Conditions We’ve Helped People Through
HERE’S A MODEST LIST OF MUSCULOSKELETAL ISSUES WE’VE ADDRESSED & CONTINUE TO DEVELOP OUR PROFESSIONAL EXPERTISE AGAINST:
Frozen Shoulder - A life-altering, crippling condition where the internal rotators of the humerus (big arm bone) in the shoulder girdle have SEIZED on a varying scale. From being ‘lightly painful with movement,’ to ‘complete shoulder lockdown with severe pain.’
- HOW DOES IT HAPPEN? -“I caught myself from falling”-“I was sleeping (on my shoulder) and woke up in pain”-
-“I practice impact sports and got my arm twisted”-“I always carry my children with my left arm because I’m right handed”-
Erb’s Palsey - This condition is pretty much identical to frozen shoulder, except it affects and seizes the person’s whole arm. It’s a crippling condition that newborns acquire through the extraction phase of the birthing process.
From our professional perspective, it’s what results when a low quality of touch is applied by the person who's responsible for extracting the baby. Their priority is likely on ensuring the child’s survival, with less attention given to the importance of mindful tender care in handling. When a baby's arm is strained, their arm’s reaction is to reflexively recoil and hold tight to the body, starting their journey through life with a condition that renders them with only one “useable” arm.
Below is a small story of a 40 year old female Corrections Officer with Erb’s Palsey
WHO EXPERIENCED HOW SHE COULD DEVELOP CONTROL & USE OF HER ARM BY HABITUALLY APPLYING CERTAIN SIMPLE SELF-CARE METHODS
From her first day alive to her 40th year, a client of mine had believed that her arm wasn’t good for anything other than as a purse hanger. Her daily reality had always been as such: her right arm was held hostage, locked in a chronically tight, short, and “hardened” state of complete immobility.
She sought massage to address a constant aching pain that swept across her whole upper body, expressing particular discomfort through the areas of soft tissue that were “hardest” to the touch. The arm she used as a purse hanger was never going to let her have relief from the chronic tension if it remained positionally stuck in “t-rex” position, as it was. After asking more about her condition, she consented to allow me to “try my hand” at addressing her arm in addition to her neck/ shoulders, and we quickly discovered the possibility that we could verifiably increase her arm’s movement and usability by applying several 90 second self-care techniques throughout the day.
By using manual methods like massage, stretches, static position holds, trigger point therapy, cryotherapy, etc., we began to identify all the other musculoskeletal issues that cascaded from her developing arm during the process of her arm’s unlocking.
[Unfortunately COVID hindered us from continuing our work together, but that experience is one of the richest learning adventures of my career.]
Migraines & Headaches - Varying degrees of pain in and around the head region, largely stemming from tension in the neck and eye muscles, or pressures within the skull like sinus pressure, blood pressure, and breath pressure. Massage conveniently helps with all of these pressures and tensions.
Sinus Pressure - this changes a lot based on the position of the head. During a massage, your head is positioned to encourage the evacuation of the sinuses (when you're face up), and the act of clearing out the lymphatics with neck and head massage seems to also have an effect on helping the sinuses.
Low Back Pain - Caused in many ways, “LBP” is usually a symptom of holding the hip flexor muscles in shortened positions for extended periods of time, as when sitting in a traditional seated position.
Deep Shoulder Pain - Caused from a variety of factors. The shoulder is not only the most mobile (and consequently unstable) joint in the body, it is also the most frequently injured joint. It’s easy to go too hard on our shoulders in odd positions, especially as our common postural tendencies of “ventral drag” undermine the healthy functioning of the shoulder girdle. In other words, deep shoulder pain is usually a symptom of a person’s issues with structural integrity through movement, aka “body mechanics”.
Deep Hip Pain - Often the hips are very difficult to injure outside of high speed accidents, and most folks don't do a lot of high speed things outside of the car. For a majority of people this pain is due to chronic tightness in the hip girdle. Likely due to imbalanced tensions in the musculature of the lower body such as the hip flexors, glutes, lumbar muscles, & leg muscles. Usually it's 2 or more of these regions working together.
Bone Spur - Rarely, a condition called a “bone spur” pops up. These usually show after YEARS of chronic tightness in the muscles, and are often but not always painful when developed in the hips and other joints. Bone spurs can happen in several ways, including when muscles are neglected in mobility practice for so long that they will literally pull at the bony attachment sites so strongly and for such a long time that the bone adapts to extend the tendon attachment site toward the direction of pull. If the soft tissues aren’t conditioned for flexibility for long enough periods of time, the bone adapts to accommodate the immense pressures of tension instead.
Sciatic Pain - This condition is very often (wrongly) self diagnosed as “sciatica.” Sciatica is specifically a result of the occlusion of a lumbar nerve from misaligned lumbar vertebrae or damaged/herniated lumbar disks, which produces sciatic pain, but is not the only way sciatic pain can occur.
Sciatic pain can also, and commonly occurs, with the development of chronic tightness in the muscles of the low back and hip girdle, and is easily addressed and alleviated with skillfully applied bodywork, often in just one session.
General Chronic Tightness & Inflexibility - Caused by a combination of factors, we've narrowed it down to 5 primaries: Hydration, Breath Control, Range of Motion, Body Mechanics, and Quality of Rest. Tissue composition of every person also varies. Some folks have a higher collagen to elastin ratio, which leads to tougher and more resilient tissues, making stretching and fascial work more labor intensive and requiring more dedicated time and patience.
Muscle Seizures and Cramps - These can happen for many reasons. Nutrition and hydration deficiencies definitely catalyze the onset of cramps and spasms, but aren’t usually the cause. The way we see it, the body is like a whole ecosystem where each muscle is like its own animal. The body is likely to experience cramps, spasms and seizures when it is presented with a stimulus that threatens its sense of well-being and safety. Somatic threats are the same kinds of things that cause animals to spook. Sudden movements, loud noises, painful stimulus, scary thoughts and emotions, anything that lends to a likelihood of injury and unpredictable outcomes are sufficient for inspiring the muscles to freeze up. In personal experience, the usual stimulus that causes cramps and spasms is from the action of loading muscles with way too much weight without a proper warmup. It’s a surefire way to induce a lasting sense of stiffness in any muscle.
Personal compensations and corporeal conundrums that we’ve successfully navigated working through are:
Poor Posture - Low Back Pain - Tailbone (sacrum) Pain - Jabbing Nerve Pain (ankle and shoulder) - “Knock” Knees (Knee Valgus) - Flat Feet - Instantaneous Positional Numbness - Bilateral Shoulder Instability (dislocations) - Stiff Neck, Charlie-horses (muscle seizures and cramps) - Tension Headaches - Burning pains related to stretching - Inflexibility - And more.
The power to control the programming of our “animal” allows us the liberty to be more fully engrossed in our pursuits without the constant drain of dysfunction and pain. This is the power that I wish to share with the world around, and it starts with my community here in Downtown Portland.
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