Medical Massage For Hip Replacement Surgery,
Structural Bodywork for Joint Pain.

On Canceling Hip Replacement Surgery via Medical Massage

Why Health Care & Medicine Require Soft Tissue Therapies, Medical Massage & Myo-Structural Bodywork

Remedies for Hip Joint Pain &
Joint Compression

[NOTE #1: This article attempts to be readable and useful to both laypersons as well as health care and medical professionals. The language speaks to both groups.]

[NOTE #2: Yoga-based, Structural Bodywork refers to manual therapy using “yogic” principles of body-mind integration as well as postural assessment to enhance results. … Clients and patients engaged in mindfulness while participating in hands-on, manual therapy, as well as postural yoga therapy (optional), will achieve far deeper levels of relaxation and resolution of problems caused by excess stress and tension. … Postural assessment provides more precise clues as to which neuro-muscular units are in most need of attention.]

If You’re coming From the Shorter Version on LinkedIn or Facebook: You can by-pass the redundant content via the hyperlink a few paragraphs down from here.

Chronic, Excess Muscle & Nerve Tension & Stress
and Soft Tissue Issues

Few people understand how many conditions and symptoms — aches & pains, reduced range-of-motion, poor posture, and many other dysfunctions — can frequently arise from soft tissue issues and what we call C.E.M.&.N.T. or Chronic, Excess Muscle & Nerve Tension & Stress.

To illustrate, let’s start with a somewhat extreme example. Here’s a Case Study that’s surprisingly representative, but such results are virtually unknown to the general public or professional medical community:

Time For A SECOND Hip Replacement?
In The SAME Hip?

[BYPASS LINK if Coming from Short Version of article]

I was visiting a longtime friend and mentor in the mountains of Eastern Tennessee about twelve years ago. His approximately forty-year-old (at the time) son was there doing professional carpentry for a family building project.

The son had severe, chronic joint pain in his right hip, a big problem as he was doing moderately heavy construction work and carrying most of his own tools and materials, including a lot of heavy stuff like sheets of plywood, drywall, and other construction materials. … He was very fit and not overweight at all.

He had already received one hip replacement surgery for his severe right hip pain at Johns Hopkins Medical Center, one of THE leading medical facilities on Earth.

Yet when I showed up at the family home in Tennessee, he still had hip joint pain and had been scheduled for a second hip replacement on the same hip. An additional reason for the new hip replacement surgery (besides the pain) was the artificial hip joint appliance was beginning to break through the joint surface (acetabulum) in the wall of his pelvis. (!!!) …

This had been observed on X-rays, similar to the one above. The red arrow indicates the direction of muscular pull on the artificial femur head up and into the acetabulum.

That, of course, is not a good thing! Something was obviously very wrong.

Being a yoga and hands-on muscle therapist (similar to massage with significant differences) for 25+ years at the time (2004), and very good and longtime friends with his father, I offered to see if I could help his situation.

Assessing Where To Work

I practice an advanced version of what’s called Structural Bodywork, including a system of structural analysis & postural evaluation. Recent “professional opinion” states that the “structural model of therapy” fails much or most of the time. Yet properly applied, we’ve found it quite effective in many, probably most, cases.

I assessed whether his pain was localized (meaning the cause of the pain was at or very near the location of pain sensation) versus transmitted from elsewhere, near or distant, via the musculoskeletal structure and/or nervous system.

This is a significant variable phenomenon. For example, another Client had severe pain in one hip. Yet severe joint degeneration, visible in X-rays, was in the opposite hip joint. Structural analysis revealed the most over-contracted and shortened muscles were more likely in the degenerated hip, not the painful hip. Relieving excess muscle tension and lengthening the muscles in the degenerated hip eliminated the pain in the opposite, painful hip.

To understand some of our theories of how such “distant triggering” works, please read Spooky Pain At A Distance at this website.

In this case, however (back in Tennessee), there were no postural signs, nor reports from his history, indicating his hip pain was a reaction to something elsewhere in his structure. So I chose to focus directly on the localized area of pain, the same hip as the pain and metal appliance was.

