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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The iliotibial band (ITB) or tract (ITT) is for some of us impenetrable. I have clients who use foam rollers, percussers, heavy stretching with bands, etc. and still cannot effectively soften the ITT. I have students who use t-bars, elbows, stretches, deep pressure, etc. and, after all that work, simply do not get the […]
Last week I was finally able to take a minute and get a massage myself. I went to Veronica, the woman I have written of before who works for the spa and has not yet taken any Spontaneous Muscle Release Technique workshops. I booked a full body massage, but my feet were killing me, […]
My assistant related a conversation she had on the phone while registering a student. The student said to her, “people do not like pain anymore, we are coming away from the no-pain, no gain mentality.” Having had massage sessions with me many times over the past 20 years, this statement had my assistant thinking about […]
This week seems to be knee week. I have one client who has had her left ACL replaced twice. Her ACL appears to have stretched again and she is choosing to not undergo surgery again, but is coupling massage with a personal trainer to maintain functional biomechanics while building the muscle strength in her left leg. Another client, fell […]
Sometimes when I travel to teach, students who have taken classes from me in the past will ask if I have any open time to work on them. I was working on a student last week before our Seattle classes who was having thumb issue. This student has been a reflexologist for about 10 years, […]
Yesterday I had a wonderful session with a client who has been coming to me for almost 10 years. Several weeks ago, as she arrived for her massage, Susan told me that she believed she had pinched a nerve in her back. She was in a fair amount of pain in a very specific place […]
I read an article recently from a link posted on Facebook about plantar fasciitis. The author of the article said plantar fasciitis is largely misunderstood. First, it was thought to be a shortening of the plantar fascia, then inflammation where the plantar fascia attaches at the medial process of the calcaneal tuberosity, but lately the […]
I had the most wonderful experience yesterday. I have to preface this with two pieces of information – 1) I have had chronic sacral pain for almost 2 years, and 2) I teach a continuing education modality for massage therapists called SMRT. I have chronic sacral pain because I have osteoarthritis in the MP joints […]
Written by Dawn Lewis I was working on a client this week and was reminded of how insidious compensation patterns can be. This client, we will call her Zelda, severely broke her left tibia about a year and a half ago. Surgery to put plates, screws, and pins in her left tibia was successful, but […]
Written by Dawn Lewis I want to discuss several ways that the brachial plexus can be impinged. Brachial plexus impingement causes tingling and numbness down the arm and into the hand. Although, sometimes the symptoms are only felt in the hand. First, and most obvious, the brachial plexus can become impinged at the cervical vertebrae. […]
Aurora, CO – Full Circle School, Inc. will be teaching in several new locations in 2014. New locations include Couer d’Alene, ID, Hot Springs, AR, Watford City, ND, and Rochester, MN. We will also be returning to Winter Park, FL and Seattle, WA, as well as teaching in Colorado and Texas. All courses are Spontaneous […]
Tension in the sacrum can be caused by many different factors including bony misalignments, muscle imbalances, and muscle hyper- or hypo-tonicity. But it is the tightening of the connective tissue of sacrum that I want to talk about. Several layers of connective tissue attach to the posterior sacrum. They include the latissimus dorsi aponeurosis, the […]
Lower Back Pain When a client comes in and tells you they have lower back pain the first thing we, as bodyworkers, must determine is whether the pain is truly in the lower back or across the posterior sacrum. Knowing where the pain actually is will help to determine what might be causing it. True […]