on the other end, because this is something that you have to continue to maintain, is, you know, a little bit of self massage and all that stuff to help the family stay bonded and allow her, I invited her husband to kind of come in so that I can show him how to help her out massaging the area. I know that sounds a little weird, but we, you know, totally medical, because there’s only so much that you could do on yourself, and somebody. Somebody outside of you has more access and ability and doesn’t get as tired. So that’s probably the most unique situation that I’ve. That I’ve had.

Interviewer: And then I think there was one more, too. We actually talked about one time. You had someone that I think had Hashimoto’s disease or something around their thyroid or their pineal gland.

Interviewee: Oh, yeah.

Interviewer: Help them improve.

Interviewee: Yeah. She was young, twenties. She was just finishing her senior year, bachelor’s nursing. She was a nursing student, and she had. She had something that nobody could actually diagnose. She just had a lot of swelling going on, especially in her face. She had inflammation going on. She was seeing a naturopath, seeing somebody for magnet therapy. Reiki, another massage therapist, followed with a rheumatologist. Like, everybody was just kind of guessing. She didn’t really have. Oh, she had a history of Lyme disease, too, but that wasn’t really. She wasn’t symptomatic from that. She just was. She showed me pictures of what she looked like as a freshman, and you could see just. You could see a face, but how she came in, she kind of looked like a chipmunk. Her eyes, she. It just was like all of it was, like, jammed up like this and swollen, and so I as I’m hearing her story and what they’ve attacked medically. I said, it sounds like your pituitary gland is out of whack. But they did scans, they did brain scans, they did MRI scans of her skull just to see is anything out of place or something growing. Everything was normal. And so I said, well, let’s try some craniosacral therapy. And my focus was, I think, because the pituitary gland is a gland that’s like, sitting right behind this part of your skull, but it’s in, it’s in front of your eyes. It’s just this little, like, walnut, and it’s a soft gland that sits surrounded by a lot of bone or a firmer structure. And I implemented techniques of craniosacral therapy gradually because there’s some techniques that are done in the mouth, so they’re into oral techniques as not like, you know, hey, guess what? First session, I’m going to stick my fingers in your mouth and I’m going to manipulate your head. I just worked through it with her just to make sure that she was comfortable with it, comfortable with the idea. I educated her on how things, how things fit together and how maybe that gland was just, you know, you know when you’re sitting on the saddle of a bicycle just a little off because your back is hurting, and all of a sudden your butt’s hurting because you’re sitting a little off kilter. That’s basically what I thought was happening. And when I finally was able to get to do more deeper techniques of craniosacral therapy, within the one session, I was able to do those types of techniques. Immediately following, she looked in the mirror, she came out of the room, and she couldn’t believe how different her face looked and that the swelling had gone. I want to say it took like, two months, but besides that. So her, I forgot to mention her thyroid level was showing that she was hypothyroid. She had hypothyroid. I asked her what her labs were ahead of time, like, to show all this stuff. She was taking medication to control it. And after that specific session where she saw a physical change, she said, oh, by the way, I just had a physical. And my doctor couldn’t believe that my thyroid levels had shifted the other direction, so she became hyperthyroid. So that, to me, indicated that we must have been at least helping her body facilitate a movement towards wellness and healing that her pituitary gland, because that’s. That’s what controls your thyroid, that it was. It was in a better place and it was returning to a better function. But while she was supplementing with these medications, the medication was adding more thyroid hormone. So then she was able to come off of it, because normally, if you’re hypothy, if you, you have hypo thyroid, you’re on medication for life. That’s usually what conventional medicine says, so.

Interviewer: Conventional, conventional, conventional. There’s other ways to do it. We don’t have to do that forever. No, there’s other options besides just going on conventional medicine, too, for, especially with thyroid. I’ve seen a lot of different takes on that. But anyways, Jess, thank you for your time. Where can people find you and connect with you if they would like to schedule an appointment with you?

Interviewee: The best place is to check out my website, which is physiotherapyboston.com dot. I’m sure, Brett, you’ll plant that somewhere. We’ll put that in there. Yep. Currently I have two office locations, one in Massachusetts, one in New Hampshire. The Massachusetts one is in Winchester, Massachusetts, at 70 Cross street in Winchester, Massachusetts. And then the other location is in Amherst, New Hampshire, at one overlook Drive, suite four. So. Yep. Physiotherapyboston.com, all one word. Or you could reach out to me by phone. My office number is 781-369-5352.

Interviewer: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Jess. We will get this posted up soon. And for all you listening to, if you have questions for us about Jess, feel free to reach out to us, too. And we can put you in touch with her as well. So that is everything for now. Thank you.

Interviewee: Thank you.

Interviewer: Yes. Bye.