The Most Urgent Task

Because of the potential breakage of bone, it was clear the most urgent task was reducing local pressure on his hip joint. It was also reasonably clear his chronically contracted and over-shortened muscles were compressing the space between bony structures of his pelvis and the metal appliance, causing the beginnings of breakage of the pelvic joint wall.

His gluteal muscles were literally pulling the artificial femur head (the appliance) inward toward his pelvic joint (the acetabulum), vastly increasing pressure within the hip joint itself.

His gluteal muscles (thin red lines in illustration below) were literally pulling the artificial femur head (the appliance) inward toward his pelvic joint (the acetabulum), vastly increasing pressure within the hip joint itself (thick red arrow).

It was also very likely his muscles were putting too much pressure on and irritating local nerve endings in his soft tissues, and that was what was causing most or all of his joint pain.

Pain Is Not “Within” Joints

Often unnoticed — but well documented in orthodox medical journals — are the many people with significant joint (hard tissue) degeneration, or loss of space within the joint, (visible on X-ray or MRI) and NO pain, and many others with NO degeneration of their hard tissues but LOTS of pain.

There is, essentially, little to no reliable correlation between joint degeneration and pain. …WHY?

There are few, if any, pain-sensitive nerves within joints or on joint surfaces. Proprioceptive nerves within joints (intra-articular) measure movement, angles, speed and torque of the joint, but not pain.

Pain-sensitive nerves (nociceptors) are located in fascial coatings of bones (periosteum) and tendons, ligaments, and throughout the fascial sheaths containing muscle cells. They surround the joint, but are not within the joint.

Therefore, what feels like “joint pain” is in many cases more likely to be the result of irritation within soft tissues surrounding the joint (extra-articular). Yet such close proximity can feel as if the pain is within the joint. …

Physiologically, it’s a subtle yet important difference.

(Please See Nerves, Periosteum & Joint Pain on our website.)

Using statistics from medical journals, then, pain and reduced range-of-motion is NOT necessarily about any degeneration or breakdown of the joint itself. It might well be from the surrounding soft tissues, instead.

Normalizing Soft Tissue Issues

The important difference is if pain originates in the soft tissues, then the therapeutic focus should first be on normalizing soft tissue issues, not “repairing” damaged joint surfaces. Getting excess pressure off the joints first will more likely make repair and healing of joint surfaces far easier and permanent.

At that point, joint repair might well be indicated and performed. As well, patient recovery might well be improved if soft tissues are addressed first.

Yet in fact, many orthopedic doctors will not operate on a degenerated joint if there’s no pain or significant interference with their patient’s range-of-motion or function.

Finally, once the major sources of tension are reduced, a tailored stretching or postural yoga program allowing the patient to keep tension levels reduced often helps with “permanence.” We must bear in mind, of course, that “permanence” is an impermanent thing.

So it’s NOT necessarily joint degeneration (the hard tissues) directly causing pain. It’s very often C.E.M.&.N.T. (or Chronic, Excess Muscle & Nerve Tension & Stress) putting pressures on joint surfaces, causing degeneration. C.E.M.&.N.T. can also put pressure on or otherwise irritate nerve pathways or endings within the soft tissue surrounding the joint with resulting pain.

One very common factor is ischemia, or oxygen deprivation. The restriction of blood flow from “tight muscles” reduces how much blood and therefore oxygen gets to an area.

This is simple physics plus relatively basic anatomy, kinesiology & physiology. Yet missing these various factors might possibly be why my friend’s son underwent the initial surgery in the first place, even if misguided or unnecessary.

Why this relatively simple perspective is not more widely known, understood and applied is somewhat of a mystery. …

Well, NOT REALLY. … But we’ll get to that below.

With no other opposing “structural indicators” to suggest starting elsewhere, as we soon discovered, high muscular tension levels in his right hip were good confirmation they were indeed the primary culprits.

BTW, there is an old saying from Ida P. Rolf, founder of Rolfing® (Structural Integration), and the Grandmother of many forms of structurally oriented bodywork: “Where you think it is, it ain’t.” Meaning very often, the true source of a pain or problem is somewhere distant from where the symptom is felt.

