If the pain is gone, why keep up Rolfing treatments?

Rolfing is a holistic approach to bodywork. It’s not only a treatment for pain relief, it’s also a whole-body method that restores balance. If you’re interested in not just treating the symptoms, but the cause, then consider that Rolfing may need to be part of your body’s  “health maintenance” plan.

Think about the whole-body connection. Something going on in your foot can give you shoulder pain. Why? Because your body’s musculature, connective tissues, and nerves don’t exist in silos. Everything is connected. That’s not to say you don’t celebrate the pain going away! Just be aware that unless the underlying causes are treated and resolved, symptoms return.

Holism: (from the Greek term holos “all, whole, entire”) is the idea that various systems (e.g. physical, biological, social) should be viewed as wholes, not merely as a collection of parts.

– Wikipedia

Rolfing looks at the holistic picture.

You likely called me because you want to get rid of pain. And I became a Certified Rolfer to help people recover from pain. But it’s essential that we get your body back into overall alignment, not just chase pain symptoms. That’s why I try to remind my clients that no one can “heal” your body for you. Your body – if it’s in a healthier state – heals itself. My goal is to help your body get to the point that its natural healing capabilities kick in.

When I look at your body’s problems, I look at the whole body. That’s what Rolfing is all about. Yes, pain is how our bodies tell us something is wrong. What pain isn’t so great at telling us is the issue, or source, of the discomfort. The jammed big toe that “heals” can still throw off your gait enough to cause low back pain. Those painful bunions? Blame your abdominal organs as much as you do bad shoe choices. Yep, sounds nuts but it’s true.

So, when you begin a Rolfing series with me, know that we’re going to look at your situation holistically. That’s what Rolfing structural integration is meant to do, not only to look at where changes can be made but also how your life-use of your mind/body could be causing or exacerbating discomfort.  After all, you want permanent healing, and that’s what I want for you, too.

To get a holistic view of what’s going on with your body, and get to the root of pain, contact Christopher via his website or simply schedule your Rolfing session with him directly here. 

Nerves can be tricky little suckers.  They’re really good when telling you that something is wrong, but very frequently can be a bit misleading as to the where something is wrong.  Often the symptoms will show up further down the line of the nerve.  And to make things even more confusing, nerves communicate with one another, so if one nerve is compressed and irritated often one or multiple nerves around it will try to communicate to the brain that something is wrong.  The brain then interprets the info and tells you that those nerves should “hurt” as well and bingo you have multiple areas that seem inflamed.  For a really good explanation on how pain works, you should check this This Blog out.

Compression points (spinal, organ, muscular).  There are a few areas that are common compression points for the sciatic nerve.  One is right at the spine; if you have damage to one of the intervertebral discs, it can protrude into the nerve area and irritate it.  You can have a narrowing of the opening at the vertebra.  The nerve can be completely healthy coming out of the spine and then get compressed by one of the organs that is sitting in front of it (ie. the Sigmoid colon, Rectum, etc).   One other common compression point is when your piriformis (a deep lateral rotator of the femur) is too tight and compresses in on the space where your sciatic nerve comes out of the pelvic bowl and heads down into the back of your leg.

At My Rolfing Practice in Bellevue, WA I see clients quite often with sciatica type symptoms.  Using a few diagnostic tests, I discern which nerves are involved and if the visceral system is involved or not.  I then free up the affected structures.  We might then need to balance some of the other surrounding structures.  We might also need to take a look at your movement patterns to see if we need to retrain how you are moving.  I also often have to talk to people about how they are using their body that might have gotten them here in the 1^st place and see how we might be able to alter some of the habits and/or patterns.

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During pregnancy, your body produces a hormone known as Relaxin, which is believed to help prepare the pubic area and the cervix for the birth. The Relaxin loosens the ligaments in your body, making you less stable and more prone to injury. It’s easy to overstretch or strain yourself, especially the joints in your pelvis, lower back, and knees.  A lot of different pains can show up in your body that weren’t there before the pregnancy. That’s why its even more important to have proper balance throughout your structure.

Rolfing sessions in My Office in Bellevue, WA will help ensure that you’ve got proper balance throughout your body.  This will help decrease pain and mitigate any pain you might have developed with a less balanced body.

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Clients receive Rolfing from me for while Pregnant from all over the Puget Sound, including: Bellevue, Seattle, Renton, Redmond, Mercer Island, Kirkland, Lynnwood, Issaquah, Tacoma, Puyallup, Newcastle, Gig Harbor, Fircrest, & University Place.

