Category Archives: Head & Neck
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Working the Head and Face
Posted on February 2, 2020 by Dawn in Anatomy, bodywork, Head & Neck, Human Body, massage therapy, SMRT, Spontaneous Muscle Release TechniqueWritten by Dawn Lewis I am going to say something radical. The bones in the head and face are not, I repeat, not fused in adult humans. I know that is the common wisdom in western medicine. I believe that this is because medical professionals do not work directly with the head and face. Why […]
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Massage Therapy for Sinus Trouble
Posted on April 14, 2019 by Dawn in Anatomy, bodywork, Head & Neck, NCBTMB approved continuing education, Sinus Trouble, SMRT, Spontaneous Muscle Release TechniqueHeadaches, Watery Eyes, Pressure, Pain One morning recently, I had a massage session at 7 am for an hour and a half. This particular client began to see me for sinus issues. He had 2 sinus surgeries. When I began to see him, he suffered from constant headaches, his left eye watered constantly, he felt […]
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A Mean Headache
Posted on December 26, 2018 by Dawn in Anatomy, bodywork, Elbow, Head & Neck, Human Body, massage therapy, Massage Therapy Continuing Education, NCBTMB approved continuing education, SMRT, Spontaneous Muscle Release Technique, Tennis ElbowA Mean Headache A client this week presented with “a mean headache”. She said that it began in the suboccipital area, and traveled up the back of her head. It landed at her right temple. Her right eye hurt, and she said, “her jaw felt weak” and she had an uncontrollable urge to swallow. Palpation […]
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Chronic Headaches
Posted on September 21, 2018 by Dawn in Anatomy, bodywork, Head & Neck, massage therapy, Ribs, SMRT, Spontaneous Muscle Release TechniqueChronic Headaches Okay, I am going to tell you a funny and mildly graphic and useful story. One of my clients has chronic, intense headaches. She messaged me last week begging for an appointment. She had gone to the doctor, gotten pills, taken them, and felt the headache was worse instead of better. I am […]
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Thyroidectomy & Vertigo
Posted on August 31, 2018 by Dawn in Anatomy, Articles, Back & Spine, bodywork, Head & Neck, Hips & Sacrum, massage therapy, Massage Therapy Continuing Education, Ribs, SMRT, Spontaneous Muscle Release TechniqueThyroidectomy What happened in SMRT class in Pittsburgh? So much!! First, we had a therapist in class who had a thyroidectomy. The scar tissue in the front of her neck was pulling her chin and trachea inferior and posterior. On Saturday, we did SMRT for the anterior neck and I did some extra work on […]
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SMRT Headache Relief
Posted on June 15, 2018 by Dawn in Anatomy, Back & Spine, Head & Neck, massage therapy, Shoulders, SMRT, Spontaneous Muscle Release TechniqueSMRT Headache Relief One of my clients this week was suffering with an intense headache that had begun almost 10 days before she came to see me. She had tried numerous things for relief, but did not get any relief. In the assessment I felt decreased mobility throughout her c-spine, tension in the suboccipital muscles, […]
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SMRT Head & Neck Pressure
Posted on June 1, 2018 by Dawn in Anatomy, bodywork, Head & Neck, NCBTMB approved continuing education, Spontaneous Muscle Release TechniqueSMRT Pressure This morning I worked on a woman who had shoulder and neck pain. She does not like pressure of any kind. She comes to me because SMRT is gentle, painless, and highly effective. When I first touched her superior and posterior right shoulder, she squirmed and scrunched up her face. I worked around […]
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Cold & Sinus Problems
Posted on May 11, 2018 by Dawn in Anatomy, bodywork, Head & Neck, NCBTMB approved continuing education, Sinus Trouble, SMRT, Spontaneous Muscle Release TechniqueCold & Sinus Problems I did the coolest thing on a client today. The client came in having had a cold and a sinus infection for a few weeks. The sinus infection had cleared with the antibiotics, but she still had an airy cough. My first thought when I hear this is that anterior scalene […]
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SMRT & Neck Pain
Posted on March 16, 2018 by Dawn in Anatomy, bodywork, Head & Neck, massage therapy, Muscle Pain, NCBTMB approved continuing education, SMRT, Spontaneous Muscle Release Technique, Trauma Stored in BodyNeck Pain Recently I worked on a man who told me he had his neck “wired together” about 25 years ago. I think he was talking about a surgery in which they create spinal stabilization by wiring the posterior cervical vertebrae together after trauma. This man was in horrible pain. His ROM in both rotation […]
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Headaches & SMRT Works
Posted on February 16, 2018 by Dawn in Anatomy, bodywork, Head & Neck, massage therapy, Ribs, Shoulders, SMRT, Spontaneous Muscle Release TechniqueHeadaches For the past several days I have been with friends who are therapists and we have been working on each other. One of the woman I was trading with was having back pain. The first day I was working on her posterior ribs. The ribs on her left side responded to the SMRT I […]