While that generalization is often very correct, it ain’t always correct! Yet in some cases, it is a BIG error to start working where the pain is, and you can make things much worse in more extreme cases.

Effective Structural Analysis & Postural Assessment help determine such variables. Such analysis provides the indications and contraindications competent therapists are always on the lookout for.

The Tension Release
Process & Technique

[BYPASS LINK if Coming from Short Version of article]

I had my new Client lie face down on a bed, clothing (blue jeans and Tee-shirt) still on.

When I touched his right gluteal muscles (his “butt” muscles) through the material, they felt almost as hard as a piece of soft wood! It was, to be honest, almost scary how tight his muscles were! And I had worked on a LOT of muscles over the twenty plus years I had already been in practice.

That high muscular tension level was strong confirmation his local muscles were indeed the culprits, though not yet with 100% certainty. Yet by themselves, tight muscles are NOT a reliable indicator of being a source of trouble. In many cases, the tightest muscles are the ones reacting to the causative muscles.

I applied a steady, low level of finger pressure to one spot on the muscle, selected more or less randomly, as the gluteal muscles were, for the most part, uniformly tight all over. I did not move around at all. No “cross fiber,” no rubbing, stroking or gliding, just steady pressure in one spot for long periods of time.

We assert this steady pressure with minimal movement maximizes the neural response of the inhibitory (tension reduction) nerves that reduce muscle tension if affected correctly.

I also encouraged that he focus his attention (mindfulness) on the muscles where I was working, and keep me informed if the pressure was causing an increase in his pain. If so, his job was to have me back off to the point it was not painful at all. Some intensity of sensation is okay. But any intrusive sensation or pain is not.

For maximum relaxation in the muscles, the Client should not be tolerating any sensations. … They should be inviting, not fighting, the sensations.

Muscles are controlled by nerves, so in technical terms, it was more accurately a neuromuscular tension problem. … If you want to get REALLY technical, it was a psycho-neuro-musculo-fascial problem. That’s because all conscious experience of pain includes brain or mental processes at some level, and muscles are contained by, and deliver their forces to, bones & joints via fascial structures.

Please See The Harmony of Muscle & Fascia

We started on the surface layers of muscle, then, as each layer relaxed, we gradually sank into deeper layers of muscle. After I got significant relaxation in one “spot” in one part of his gluteal muscles, I moved to another nearby “spot.”

After significant relaxation in that spot, we moved to another, repeating the process. In his case, it was probably three to five minutes in each location, without much sideways or lateral movement. Some people take longer, others less.

“Yogic Elements” of Mindfulness and “The Edge”

An important feature of our work is to engage the Client’s mind as deeply into the process as they are willing. Investing their mind into more deeply feeling their soft tissues, a mindfulness process enhances the Client’s ability to deepen the relaxation of their muscles. This also helps their ability to keep them relaxed in their day-to-day life and work.

Another critical factor is the Client does not allow the therapist to press to the point of pain or reactivity. This too is a “yogic” process of “playing the edge” of pain, fear, and resistance. Be it in yoga or hands-on work, the Client should never be tolerating or resisting the process.

Again, they should be inviting, not fighting, the sensations and tension release process.

RE: Mindfulness … Telling a person to ”be mindful” or to “meditate” on an area brings predictable results, as in they usually “can’t do it.” They too often think meditation means to “stop thinking,” which is not the best way to think about it. …

Yet if you ask them to “feel their muscles,” or ask “what are you feeling,” they are by definition staying more present in-the-moment.

It’s a way of initiating a meditative, mindfulness process.

(I’ll be writing on this topic soon. Please let me know if I should give it a high priority.)

We started with the very surface layers of muscle. I waited for the muscles to start relaxing, allowing my fingers to sink deeper as the muscles relaxed and softened. Then, as each layer relaxed, I gradually sank into deeper layers of muscle. The “trick” is to not push the release of tension, but follow it.

One of my Mottos is: “It’s easier to open the door before you walk through it, and you can’t peel an onion from the inside out.”

Not getting “ahead of” the tension release process is highly effective and more efficient in the long run. And if the client is in fear that you’re going to hurt them, that can keep them from relaxing as well.

