September-October 2019 Newsletter

What a fantastic time we all had at our 2019 Conference!

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~ Connective Issues ~

by Stew Wild, LMT, CNMT, CMTPT
Owner @ Myopain Solutions
Instructor @ Myopain Seminars

Book Review:

How Healing Works by Dr. Wayne Jonas

It seems, every year groundbreaking books are published on interesting subjects within the healing arts. Two years ago, I read a book called The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk. Last year I loved a book called The Hidden Psychology of Pain by Dr. James Alexander. One of my favourite books this year is by Dr. Wayne Jonas and is called How Healing Works (next time I will review another favourite).

Dr. Jonas started his medical career 40 years ago as a family physician, who then moved to the Medical Corps of the United States Army, then became Director of The Office of Alternative Medicine at the NIH from 1995 to 1999, conducting many research projects. He later worked at the Samueli Institute until 2016 and now advises national and international organisations on ways to implement integrated evidence-based healing practices in their medical systems.

During his long career he saw that the Western medicine model worked well for fixing broken bones, getting rid of cancer and preventing heart attacks, but often had limitations addressing chronic conditions like pain (especially back pain), fatigue, anxiety, cognitive dysfunction, or depression. He travelled the world to visit alternative medical facilities in India and China and Germany etc. where they practiced Ayurvedic medicine, massage therapy, acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, purging, meditation, and even homoeopathy and reading of your star signs. Being a man of science and wanting to practice evidence-based medicine some of the unexpected, positive results he saw with his own eyes made him question the practice of Western medicine as it currently exists.

His overall conclusion is that 20% of healing arises from the within the doctor’s office and 80% happens after you leave. I would like to think that these ratios apply to us in the myofascial pain and dysfunction business. The book has many great case studies, some of which defy logic. For example, a skeptical Indian man whose Parkinson’s was totally reversed using Ayervedic medicine. A retired woman diagnosed with fibromyalgia got 80% better as soon as she started volunteering at her church’s food pantry. A man, whose father had died of a massive heart attack, quits smoking by taking up running.

It is wonderful that a man of Doctor Jonas’s standing is promoting the kind of east/west, mind/body, prevention before cure health care approach that is lacking in the traditional model, but one that is familiar to us already. His book is an endorsement of a kind. He does include massage therapy a few times in the book, but what is missing is any mention of myofascial pain.

The appendix has a section entitled Constructing Your Healing Journey. These 30 odd pages are worth the price of the book itself because these tips may contribute to the 80% of wellness that happens once the patient leaves the practice. Check www.DrWayneJonas.com for more information.

Cheerio for now,

~Stew

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                                   ~ Tools Of the Trade ~

Richard Finn, CMTPT

My column is taking a different direction. I’ve been focusing on the tools that have proven useful in my practice. Now I’ll be changing things up a bit. I want to focus on a technique that has proven to be of great use in my practice. This will take a number of posts so I’d better get started.

There are a number of things that we can do that will calm down the nervous system. I especially like what happens when I floss a nerve. There are a few things to keep in mind:

Nerves have an ROM – just like muscles!

This ROM can be tested – just like muscles!

The effects of actually flossing a nerve can be seen immediately!

I’ll be adding a video to this so you can see how I test the ROM, treat the nerve, and observe its effect on muscles. That’s right. By specifically treating a particular nerve You will be able to observe it’s effect on the muscles it supplies – immediately.

You’ve probably noticed in previous articles and presentations that calming the nerves is something I deem to be really important. There is no myofascial issue that can’t be helped by calming the nerves first. This particular technique is manual. You don’t need any special equipment. You can do it in self-treatment as well as apply it as you work on your patients.

This post will focus on the femoral nerve, the innervation of the psoas and the quadriceps. Sometimes you can throw every technique at the psoas – and it still sits there like a rock. There are few things as difficult on a therapist as doing everything you do and seeing zero results. I think this might be a good addition to your tool kit of techniques. It’s one of the first things that sets up the rest of your treatment for a good outcome.

In the video that I’ve attached you will see that performed ROM tests for the quadriceps. That is because I had been asked a question about them specifically. The video was based on that particular issue. It could just as well been the psoas and that could have been assessed as well.

Something you will see during an arrest is that when the hands are cuffed behind the back that the head always goes back. That position takes pressure off of the nerves. It is an essential part of flossing nerves. There is often head movement to create the flossing motion. I’ll let the video demonstrate the entire sequence to testing the ROM and some of the muscles that are involved. Then you will see a take home movement that you can assign to the patient. I think your gonna like it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4l-ZRdmGgQ

~ Richard Finn

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From The Archives: Janet Travell, MD

To Virginia Street from Devin J. Starlanyl, MD, writer and teacher of myofascial medicine).

David G. Simons MD: Above and Beyond

David Simons, co-author of the definitive texts of myofascial medicine, was a pre-astronaut; the first man to see the curvature of the earth. He was suspended from a balloon in what amounted to a metal can to find out what happens to someone at that altitude over a 24-hour period. On August 19, 1957, Dr. Simons viewed the earth from an altitude almost 20 miles above the surface of the earth, higher than any balloonist had ever been. He ran experiments and recorded biomedical, astronomical, meteorological and electromagnetic observations. One problem after another plagued the flight, but still he chose to continue. He saw colors that had no name and described them for the people waiting below:

“Where the atmosphere merged with the colorless blackness of space, the sky was so heavily saturated with this blue-purple color that it was inescapable, yet its intensity was so low that it was hard to comprehend, like a musical note which is beautifully vibrant but so high that it lies almost beyond the ear’s ability to hear, leaving you certain of its brilliance but unsure whether you actually heard it or dreamed of its beauty,” he said in the taped log of Project Manhigh II. Simons would say later that the sunset from his vantage at the top of the stratosphere was the single most startling sight his eyes had ever seen.

Craig Ryan, in “The Pre-Astronauts: Manned Ballooning on the Threshold of Space, tells the story of Dr. Simons’ flight and these quotes are from this book.

‘A curious reversal of night and day met my eyes,’ he wrote. ‘High in the atmosphere, where the sun still shot its rays, the ever deepening blue sky was acquiring a greenish, sunset tinge. But below it, closer to the earth, was a giant demarcation line which looked like a faded rainbow arching from south to north across the eastern horizon. And beneath the line was the darkness of night covering the earth below. The daylit sky was above, the darkened sky below. And as the sunset progressed, the rainbow arch rose ever higher, drawing with it a curtain of blackness. Above the slowly changing colors was a layer of blue so clear that it was as if someone had lifted a veil from an ordinary blue sky to leave it polished and bright and clean with no scattered light to diffuse it.’ Night fell, and he marveled, ‘The stars glow like an animal’s eyes...I have ringside view of the heavens–it is indescribable.’

The book goes on to say, “He had prevailed over long odds, meager funds, a deadly storm, and near-toxic carbon dioxide levels. He was the first man to spend an entire night and day in the stratosphere, the first man ever to float down into a thunderstorm, the first man to ascend above 100,000 feet in a balloon. David Simons had just completed one of the greatest feats of endurance and perseverance in aviation history.”

Of this material are heroes made. David Simons later met Janet Travell. He turned his descriptive talents to TrPs. Together they defined the field of myofascial medicine and gave us all a chance to rise above the world of chronic pain.