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Working SMRT on the Axillary
Posted on January 5, 2018 by Dawn in Anatomy, Back & Spine, bodywork, Head & Neck, massage therapy, Questions and Answers, Ribs, Sinus Trouble, SMRT, Spontaneous Muscle Release TechniqueRelieving Chest Pressure the SMRT Way I had some SMRT work done yesterday. I got sick on December 3rd. It was a strong virus that attacked my sinuses first, quickly traveled into my throat, and eventually landed in my lungs. By the fourth day, the cough began and I coughed until my entire body hurt. […]
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SMRT Head & Neck Pain
Posted on December 29, 2017 by Dawn in Anatomy, bodywork, Head & Neck, massage therapy, NCBTMB approved continuing education, SMRT, Spontaneous Muscle Release TechniqueSMRT Head & Neck Pain Recently, I had a 2-hour session with a regular client. She had recently took a vacation in Mexico. The place they stayed had very hard beds and pillows. Her complaint was an all over headache and neck pain. She was very tight through her neck and head. But the first […]
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SMRT Can Help Pinched Nerves
Posted on October 27, 2017 by Dawn in Head & Neck, Hips & Sacrum, massage therapy, Muscle Pain, NCBTMB approved continuing education, Questions and Answers, Ribs, SMRTOne of my new clients is a very muscular police detective who had pinched nerve or a nerve impingement at the base of his neck. I think he was shocked when I began by assessing his rib cage. His left rib cage was shifted to the right and his entire rib cage was rotated to […]
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Will SMRT Work Where Deep Work is Contraindicated?
Posted on August 25, 2017 by Dawn in Anatomy, Head & Neck, Massage Therapy Continuing Education, NCBTMB approved continuing education, Special Issues, Spontaneous Muscle Release TechniqueA new client of mine is a woman who had throat cancer and had 6 lymph nodes removed from her neck. She was sent to a physical therapist after the surgery to teach her to do lymphatic drainage on herself and to receive this treatment. The physical therapist told her that her scars were creating […]
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Can SMRT on the Hips Help the Neck?
Posted on August 18, 2017 by Dawn in Anatomy, bodywork, Head & Neck, Hips & Sacrum, Massage Therapy Continuing Education, SMRT, Spontaneous Muscle Release TechniqueI recently worked on a client who has chronic neck pain. We were focused on her legs. She broke her left tibial plateau a few years ago and the hardware was giving her grief, plus she had hurt her right foot about a month ago and it still had residual tension. How the Body Connects […]
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Correcting Cervical Issues
Posted on June 9, 2017 by Dawn in Anatomy, bodywork, Head & Neck, massage therapy, Spontaneous Muscle Release TechniqueAbout 9 days ago I was shooting video for the streaming video service. My videographer mentioned that he was sorry he had been delayed but he had gotten a migraine. He said that he only began to get migraines about a year ago. If I’m honest here, I was hardly listening. When we are shooting […]
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Forward Head Posture Creating Back “Hump”
Posted on December 1, 2016 by Dawn in Back & Spine, Head & Neck, Massage Therapy Continuing Education, Ribs, SMRT, Spontaneous Muscle Release TechniqueAbout 10 days ago, I had a 2-hour session booked with a regular client. She told me I should focus on her back and her neck, that her “hump was killing” her. I spent almost an hour and a half unlocking her back, sacrum, and posterior rib cage. The focus of this time was in […]
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Behind the Eye Headaches
Posted on December 1, 2016 by Dawn in Head & Neck, NCBTMB approved continuing education, Spontaneous Muscle Release TechniqueI work on quite a few massage therapists. One of them has a tendency to tell me exactly what area of her body she wants worked on. Typically this is arms, shoulders, and back. For our 10th appointment, she told me she didn’t know and to work whatever I thought. I decided to work her […]
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Manual Therapy for the Anterior Neck
Posted on May 26, 2016 by Dawn in Anatomy, Articles, Head & Neck, Human Body, Physiology, SMRT, Spontaneous Muscle Release TechniqueRecently I read an article about a woman suing a massage therapist and Massage Envy. The woman believes that the massage therapist was aggressive enough on her anterior neck that it lead to a stroke. I do not know if this is possible, but I do not know that it is impossible. Since that article […]
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Head & Neck
Posted on March 17, 2016 by Dawn in Head & Neck, NCBTMB approved continuing education, SMRT, Spontaneous Muscle Release TechniqueI love working on the neck and head. SMRT: Head & Neck – a 12-CE day and a half class – and SMRT: Arm & Hand – a 12-CE day and a half class – are my favorite SMRT classes to teach. I was working on an SMRT student the other day who was complaining […]
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