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A typical experience

I had a new client the other day for an 80 minute massage. I asked him if there is anything that he wanted me to know.  He told me that he suffers from a herniated disc that he has had for a few years. He has constant low back and right hip pain that at times radiates down the back of his leg to his knee. He told me that he has had two injections in his low back and has to stay on anit- inflamtory medication.  Anything to avoid surgery. The pain is always there. I asked him if he ever saw a chiropractor for his pain.  He said yes.  But the adjustments hurt his hip so bad that he could not continiue.  So here is a guy that thinks he is on the verge of surgery. I knew that there was a very strong probubllity that was not the case. The vast majority of pain people experience is nocioceptive pain( soft tissue- muscle, tendon, ligament, facia).  MDs and Chiropractors see pain as neuropathic pain( nerve pain).  With that asumption they give the wrong treatments and therapies.  Now there is no denying that at times injections and surgery is needed. Not denying that.   But most of the time - NOT.  70% to 85% of all pain comes directly from trigger points.  Anyway I showed my client a testimonial from a client that I was able to help out of a very painful condition that she had delt with for a couple of years. I showed him that testimonial because all pain has a psychological eliment too it. I wanted him to start thinking maybe he is not on the edge of surgery.  I palpated his entire back upper torso, both hips, and right leg. I found a very painful spot on his right L5 erectors.  Another very painful spot on his right greater trochantor.  A painful spot in the middle part of his lower right hamstrings.  And also a tender spot on the right spinous of L3.  I knew that if Iwas able to eliminate all those painful palaptory spots that I would most likely eliminate his pain problem.  Because a healthy body had no painful spots even with deep massage.  Ive been hunting and eliminateing trigger points for thirty years now.  He walked out of the massage room pain free. He was pain free for the first time in years. All those other professional people misdiagnosed him because they assume neuropathic pain over nocioceptive pain.  I assume the other way around.  I'm a Massage Therapist.  

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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on February 16, 2016 at 10:54pm
A few days ago a new client came in complaining of shoulder and neck pain. She said both shoulders, but most of the pain is on the left side near the shoulder blade somewhere. She can't tell exactly where its coming from. It feels deep inside. She started playing golf this last summer when it first started hurting. During the golf swing, it hurt on the left side of her body. She can't tell exactly where. Before the massage I had her sit and twist to the left, then the right. When she twisted to the right, her left side hurt. When she twisted to the left, noting hurt. I palpated from her hips up to the top of her head, front, back, and sides. I found five trigger points. They were very noticeable. One on her left Serratus anterior, an Upper Upper Trapezius on the right, and one really painful one on the lateral spinus of C3 on the right side. And yet another very sore right side spinus at T1 and T3. I was able to deactivate all those tender areas as well as give her a good relaxing massage within a 60 minute session. After the massage she felt good, and could twist both to the left and right without pain. She was noticeably happy. She had gotten several massages in the past with no specific results except for enjoying the massage. Anyway, in the attachment below is one of her trigger points. Its the main one that caused her pain when she twisted to the right even though that trigger point was on the left side of her body.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on February 23, 2016 at 8:10pm
I wasn't very busy today at all. One fifteen minute massage. I made no money. Never the less, it was a significant day for me. And here is why. About six years ago I called a leading expert on TMJ ( temporal mendibular joint dysfunction ), to tell him about the success I'd been haveing working on people with TMJ. I figured that he would be interested sense thats his thing. He wrote a book on the subject. When I got him on the phone and told him that I was helping a lot of people out of TMJ pain with acupressure and massage techniques. He called me a lier. I told him that I was 55 years old and not a lier and I thought he would be interested hearing what I'm doing. He said he wrote the book on TMJ and not to bother him any more and hung up on me. I was like super pissed.. Anyway, a few days ago.. now this is years later, one of his patients came in with really painful TMJ on the left side of her jaw. She told me that a couple years ago I was able to help her out of neck an shoulder pain in just a few short session, and she thought she would try me out to see if I could help her with her TMJ. Sense that guy charged her $300.00 a session. Of course seeing me would be much more reasonable. . I know that trigger points are often involved ( not all the time )with TMJ, in more ways then most people think. I did my trigger point thing. Now her TMJ was in the left Masseter. She had been taking lots of Alieve and Advil ,but was getting debilitating. Here is what I found. I found two Rhomboid TPs on her right side. Three Paraspinal TPs on the right side. These were all between her shoulders in her upper right T spine. I also found a C5 and painful C2 TP on the right side. I found one Rhomboid and one Paraspoinal on the left upper T spine. I found four very painful lateral spinus TPs on the right side, with the worst being at T1. And of course when I turned her over I found two TPs in her Left Masseter. Now this is how I see things. First of all Trigger points cause a lot of problems and they can effect distal, seemingly unrelated parts of the body. I also know that a muscle with a trigger point is a shortend muscle. That means other muscles have to compensate. On the right side of her upper T spine and neck, she had a lot of painful trigger points. All those muscles are shortened because of the trigger points. Now if one side of the upper T spine and neck is shortend , other muscles have to compensate in order to keep the eyes parallel to the ground. Her hips and low back were fine. So the compensation had to start some where in the neck up. And C2 on the right side was the most painful point in that whole line,where those shortend muscles ( muscle chain ) attached. If you look on a nerve chart you will see that C2 inervates portion of the Masseter muscle. So there is a conection right to the Masseter.. Long story short.. I was able to deactivate all those TPs in a 25 minute session.. She came in the next day, which was today, feeling very much better and smiling. All she had was some very slight soreness in her upper T spine and a very mild tenderness in her Masseter. I palpated every thing again today. There was one Rhomboid TP on the right. All the rest of the TPs on the right were gone including the spinus ones.. I found two mild paraspinal TPs in the upper T spine on the left, as well as a very mild Masseter TP ( her original area of complaint ). It only took me 15 minutes to deactivate what was left of the TPs this time. She felt even better after this second session. I will see her again one more time. She is going to write me a testimonial. I wanna email it to the expert.. I attached a dermatome chart that shows the C2 conection to the Masseter.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on February 23, 2016 at 8:35pm
In the attachement below is a picture of the back muscle chain. In her case the right back muscle chain was slightly shortened compared to the left do to the trigger points. So right upper T and Cervical vertebra had downward and or right ward pressure on them. Now the brain is going to try real hard to keep the eyes parallel to the ground. Something has to compensate. And because of the irritation at C2, there is that direct conection to the Massiter. Because of the TP deactivation the body is in a more balanced state. And her jaw pain is going away.
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Permalink Reply by Therese Schwartz on February 23, 2016 at 9:13pm