It’s the Goldilocks Principle:

• Some is too heavy
• Some is too light
• Some is just right

That’s the yogic process of “Playing The Edge” of pain, fear, and resistance. In this way, we end up able to work deeper than the so-called “deep tissue” therapists, and stay in and treat the tissues longer, achieving more tension release.

Although it’s a somewhat subjective judgment, when I was satisfied there was sufficient relaxation of tension in one “spot” in one part of his gluteal muscles, I moved to another nearby “spot” in his muscles, repeating the process.

I kept doing that process repeatedly for about 90 minutes. That’s ALL I did treatment-wise, but we slowly covered the entire gluteal region of that hip.

Over the next week, I did a total of THREE similar treatments, about 90 minutes each in duration.

His hip pain went away. … A year later, the pain was still gone. …

He did not get the second hip replacement surgery.

Unfortunately, he moved to Alaska and we lost touch, so we did not get longer term feedback on his hip pain. But a year of no pain with no further treatment is a pretty good result, especially being a carpenter. Yet this is quite typical a result for many cases. … Yes, more complex cases often take longer, but not always.

My cousin, one of the most highly trained orthopedic, medical doctors in the country, told me that even if the Client had to return periodically for a bodywork “tune-up,” it would probably be better than getting surgery.

And although I am rarely surprised anymore, even I was at that time pretty amazed at how effective and efficient this relatively simple approach to healing pain and dysfunction can be, even in such extreme cases.

And in case you are wondering, this is not an isolated case. Many soft tissue therapists around the world see such results on a frequent basis, and my own reputation depended on it. Unfortunately, the majority of massage therapists are NOT trained to the degree necessary, and usually, do not see their potential abilities in such cases.

Would A Second Surgery Have Helped Him?
And How Long Do Patients Have To Wait To Get Better?

I had during that week of treatment asked this Client if the therapists at Johns Hopkins ever treated his muscles? … NOPE!

I asked him whether his physicians ever even talked about his muscles? … NOPE! …

Was there any talk or action about relaxing & lengthening the muscles to first take the pressure off his hip joint to see if that would help before doing more aggressive treatment with drugs or surgery? … NOPE!

And that is most often the case with most Clients’ experiences with orthodox medical physicians and hospital-based medicine.

It’s like muscles are just “stuff” you have to get out of the way to work on the bones and joints with surgery. Other than that, muscles are seldom the focus as a potential source of musculoskeletal problems. Sports medicine might be somewhat of an exception, but the average patient suffering from soft tissue issues doesn’t even think about going to a sports medicine doctor.

Far more often than not, orthodox physicians and therapists do not attempt to address or facilitate reduction of chronic, neuro-musculo-fascial tension in soft tissues of the body in any focused way, if at all.

And no, muscle relaxing drugs do not do the job except in a most superficial and temporary way. Drugs cannot target specific muscle fibers and bring them back into proper balance with other muscle fibers.

There are a few physicians and physical therapists working with tension reduction and musculo-fascial work, but they are few and far between. And they’re usually independent, not often working in hospital settings. In the “old days,” (a hundred years or so ago) osteopathic doctors were experts at massage of muscles before doing joint and spinal adjusting. Yet today, those doing that kind of therapy are few and far between.

Chiropractors are somewhat more likely to embrace soft tissue therapy, yet they are still the exception, as well. Too many DCs still think muscle tension is determined mostly by spinal misalignments and compressions. Sometimes true, but in many cases, it’s the other way around. It is excess, imbalanced muscle tension from other sources causing spinal misalignments.

The frequency with which we find the problems and relieve them, sometimes within minutes, is often surprising even to us, who do this work on a regular basis. Even clients who’ve gone to many massage therapists over several years reveal that no other therapist has found and relieved their “points” of tension, pain, and irritation that we do.

Postural Yoga for Surgical Candidates

Briefly, I’ve also had Clients fully responsive to postural yoga who had been recommended for surgery for various pains and dysfunction. Some of them relieved and gained control over their symptoms with only a tailor-made postural yoga series, and no hands-on work at all. … And surgery not pursued.