Two of the primary muscles that help raise support your medial (inside) arch are your Tibialis Posterior and your Abductor Hallusis.  The Tibialis posterior tendon (a leg muscle that crosses the ankle joint and inserts in the medial arch) is usually focused on during acquired flat foot deformities as a primary cause.  It however doesn’t kick in until the passive support of the arch breaks down so we will not focus on it here.

The abductor hallusis muscle starts at the inside base of your heel and inserts into the base of your big toe.  The best way to work this muscle is called the “short foot” exercise.  Here is a brief explanation on how to do it:

To perform a short foot exercise, sit in a sturdy chair, using good posture. Place both feet flat on the floor with your toes pointing straight forward.  Raise the arch of your right foot off the floor without curling your toes and lifting your heel. This is called the short foot position. Hold this isometric contraction for six seconds. Relax, and repeat with the left foot. Inch your feet forward and perform another rep with each foot. Perform 15 to 20 repetitions with each foot to strengthen and stabilize the muscles that comprise the longitudinal arch of the foot. Reposition your feet a little farther away from the chair each rep to target the muscles at slightly different angles. When this exercise is executed properly, you will feel muscle contraction in the foot and lower leg.  As quoted by, Dr. Nicholas A Campitelli – Podiatric Medicine and Surgery

Here’s a Youtube video that will give you a visual on how to do the exercise: Click Here

I’ve done this exercise myself quite a bit trying to maintain healthy arches.  It’s a bit awkward at first but you’ll get the hang of it in a few days as long as you are diligent about doing it a few times per day.  I also find it useful to do the exercise while standing since eventually you’re shooting for this muscle to support your arch while you’re standing and walking.

The second part you need to do is lengthen the tissue on the outside of your feet.  To do this you can stand on the outside of your feet and slowly bend your knees until you feel a stretch on the outside of your ankles.  You will probably also need to see someone who does structural integration Like Myself at my Rolfing practice in Bellevue, WA. Who can take a look at the bones of your feet to see if the bones in your feet are articulating against one another appropriately?

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Clients receive Rolfing from me for flat feet from all over the Puget Sound, including: Bellevue, Seattle, Renton, Redmond, Mercer Island, Kirkland, Lynnwood, Issaquah, Tacoma, Puyallup, Newcastle, Gig Harbor, Fircrest, & University Place.

Here are a couple of links to other sites with exercises you can do IN ADDITION to, not instead of, the short foot exercise:

-http://www.livestrong.com/article/142341-what-exercise-can-i-do-my-fallen-arches/?utm_source=RELARTICLES_R1

-http://www.marksdailyapple.com/flat-feet-treatment/#axzz25hIOMaaQ

Wikipedia defines CTS as, “an entrapment median neuropathy, causing paresthesia, pain, numbness, and other symptoms in the distribution of the median nerve due to its compression at the wrist in the carpal tunnel”.  The median nerve is one of 3 main nerves that send and receive information in your arms.  It originates from a grouping of the nerves in the neck, called the brachial plexus, dives under your collar bone (clavicle) and extends all the way down into your fingertips.  Entrapment median neuropathy simply means that the median nerve is being pinched or compressed and it’s causing disease or damage to the nerve itself.  The carpal tunnel is as you guessed it, a tunnel that passes through your carpal (wrist) bones.

CTS is often thought to be caused by repetitive motion at work but in fact has many origins including lipomas, obesity, oral contraceptives, hypothyroidism, arthritis, diabetes, and trauma.  The symptoms usually include numbness, tingling, or burning sensations in the thumb and fingers, in particular the index, middle fingers, and radial half of the ring fingers (on the palm side of the hand).

To date, all of the clients that come to my Rolfing practice in Bellevue end up complaining of nerve numbness or tingling in fingers or place of the hand that are fed by nerves other than the median nerve.  Therefore, they probably have a nerve entrapment issue, but not of the median nerve through the carpal tunnel.  More often than not, the entrapment is happening further up the arm as the nerves weave their way in between muscles and ligaments or even as they dive under the collar bone on their way from the neck (which in fact is the most common place for entrapment).

As a Rolfer in Bellevue treating “carpal tunnel syndrome” like symptoms, I’ll look at your whole body to find out where the source of the issue is and not just chase where the symptoms are showing up.  Most of my training following the Rolf institute has been on working with nerve pathology & entrapment issues and how to resolve them non-surgically.   And, on the rare occasion that I can’t help I am in constant contact with a great team of medical professionals (both western and eastern philosophies) around the Austin area that can help you get rid of your pain.

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Clients receive Rolfing from me for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from all over the Puget Sound, including: Bellevue, Seattle, Renton, Redmond, Mercer Island, Kirkland, Lynnwood, Issaquah, Tacoma, Puyallup, Newcastle, Gig Harbor, Fircrest, & University Place.

