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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 June 8, 2016 at 4:52pm
In the attachment below is a good testimonial I recently received. I remember first meeting her. Her demeanor and body language clearly showed that she was depressed. Well who wouldn't be? Hurting for almost two years. Gone to experts, the most recent, a big pain clinic here in Alaska. Can't sleep at night because of pain. Getting painful injections that don't work. It can ruin your life. There are so very many people like her being misdiagnosed everyday all day long. Getting completely inappropriate therapies, some of which actually exasperate the problem. I've applied to work in those clinics. They just ignore my resume. It would surprise me to find out that only 50% of the patients in those clinics were there because of un-diagnosed trigger points. Who is the pain expert? Me or the highly educated people working in those clinics? Who really is? It may sound like I'm tooting my own horn. But you don't have to go to medical school in order to help someone out of pain and dysfunction. You don't have to be a physical therapist, or a chiropractor, or an acupuncturist. You just have to be a massage therapist( that knows trigger points). People don't get that. Not even the leaders and educators in our own profession. " Truth is often hidden...like a shadow...in darkness." "What is simple, is simply seen. And what is simple is rarely understood."
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on June 13, 2016 at 3:45pm
I had a new client the other day. When I asked him what he needed from the massage, he told me that it was his birthday and it was a gift. I asked him if he had any aches and pains. He looked healthy. He said no not really. I then told him that I was an expert at making pain go away. Then he said, I do have on and off low back pain and my knees have always bothered me. I asked him if any of that was ever bad enough for him to go to a doctor or anyone for. He said no. I asked him what part of his knees hurt. He said it's hard to explain. I told him that with his permission I would check those areas out before starting his massage. And if I could help him I would. He said sure, sounds good. I asked him if anything hurts now, he said no. I'm thinking latent trigger points. On his right hip I found a piriformis and gluteus medius trigger points. I also found a Quadratus Lumborum trigger point on the lateral spinous of L2 on the right side. On his left side I found a paraspinal trigger point at about the L2 level. So there was his intermittent mild low back pain. As for his knees I found what was either trigger points on his biceps femoris or popliteus behind the knee on both legs. All those trigger points deactivated. I then carried on with his massage. That was kind of cool.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on June 15, 2016 at 7:53pm
This really bothers me. It's almost unbelievable to me except it is believable. I met a new client the other day that was of course coming into the spa just to relax and enjoy a massage. After a brief conversation I found out that she gets migraine headaches. So bad are the headaches, she has to get Botox injections in her neck and shoulders every ten months. She told me that the ten months has almost gone bye, and she can feel tension and pain in her shoulders and neck increasing again. And already she can't turn her head to the right without pain. I asked her what part of her head does she feel her migraine when she has it? With her hands she motioned from the tops of her shoulders to the base of her skull. She also told me that she feels it above her eyes as well. I new right away its trigger points. So I explained trigger points to her. I took about ten minutes in doing so. I showed her pain patterns of various trigger points, like the upper Trapezious muscle. Her comments were. G...that's right where I feel my headache. Now she had pain on motion when she turns her head to the right. I told her that particular problem is often caused by trigger points in the right upper Trapezious and right Levator scapulae. While she was standing I palpated those two areas as her body flinched in both cases. I told her that I don't think she would need to get any more Botox injections. Now do I know that for sure? Answer no. Do I know it pretty sure? Answer yes. She was very happy to hear that was a possibility, sense the injections were very painful. Ok long story short. She gave me permission to do my trigger point work. I will just list the muscles involved. Some were one side only, others both sides. Paraspinals between her shoulders, rhomboids , upper Trapezious , posterior neck, masseters, Occipitalis frontalis , SCM , T1 spinous, and lower right quadrant of her abdomen ( http://blogs.naturalnews.com/unexplained-symptoms-ileocecal-valve/). All the trigger points deactivated and she could turn her head both left and right freely without pain when she left the spa. Travell and Simons were very worried about the misdiagnosis of pain.
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Permalink Reply by Gary W Addis, LMT on June 15, 2016 at 8:34pm

Yep, I agree. It's a travesty, hell, a mortal sin that pain is often purposely mistreated by MDS, etc who damned well should know better.