While I would not suggest this is always true, I would suggest that non-invasive means such as yoga and bodywork should always be attempted before drugs and surgery are pursued.

What About Muscle Weakness & Stability?

The question often arises about whether a physical therapist could have helped the surgical patient better by performing more strength building exercises to better “support” the joint. Yet it seems rather obvious that in many cases, strengthening exercises would very likely tighten and shorten the involved muscles even more, and further compressing the joint, doing more damage than good.

In 35 years of therapy, I have never once “strengthened” a Client out of a pain, posture or dysfunction issue. Strength training does in many cases seem to help, but we think it’s NOT because of “increased strength.”

Our hypothesis, all too briefly stated, is the rhythmic actions of contracting and relaxing muscles during exercise trigger certain “normalizations” of neuromuscular circuits and pathways, “resetting” tension levels, reducing resting tonus to lower and less stressful levels. It is not the strength per se that is helping, but the rhythmic resetting of the tension levels of the neuro-musculo-fascial system that occur while exercising.

However, the by-product of repeatedly shortening the muscle might well have negative effects greater than any potential resetting of resting tonus to lower levels. The two forces are in opposition to each other, explaining why some people who do therapeutic strength exercises are in more pain after doing them.

All This Begs the Question

If my friend’s son’s hip trouble was indeed too much neuromuscular & myofascial compression on his hip joint and the installed appliance, and that compression of the joint was the result of chronic, excess muscle tension, would another surgery have done any good? …

Or would it have just been temporary? …

Or possibly made things worse? …

And was the FIRST surgery even necessary at all?

If the muscles were the real problem (and in this case they were), why did the physicians not know that? Or if they did, why did they not take the muscular tension reduction approach first? Would they or their physical therapists have known how?

What About Physical Therapy?

Several physical therapists were in my training courses a few years ago, in fact, one of them was my best sponsor for my workshops. He had been head of a large PT department in Greensboro, North Carolina. Nearly all the PTs said what I was teaching was not taught to them in PT school, and they openly wondered why not?

Why was the factor of structural compression on the joint by way of excess muscular tension not well observed, let alone sufficiently addressed? Or, was the underlying cause of the joint compression even considered or pursued at all?

The probable answer is, few, if any, in the orthodox medical system are trained to observe, let alone treat, the body in this manner. That might come as a surprise until you’ve spoken with enough of them, or their patients.

If there are exceptions to this, I’d love to meet them, or at least hear from them.

Yet many highly competent “alternative” soft tissue therapists produce such results on a regular basis. And PT departments are not usually set up to spend the time on individual clients the way massage & bodywork therapists are.

Orthodox versus Whole Health Medicine

There is also a common disparity between “orthodox” or “allopathic” (treatment by opposites) medicine versus whole health or functional medicine, including homeopathy. Homeopathy gets a bad rap because of the lack of active or live substance in their little white pills. Yet homeopathy embraces other elements, such as “removing the obstacles to cure.”

Meaning, literally, treatment by similars, homeopathic medicine is much less toxic to the body and mind. So, if an obstacle to cure is too much tension and stress, then rather than take a drug to block or suppress the problem, homeopathy would say, reduce the tension or stress. And of course, massage, bodywork, and yoga are perfect ways to reduce tension and stress.

In the former, allopathic medicine focuses is on the symptom and somehow compensating for or suppressing or killing it. In the latter, homeopathy focuses on finding the underlying cause(s) of symptoms and, if possible, resolution of the cause(s), before any aggressive treatment is pursued.

In such cases, when the root cause is resolved, symptoms very often disappear on their own.

HINT: Most orthodox physicians are not trained in this more “natural” aspect of medicine — soft tissue issues and therapies — at all in medical school.

Physical Therapists who’ve been in my training programs state they were not given much training in what we’re discussing here either. What manual therapy they were taught was not, according to the PTs, up to the degree of depth, breadth or effectiveness taught in massage schools.

And that’s usually a Follow The Money issue…

The people who profit most from the medical system, who are not usually doctors, want physicians and therapists to stay focused on more profitable procedures. Soft tissue therapy, being far more labor-intensive, often takes more person-hours to achieve than simply applying mechanical or electronic “procedures.”