Good work, Gordon!!  I am always very interested in your posts, and the attachments are great!

Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on February 26, 2016 at 7:07pm
The TMJ client came in for her 4th and final session. The session only lasted ten minutes. She was no longer symptomatic, and there were no trigger points on palpation. Not even in her Massiter.
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Permalink Reply by Therese Schwartz on February 26, 2016 at 8:56pm

Fantastic!!

Gordon J. Wallis said:

The TMJ client came in for her 4th and final session. The session only lasted ten minutes. She was no longer symptomatic, and there were no trigger points on palpation. Not even in her Massiter.
Permalink Reply by Kim Kirkman Lmt on March 11, 2016 at 7:49am
after reading tmj post, I need more mint gloves on hand..Amazon!
Permalink Reply by Therese Schwartz on March 11, 2016 at 10:28am

Mint gloves!  What a great idea! Amazon has everything.  

Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on March 12, 2016 at 2:26am
Uhm.... What I was trying to point out about the TMJ client was... That the TMJ greatly vanished when I eliminated all the other trigger points, most of which were in her upper T spine and neck. I didn't work inside her mouth.. Didn't have too.
Permalink Reply by Gary W Addis, LMT on March 12, 2016 at 10:40am
Yep.. Muscles in neck and face react to tension everywhere else, don't they.
Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on March 12, 2016 at 5:02pm


http://managebackpain.com/tmj-pain/causes-of-tmj Gary W Addis, LMT said:
Yep.. Muscles in neck and face react to tension everywhere else, don't they.
Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on March 14, 2016 at 11:41pm
This is cool. A new client came in the other day. She has been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, and is in a lot of pain because of it. I asked her where she hurt. She indicated pain in the upper part of her leg hip area( Inguinal groove ), both left and right. And also on the tops of both feet. Now she was coming in for an 80 minute massage mostly to relax because of the stress of having to deal with rheumatoid arthritis. I talked to her about trigger points for a minute in order to get her permission to check her body out in a more diagnostic way, instead of just flowing into a spa massage. She said ok, if you think you can help.. Ok, long story short. This is what I found. The right hip had a very painful Gluteius Medius Tp. The right hip also had a painful Tp on her QL near the Illiac crest. Also her right lower ribs had a Tp. Vastus lateralis on both sides had a painful Tp. When she turned over I found Two Tps both left and right in her Inguinal groove area. Both left and right knees also had painful points.. One knee had a lateral pain point, the other right below the knee cap. She had painful points in both legs on her Tibialis posterior and Peroneus longus. Of course all those lower posterior leg points refer pain to the top of the foot. She had no pain points on her feet at all. I completely palpated her entire body and found the pain points mentioned above. All the pain points deactivated. I was able to do that within 50 minutes. We ended the session there in order to save money to come in for a couple follow up sessions. She was amazed and happy. When she got up off the table she was pain free. The look on her face was bewilder ment. She comented that not even the tops of her feet hurt. I asked her if she thought that there was any way I could touch her and make rheumatoid arthritis go away.? . She said no.. I said, that's right. You may have Rheumatoid arthritis, but your pain was Myofascial. She knows that now. Otherwise I could not have made it go away. I guess you can have Rheumatoid arthritis without pain then?
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