Gordon J. Wallis said:

This really bothers me. It's almost unbelievable to me except it is believable. I met a new client the other day that was of course coming into the spa just to relax and enjoy a massage. After a brief conversation I found out that she gets migraine headaches. So bad are the headaches, she has to get Botox injections in her neck and shoulders every ten months. She told me that the ten months has almost gone bye, and she can feel tension and pain in her shoulders and neck increasing again. And already she can't turn her head to the right without pain. I asked her what part of her head does she feel her migraine when she has it? With her hands she motioned from the tops of her shoulders to the base of her skull. She also told me that she feels it above her eyes as well. I new right away its trigger points. So I explained trigger points to her. I took about ten minutes in doing so. I showed her pain patterns of various trigger points, like the upper Trapezious muscle. Her comments were. G...that's right where I feel my headache. Now she had pain on motion when she turns her head to the right. I told her that particular problem is often caused by trigger points in the right upper Trapezious and right Levator scapulae. While she was standing I palpated those two areas as her body flinched in both cases. I told her that I don't think she would need to get any more Botox injections. Now do I know that for sure? Answer no. Do I know it pretty sure? Answer yes. She was very happy to hear that was a possibility, sense the injections were very painful. Ok long story short. She gave me permission to do my trigger point work. I will just list the muscles involved. Some were one side only, others both sides. Paraspinals between her shoulders, rhomboids , upper Trapezious , posterior neck, masseters, Occipitalis frontalis , SCM , T1 spinous, and lower right quadrant of her abdomen ( http://blogs.naturalnews.com/unexplained-symptoms-ileocecal-valve/). All the trigger points deactivated and she could turn her head both left and right freely without pain when she left the spa. Travell and Simons were very worried about the misdiagnosis of pain.
Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on June 17, 2016 at 3:25am

Gary, in all honesty, the medical docs don't know anything about trigger points. They really don't. So they are not criminal. That's why I write in here...
Gary W Addis, LMT said:

Yep, I agree. It's a travesty, hell, a mortal sin that pain is often purposely mistreated by MDS, etc who damned well should know better.

Gordon J. Wallis said:

This really bothers me. It's almost unbelievable to me except it is believable. I met a new client the other day that was of course coming into the spa just to relax and enjoy a massage. After a brief conversation I found out that she gets migraine headaches. So bad are the headaches, she has to get Botox injections in her neck and shoulders every ten months. She told me that the ten months has almost gone bye, and she can feel tension and pain in her shoulders and neck increasing again. And already she can't turn her head to the right without pain. I asked her what part of her head does she feel her migraine when she has it? With her hands she motioned from the tops of her shoulders to the base of her skull. She also told me that she feels it above her eyes as well. I new right away its trigger points. So I explained trigger points to her. I took about ten minutes in doing so. I showed her pain patterns of various trigger points, like the upper Trapezious muscle. Her comments were. G...that's right where I feel my headache. Now she had pain on motion when she turns her head to the right. I told her that particular problem is often caused by trigger points in the right upper Trapezious and right Levator scapulae. While she was standing I palpated those two areas as her body flinched in both cases. I told her that I don't think she would need to get any more Botox injections. Now do I know that for sure? Answer no. Do I know it pretty sure? Answer yes. She was very happy to hear that was a possibility, sense the injections were very painful. Ok long story short. She gave me permission to do my trigger point work. I will just list the muscles involved. Some were one side only, others both sides. Paraspinals between her shoulders, rhomboids , upper Trapezious , posterior neck, masseters, Occipitalis frontalis , SCM , T1 spinous, and lower right quadrant of her abdomen ( http://blogs.naturalnews.com/unexplained-symptoms-ileocecal-valve/). All the trigger points deactivated and she could turn her head both left and right freely without pain when she left the spa. Travell and Simons were very worried about the misdiagnosis of pain.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on June 18, 2016 at 12:37am
The other day was a breakthrough day for two of my clients. One had gone through shoulder surgery along with several weeks of physical therapy. Dispite the physical therapy she was unable to raise her arm more then 130 degrees. 180 degrees being full range of motion. I asked her if the medical docs expected her to regain full range of motion or if there was anything in the X-rays or diagnostics that indicated some physical barrier, like a bone in the way, that would limit her range of motion. She said the medical docs told her that there was nothing that would stop her from having full range of motion. I then tried a few things prior to starting her massage, with her permission, to see if I could increase her range of motion, but was unsuccessful. Knowing that she wanted a massage, I figured that she didn't want her spa massage therapist diddling around with her shoulder the entire session. So I carried on with the massage. All during the massage I kept thinking about her shoulder and limited range of motion. If it was true that nothing was in the way of her range of motion, that ment that some muscle was not functioning properly. The other interesting thing about her limited range of motion was that there was no pain. Her arm just stopped at 130 degrees. After talking to her a bit about what the physical therapists were doing. They were stretching her and having her do exercises, like finger walking up the wall and so on. And with their assistance they were able to get her arm past that 130 degree barrier. But on her own, she could not. Now being a spa massage therapist I felt it was not right, nor was she paying me to physically force her shoulder / arm into a greater range of motion. But if there was something I could do to one of her muscles that would allow her on her own into a greater range of motion, that would be good thing. I told her that she was my last client and that after the massage I would try one more thing. She said ok. A trigger pointed muscle is a weakened muscle. In the past I had been able to increase shoulder range of motion by relaxing a trigger pointed biceps muscle. Only thing was I found no trigger pointed biceps muscle in her arm. But with nothing to loose I decided to pretend that I did. It's hard to explain typing like this, but what I did while she was sitting was.....Do and hold a release technique( relaxing ) for her biceps as she raised her arm. Too my surprise and hers she got nearly a full 180 degree range of motion. While I held the release I had her repeat that movement four or five times so her brain could see that it was ok for the arm to move like that. Then I let go of the release and asked her to raise her arm. Again she raised it to nearly a full 180. She had a really big smile on her face, so did I. That was nearly a 50 degree improvement from her condition prior to the massage that she had been limited with for weeks. I'm not quite sure how I figured that out but that was cool. Anyway another client had a dramatic improvement in her condition as well. She had been recommended by friends to see me. It was all trigger points in her case. At least 50 all together. Maybe I will comment about it another time. Can you imagine what 50 trigger points can do to you with all the varying and overlapping pain patterns? It was very dramatic. From chronic pain to no pain in 70 minutes. That was cool.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on June 19, 2016 at 12:00am
Today was very interesting. As it usually is. One of my regulars came in. Well not exactly. The last time I saw her was five years ago. Back then she was a regular. She would come in every month for years. Then all of a sudden, I never saw her again till now. She told me that she has been getting therapeutic massage in her Chiroprators office sense she last saw me. She was in an auto accident. All her insurance and stuff is finished now. She now has chronic low back and neck pain and migraines. And she would like me to spend more time in those areas for her 80 minute Massage. Now when I worked on her years ago, I just gave her really good massages. Never a thought about trigger points. I was tired today. And I was almost ready to just do a regular massage. And it would be a good one. But then I thought she is hurting. Now I have to tell her about trigger points. Because I know the chiropractic office and the therapists she was seeing, know nothing about trigger point. I mean after years of therapy, and you are Still hurting? What else is there besides trigger points? I mean I don't know? Maybe it's cancer or something? I doubt it. So I showed her one of my video clips and talked to her about trigger points. She never heard of trigger points. Now one of the problems I have working in a spa is that people come in with expectations of a massage. I mean they are paying $100 for a massage. They don't wanna talk, they just want to zone out. They usually don't want the deep tissue therapeutic painful breath through it massage deal. But she knew me. And she knew that I was serious when I told her that I can help her. She looked at me and said " well I came hear to get the pain out of my body. So go ahead and do your trigger point work, and if I don't like it I will just get a regular massage next time. I said "ok". Here is what I found. Gluteius medius trigger points both sides. Upper sacrum trigger points. Left lateral spinous L4 pain point. Her QL on both sides were it connects to the Illiac crest were really painful trigger points. Latissimus dorsi pain points near both arm pits. Remember, that muscle runs down to the sacrum. She also had trigger points in her postieor neck muscles, Occipital area (C1,C2). Her left pec major. Oh. She also told me her right foot hurt. And that her husband massaged her and found out that her right calf was very sore. She had really painful,on palpation hamstring trigger points on her right leg. And her right calf also had more the one painful trigger point,on palpation. . After the session that took 70 minutes I asked her how she felt? She looked at me with a stunned look. She said this. "Well I don't feel like I do when I get a massage, but I don't hurt anywhere? And my headache is gone. I said I didn't know you had a headache? She said I always do. She rescheduled.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on June 19, 2016 at 12:15am
Low back pain and neck pain are commonly linked together. The brain wants the eyes parallel to the ground reguardless of which hip is higher.
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Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on June 19, 2016 at 12:44pm
I look at the body in a very different way then most massage therapists. As an example. In the above paragraph the attachment illustrates a neck low back connection. But it also means if some one has chronic neck pain, they often have some level of hip pain as well. Like a trigger pointed piriformis. What's the connection between neck pain and a trigger pointed piriformis you ask? Well the neck is pretty much inervated by C3. C3 has a relationship to L3. The piriformis is inervated by L3. So dysfunction( trigger points )in the neck can mean dysfunction in the hip( like trigger points in the piriformis ) and vice versa. Now do you need to know this information? Some I've talked to don't even think it's true. Like the really smart physical therapist i spoke with a year ago. Anyway thinking out of the box like this can lead to efficiency when helping someone out of pain. Plus it's kind of an intellectually cool thing to think about, right?
Permalink Reply by Gary W Addis, LMT on June 19, 2016 at 1:46pm