And insurance generally will not pay for enough hours of hands-on therapy in more extreme cases.

That’s another story altogether. But the reality is, it will most likely be wealthier clientele who lead the way in making such therapy more tested, appreciated and, eventually, widely available. But at first, only the wealthier will be able to afford such treatment. Yet that’s how such things have almost always worked. The wealthy only need to be made aware of how much of an option it could be.

And to those massage practitioners who want to get into the insurance game, just notice how many medical doctors are trying to get out of that game.

So Soft Tissue Therapies such as massage/bodywork or postural yoga therapy are not yet well represented in modern medicine and health care. Yet decades of personal experience among many successful therapists, and testimony of heir legions of loyal clients, while admittedly anecdotal*, indicate they should be more widely accepted as a valid healing modality.

While it is true that “anecdotal evidence” is less trustworthy in SOME ways, it is not without merit. As the relevant Wikipedia article states:

“… Anecdotal evidence is considered dubious support of a generalized claim; it is, however, within the scope of scientific method for claims regarding particular instances, for example, the use of case studies in medicine.” [emphasis added]

Therefore, if hundreds or thousands of anecdotes among many highly competent therapists or physicians indicate something might well be true, it makes no “scientific sense” to automatically discount it without further proof that the observations are indeed faulty.

As one medical researcher stated (paraphrasing):

“It is not the job of medical research to discount the validity of an observation. It is their job to understand what caused what was being observed.”

We in the massage community would welcome properly constructed, scientific studies. However, they tend to be expensive and the wide range of variables in massage work are potentially numerous. So, such proof is difficult to come by.

While some progress has been made, within the medical establishment, it’s still minimal compared to its potential. Yet the extensive anecdotal evidence of effectiveness, and theoretically sound medical logic is difficult to ignore, if not provable with relative scientific certainty.

Referring to massage therapy, just a small sample:

“… Massage was found to attenuate the production of inflammatory cytokines in the muscle samples thereby reducing local inflammation. Other studies have clearly demonstrated the psychological effects of massage in producing a relaxation response and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have suggested massage influencing regions of the brain responsible for stress and emotion regulation. …”

Massage Therapy for Pain—Call to Action

Even the United States Military is examining the use of alternative therapies, of which massage is of relatively high usage:

“… Leaders in the military have begun to examine the role of CAM — including massage therapy — as a means of providing extended support for stress management and pain to larger numbers of personnel. …”

https://www.amtamassage.org/search/?k=military+CAM&page=1

Many people and professionals in America, possibly most, have no idea how much Soft Tissue Therapy (STT) can very often help significant issues with muscles, tendons, joints, nerves, and even some organ function.

Soft Tissue Therapies
and Digestive Disorders

For example, the walls of the intestines are constructed of smooth, contractile muscle fibers. Their smooth function of cyclic contraction and relaxation produces peristaltic (digestive) action.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peristalsis

Yet like other muscles, they are subject to excess stress and tension, reducing the efficiency of full cycles of contraction and relaxation. If muscles cannot fully relax and contract, peristalsis is inhibited to varying degrees, showing up as organ dysfunction.

Among other things, inhibited peristalsis slows transit time, in turn causing other digestive problems known as Intestinal Motility Disorders, listed in part here at e-Medicine at Medscape.

QUOTING from Medscape:

• • Abdominal distention
  • Recurrent obstruction
  • Severe abdominal colicky pain
  • Severe constipation
  • Gastroesophageal reflux disease
  • Intractable, recurrent vomiting

 

In a broad sense, any alteration in the transit of foods and secretions into the digestive tract may be considered an intestinal motility disorder. The following are considered intestinal motility disorders[4, 5] :

• Intestinal pseudo-obstruction ( Ogilvie syndrome )
• Irritable bowel syndrome ( IBS )
• Fecal incontinence
• Constipation

 

END QUOTE from Medscape.

