Reiki: Healing Injury in Unexpected Ways
By Melissa Eisler; Active.com

Trisha Huszka was 18 when she suffered her first knee injury at a rugby game. She loved the sport, but college rugby demanded a rigorous practice schedule—her team would practice four days a week for a minimum of two hours and then play one to three games on the weekends. Her team ran an average of 10 miles each practice. Plus she was constantly on her feet waitressing at night; so it seemed like her knee would never fully heal.

"I always taped up my knee during games," Huszka said. "I couldn't really run without knee support. I would get deep tissue massages regularly, which helped a lot, but there was always swelling and pain in my knee."

One day when Huszka was 22,  she went to see her massage therapist for her regular deep tissue massage. But this session was unlike any other.

"At one point during the massage, I remember thinking, `Did she fall asleep? She must be tired. Why is she hanging out in that one spot for so long?' She cupped her hands around my knee; I didn't know what she was doing." Huszka recalled. "To be honest, I just relaxed enough to zonk out and didn't think about it again. The next thing I knew the massage was over."

Huszka didn't have much expectation for the massage. She'd been seeing the same massage therapist for years, and the sessions always helped, but never resulted in dramatic changes.

"The next morning when I woke up, I remember feeling really relaxed and my whole body just felt better. Then I realized my knee wasn't swollen or in pain," Huszka said. "When I asked my massage therapist what she had done, she said it was reiki—a type of energy work she was learning. I couldn't believe the improvement. I even stopped wearing my support in games. It was the best my knee had felt since I had started playing rugby."

Trisha went back to playing rugby six days a week. No longer needing to focus on treatment, Trisha worked on strengthening her knee so she could rack up drop goals and conversions for her Western Connecticut University team. 

About a year later, Huszka's love for nature and hiking resulted in a diagnosis with Lyme disease. She visited an infectious disease specialist who began her treatment with a month and a half of double dosage oral antibiotics. When that didn't work, he put her on IV antibiotic therapy--one hour every day for another six weeks.

"I couldn't lift or do anything with my left arm for that month and a half. It was very painful," Huszka said. "I would wake up to do my medication and then go back to bed."

After several months of antibiotics, the doctors told her, "Well, that's about all we can do. We can't give you any more antibiotics."

"I actually felt worse than when I started with the doctors," Huszka said. "I was 24 years old and couldn't even walk up the stairs without taking a break. I slept 16-20 hours a day and had to drop out of classes because I couldn't function properly."

Fed up with doctors and traditional medicine, Huszka decided to call her massage therapist, who she hadn't seen in a few months. "I didn't know what else to do or if she could even help, but I was in so much pain I could barely stand someone touching me."

The therapist recommended doing three reiki sessions not more than one week apart.

"After my first session, I went right to sleep…for 16 hours. Then I woke up, used the bathroom, ate something, and went right back to bed for another eight hours," Huszka said. "When I woke up, it was the first time since I had been diagnosed with Lyme disease that I could move around, and my whole body wasn't aching. I felt awake. I was so happy."

"It was crazy to think that I was in and out of the hospital, talked to so many doctors and people to help me with the disease, and no one really had answers. Reiki was the most abstract thing I tried--and it actually worked. After the first session, I felt like a completely different person."

Reiki helped Huszka so much, she decided to learn how to practice the healing art. She took the first-, second- and mastery-level classes and moved to San Diego in 2002 to start her own practice.

Her first year in California, Huszka got her massage therapy license from the Professional School of Bodywork so she could start integrating the therapies. Massage and reiki work so well when done together. They've shown Huszka the importance of trying something new.

"Before my first reiki session, I didn't have a lot of expectation and it all just seemed too hoovey groovey for me," said Huszka. "But I had faith in the person working on me, so that was enough for me to be open. And I think that's all you need for it to work–-is to be open. If you are open to the idea that something new could help, you may be pleasantly surprised to find out what works for you."

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