Part of what makes Rolfing unique is that I’m treating the entire body, not just the area of the body that hurts.  Every part of your body is connected some way or another, so something going on in your foot can cause symptoms to show up in your neck and head.  If we get the pain to go away in your neck and head but never address what’s going on in your feet, your symptoms will eventually come back because we’ve never address the core of the issue.

You could also have misalignments or unbalanced areas in your body that don’t cause you pain right now but will do so down the road.  The unbalanced tissue might have absolutely nothing to do with the issue you came to see me for and might not have any symptoms showing up.  However, if we don’t bring the tissue back into balance pain is likely to show up later in your life.

Ultimately, I started My Rolfing Practice in Bellevue, WA because the work is effective at getting people out of pain.  But I want those changes to be permanent.  So, it’s imperative that we bring better alignment back to the entire body and not just chase pain symptoms.  Doing so will help ensure that not only will your current symptoms go away, but you can sidestep future aches and pains as well.  Effectively, keeping your body feeling young and supple.

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Clients receive Rolfing from me for after reduced pain from all over the Puget Sound, including: Bellevue, Seattle, Renton, Redmond, Mercer Island, Kirkland, Lynnwood, Issaquah, Tacoma, Puyallup, Newcastle, Gig Harbor, Fircrest, & University Place.

One of the ways that a healthy posture can be a good thing is that it means you’re fighting less against gravity. For example, if your head is properly positioned over your torso (your ears should line up with your mid shoulder as viewed from the side) then you entire structure gets to support the weight of your head. This allows the muscles in your neck to perform their designed tasks of stabilizing and mobilizing (i.e. turning, nodding, etc.). However, if your head is shifted out in front of your body it puts a lot of stress on the muscles in the back of your neck and shoulders to hold the weight of your head up while gravity pulls down on your head. This fatigues these neck and shoulder muscles as they weren’t designed to counterbalance the pull of gravity all day long. So they get tight from over-contracting all day long and they’re not freed up to help rotate and extend your neck and head as they were designed to do.

Posture, from a structural integration standpoint, can be an indicator that something is not right in the body. The postural imbalance might be coming from a usage imbalance, or an entrapped nerve that is not allowing a muscle to fire as it is supposed to, could be a genetic variable, etcetera. There are many ways that posture can be affected.

More important question to ask your self when looking at posture is why is the posture not “correct”? As well as, asking whether the poor posture has a potential to be harmful to the body over time. You can have great posture with pain and an ill-functioning body. In which case, the pain may be stemming from something on a deeper level like an entrapped nerve or an irritated organ. Conversely, it’s certainly possible to have poor posture and have a very efficient functioning body with no pain. What’s most common however is that if your posture is off, it’s a strong indicator that you have some type of compensation going on in your body that needs to be addressed so that your body can function at a more efficient level. As a Rolfer servicing Bellevue, Seattle & Tacoma, I will review your posture and ask those bigger questions to find where the true source of the issue is coming from in the body.

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Clients receive Rolfing from me to improve posture from all over the Puget Sound, including: Bellevue, Seattle, Renton, Redmond, Mercer Island, Kirkland, Lynnwood, Issaquah, Tacoma, Puyallup, Newcastle, Gig Harbor, Fircrest, & University Place.

A large portion of clients that come to see me come because they have pain showing up somewhere in their body and want me to help them get rid of it. One thing that’s always important to point out is that nobody ever heals your body for you. They help facilitate your body being in a healthier place so that it can heal itself.

Pain can be a pretty funny thing. Pain is pretty reliable at telling you that something is wrong somewhere in the body. But it’s often not a very good indicator of where the source of the issue is. I often find that the source of the issue is not only not where the client feels the pain but is often not even close to the real culprit. Pain can show up in your low back because of a toe injury that is forcing you to limp (even just slightly). Pain can show up in your neck because of an old fall onto your tailbone that is just slightly changing your alignment, which in turn forces the rest of your spine to compensate. You can develop bunions because of organs in your abdomen that are adhered to tissue that they’re not supposed to be adhered to. The list can go on and on and almost every scenario involves multiple parts of the body that need to be addressed in order to completely get better.

Rolfing is designed not only to look at the complete body to see where changes can be made, but also how the client is using their body/mind in their everyday life in ways that might be contributing to their discomfort. Taking a holistic approach to the healing process helps ensure that the client sees results that are permanent and not just temporary.

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Clients receive Rolfing from me for a holistic approach to pain resolution from all over the Puget Sound, including: Bellevue, Seattle, Renton, Redmond, Mercer Island, Kirkland, Lynnwood, Issaquah, Tacoma, Puyallup, Newcastle, Gig Harbor, Fircrest, & University Place.