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/179937-overview

Taking organ function a step further is this:

In AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO GASTROINTESTINAL DISORDERS

by Leo Galland M.D. (Foundation for Integrated Medicine) He states:

QUOTING:

“MOTILITY. Peristalsis moves the gut contents distally and helps to maintain the bacterial concentration gradient from stomach to anus. Altered motility may allow SBBO [small bowel bacterial overgrowth] and may increase mucosal exposure to irritants.

(4) Bacterial enzymes may destroy components of the host’s biological response system. In small bowel bacterial overgrowth (SBBO), for example, destruction of pancreatic and brush-border enzymes by bacterial proteases may cause maldigestion and malabsorption [REF]. Pseudomonas species colonizing the gut can inactivate gamma interferon [REF].

(5) The loss of beneficial microbes may cause disease by removal of protective effects of the normal gut flora. Antibiotic-induced diarrhea not only involves the overgrowth of toxin-producing bacterial species, like Clostridium difficile, but the loss of the neutralizing effect of the normal colonic flora on Clostridial toxins.

In addition to its role in antibiotic-induced diarrhea and SBBO, intestinal dysbiosis may contribute to the pathogenesis of ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), peptic ulcer disease (PUD), gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), gastric cancer and colon cancer [REFS]. Integrated therapies for patients with these disorders should include treatments that restore normal alimentary tract symbiosis.

END QUOTE

http://mdheal.org/articles/word2/gastrointestinalisorder2.htm

Inhibited peristalsis, therefore, is just one example of many affects on the human system. But with the new, ground breaking research on the microbiome, it is clearly possible that soft tissue therapies reducing stress and tension in the abdominal cavity and organs might well have a positive health impact on many heath issues.

Microbiome (AKA microbiota):

“A microbiota is ‘the ecological community of commensal, symbiotic and pathogenic microorganisms that literally share our body space.’ [1][2] Joshua Lederberg coined the term, emphasizing the importance of microorganisms inhabiting the human body in health and disease.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbiota

The reduction of psycho-neuro-musculo-fascial tension, or C.E.M.&.N.T. in the abdominal cavity is a developing skill increasing numbers of soft tissue therapists are learning and applying in their work. (Our approach to this work, which we began developing in the mid 1980s, is called Neuro-Visceral Release.)

Do Most Massage Therapists
Know Much Of This?

Unfortunately, the perspectives presented here are not, to my knowledge, usually taught in many massage schools. Much of it is available only in continuing education courses. Therefore, the percentage of massage and bodywork therapists who can produce such results is, admittedly, limited.

Currently, the only school I personally know of that does teach to the degree and depth I prefer in their foundational programs are the Schools of Advanced Bodywork in Charlotte, North Carolina and Jacksonville Florida. They were founded by Kyle C. Wright. He is currently based in Asheville, NC.

I have worked with Kyle many times in the past, and he in great part designed his massage school’s curriculum based on the Core Principles he learned in my therapeutic training programs many years ago. That includes the principles of physical, mental and relational yoga as applied to how to work with the muscles, plus the structural analysis method for determining where to work. At the time, I called the work Psycho-Muscular Release & Structural Balancing. It is now called DSL Edgework. The yoga system is called Let-Go Yoga.

Previously, Kyle was the original owner of the five Southeastern Schools of Neuromuscular and Massage Therapy in Florida and the Carolinas, founded in 1990. He trained well over ten thousand therapists in the methods presented here, with a very high pass rate on licensure exams, before selling the schools in 2007. His therapists consistently report above average results.

While Kyle is training new massage therapists, it is currently my objective to work with more already practicing, individual therapists, as well as clinics and schools, to bring this and related knowledge into their practices and programs. In the meantime, I’m teaching this work via in-person and on-line workshops and one-on-one training & coaching sessions to groups of twelve individuals at a time, maximum.

Thank you for reading about medical massage for hip replacement surgery, joint pain, joint compression, structural bodywork and soft tissue therapy.

Clinics or hospitals interested in incorporating such approaches to therapy can reach me through my LinkedIn Profile.

Thank You for Reading,
David Scott Lynn (DSL*)
* DSL: Your Hi-Touch Up-Link to the Inner-Net*
* Inner-Net: Your Psycho-Neuro-Musculo-Fascial System