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Degenerative disc disease or?

I had a client the other day that came in with a fair amount of pain.. You could see it on her face. She told me that she has low back and hip pain along with really bad radiating pain pain down the side of her left leg to her knee. She went to the medical doctors that did an MRI and told her that she had degenerative disc disease in her low back. I palpated and found a very tender left spinus at L3 along with very tender sacral spinus area(top of the sacrum). I also palpated a very mild spot about where the piriformis connects to the sacrum along with three very tender spots on the vastus lateralis. And another just below the knee on the peroneus. I was able to eliminate all those tender areas except the sacral tender area. I was able to down grade it a bit though. She was very happy not to have that radiating leg pain which was her main complaint. I dont know? She may have had degenerative disc disease but her pain was coming from those tender spots. There's a lot of people not getting the care they need. It was a 40 min. session. Compare that cost to an MRI. And compare the results. I think there are a lot of people with degenerative disc disease that have very little pain. And a lot of people with no degenerative disc disease in a lot of pain. From my lowly massage perspective, I find a lot of these diagnoses meaningles. I wanted her to come back in a couple of days to see if I could get rid of that sacral pain, but she already had a vacation planned and wont be back for a couple weeks. I will attach pictures of the main trigger points that caused her problem.

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Permalink Reply by Therese Schwartz on May 25, 2013 at 2:20pm

Gordon, this is amazing. A good friend of mine just had an MRI and was diagnosed with "significant degenerative disc disease". She's in her mid-30's. She lives too far away for me to be able to work on her, unfortunately. But this is great information! I'm hoping it will help my friend; more information and understanding is always helpful!!

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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on May 26, 2013 at 12:06am

None of the medical field palpates. And often trigger points are involved. And often, when you eliminate those trigger points. Whatever pain complaints they have go away. I see it over and over and over again. I saw it today as a matter of fact. She had sculliosis or however you spell it.. Curvature of the spine. And her back was always sore. Well I found maybe six very painful Trigger points on her spine and one hip. I eliminated all of them.. and guess what ? No more pain. She told me the docs wanted to do surgery and put rods in her back. I know people with sculliosis that have no pain. So that in and of it self means nothing. Now Im not saying that surgery is not ever necessary for that problem And Im sure its helpful for a lot of people. but.. Her pain was gone after working on her for a half hour. She was freaked out happy. I mean there are people with straight backs that have pain. Those medical people dont palpate. Trigger points cause a lot of pain. The medical field does not palpate.

Therese Schwartz said:

Gordon, this is amazing. A good friend of mine just had an MRI and was diagnosed with "significant degenerative disc disease". She's in her mid-30's. She lives too far away for me to be able to work on her, unfortunately. But this is great information! I'm hoping it will help my friend; more information and understanding is always helpful!!

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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on May 27, 2013 at 1:19am

What I just said.. Needs to be taught in every massage school. Othter wise its minimum wage and slave labor no matter how many hours or CEUs you take. I talk a lot in here. But truth remains hidden.

Gordon J. Wallis said:

None of the medical field palpates. And often trigger points are involved. And often, when you eliminate those trigger points. Whatever pain complaints they have go away. I see it over and over and over again. I saw it today as a matter of fact. She had sculliosis or however you spell it.. Curvature of the spine. And her back was always sore. Well I found maybe six very painful Trigger points on her spine and one hip. I eliminated all of them.. and guess what ? No more pain. She told me the docs wanted to do surgery and put rods in her back. I know people with sculliosis that have no pain. So that in and of it self means nothing. Now Im not saying that surgery is not ever necessary for that problem And Im sure its helpful for a lot of people. but.. Her pain was gone after working on her for a half hour. She was freaked out happy. I mean there are people with straight backs that have pain. Those medical people dont palpate. Trigger points cause a lot of pain. The medical field does not palpate.

Therese Schwartz said:

Gordon, this is amazing. A good friend of mine just had an MRI and was diagnosed with "significant degenerative disc disease". She's in her mid-30's. She lives too far away for me to be able to work on her, unfortunately. But this is great information! I'm hoping it will help my friend; more information and understanding is always helpful!!