right.  And I know it to be true. thanks, buddy

Permalink Reply by Gordon J. Wallis on June 20, 2016 at 2:37am
There are approximately 650 to 850 muscles in the human body, depending on which expert you ask. Trigger points can develope in any one or more of those 650 to 850 muscles. When you think about it, it's kind of a complicated overwhelming thought. But for me, there are only 12 muscles in the human body. Not nearly as complicated or overwhelming as a 650/850 muscle system. To me, there are only 12 muscles that can develope trigger points. So I only have to know how to release 12 muscles. In the attachment below you will see 4 of the 12 muscles. I will name them. 1. The right back muscle. 2. The left back muscle. 3. The right front muscle. 4. The left front muscle.
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Permalink Reply by Therese Schwartz on June 20, 2016 at 9:10am

Gordon, that is the kind of simplicity that leads to brilliance!  I really love your perspective on this.

Gordon J. Wallis said:

There are approximately 650 to 850 muscles in the human body, depending on which expert you ask. Trigger points can develope in any one or more of those 650 to 850 muscles. When you think about it, it's kind of a complicated overwhelming thought. But for me, there are only 12 muscles in the human body. Not nearly as complicated or overwhelming as a 650/850 muscle system. To me, there are only 12 muscles that can develope trigger points. So I only have to know how to release 12 muscles. In the attachment below you will see 4 of the 12 muscles. I will name them. 1. The right back muscle. 2. The left back muscle. 3. The right front muscle. 4. The left front muscle.

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