Headaches, 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 […]
A 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 […]
Pelvic Floor Scarring I am on my way to Albany to teach SMRT: hips, lower back, and abdomen. As I think about this class, I am reminded of a therapist who took this class several years ago. She had a 3-year-old son. Since giving birth, and having tearing in her pelvic floor, she had only […]
Cold & 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 […]
Lower Back Pain A few weeks ago a new client came to me with a complaint of lower back pain. This was not chronic. He had only developed it about a month before, but it was severe enough that he had gone to the doctor and gotten imaging, which did not show the cause of […]
Neck 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 […]
Relieving 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. […]
One 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 […]
A 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 […]
One of my regulars presented a few weeks back with pain in her right hip. She pointed to the pain in the right hip and pointed out the pain as I worked on that hip. I only spent a few minute on the hip before I moved to her left knee, lower leg, & foot. […]
Have you ever worked on someone with a knee replacement? I’m full body trained in SMRT, so I know how to work on a knee. From the bones to the most superficial tissues, I got this! But what do you do when ligaments have been removed? When muscles have been cut and tendons stretched? When […]
By Dawn Lewis A recent experience has me wondering about women’s health. Three weeks ago, in an SMRT class I was teaching in Tucson, I had an experience with a young woman I will call Ayla. Throughout the first day of class, I could hear Ayla telling her partner that she was uncomfortable and that […]
While in Austin, TX I met a 36-year-old woman who was in an intense amount of pain in her left chest and breast. Apparently she had been this way for about 5 years. She had seen many doctors and therapists, had many tests, and still had no idea why she was in pain. I want […]
Yesterday I saw a new client, an acupuncturist who used to play a lot of soccer. She is having neuralgia in her hands and fingers, as well as neck, shoulder, and upper back pain. She has seen numerous massage therapists and receives consistent acupuncture treatments. She absolutely loved the SMRT work, which I did […]
In the past, I have written a lot about the neck and why it is important to release the anterior neck to decrease tension in the suboccipital muscles. This time I would like to talk to you about why you want to take a class on working with the head. The relationship between the individual […]
A client I have not seen for a couple of months came in last week. He has taken up Jiu Jitsu and had pain all over his body, but his main complaint was a shooting pain at the base of his skull on the left that was sending numbness and tingling down the left side […]
A twelve year old girl was in my office a few days ago with a sprained left ankle from cheerleading. Her inflammation was mild, but she was in a lot of pain. Her inflammation was mostly on the dorsal lateral aspect of the foot over the cuboid, and that is where the pain was […]
By Dawn Lewis Sinus work is something I get asked to do quite a bit at this time of year, 3 times in the past week as a matter of fact. Yesterday a client that I have been seeing for just over a year asked me if I could do anything with her sinuses. I […]
Last week I had a new client come in for low back pain. During the intake she told me that she had been having chiropractic adjustments and ultrasound on her lower back for several weeks and it did not seem to be helping at all. I was watching her as I was listening to […]
I am bound and determined to break myself. That is my conclusion after the third time I bump my right elbow (read: olecranon process) on a variety of things. The other thing that has happened seven times just this week is that I have rammed some part of my right foot into chairs, walls, […]