Tag Archives: Massage

Scar tissue from the past

Posted in Healing Journey, Personal Growth, Uncategorized by

I’ve complained a lot in the last few years about pain in my left hip/low back area. Having just hit a breakthrough, it seems like a good moment to tell a bit about the journey.

I’ve had problems there for decades but a combo of excellent bodyworkers and routine practice of poses and exercises for the area kept it at bay. Then my mom landed in the hospital and suddenly I was spending hours on uncomfortable chairs, followed by having to support her weight much more often. My exercise routine wound up often being less than usual. Didn’t take long to find myself limping around in pain.

I exercised that round of pain away over the course of a year and instantly she was back in the hospital. When she came home I was on 24/7 caretaker duty with many more times I had to support her weight. Then she passed away at the onset of a completely new ailment and suddenly I had to move. So my hip was already killing me and I spent the next 5 months on first clearing our home and packing up my stuff then moving to a condo I inherited from my dad and both unpacking my stuff and feverishly working to get his out.

Ultimately, while moving a chair I threw the whole low back/hip area out of whack so badly I stopped all efforts to move anything in or out and have concentrated ever since on figuring out the hip. A referral to PT came attached with copays that were too high for me, so I began hunting on the internet for PT exercises. I’ll be writing a series with lots of videos and info about what I found, but for this post, I’ll just mention the biggest challenge for me was that pretty much every muscle and every muscle group in the entire low back-pelvis-hip-groin area was totally out of whack.

To work on an area with issues that complex the order in which you work is important but I had no way to know where I needed to start. So I just found tons of exercises for many specific muscles and areas and began working my way slowly around. For a long time it actually got worse, though there were days when a particular set would bring relief for a while.

Eventually I was exercising 2 different times/day and then 3 in order to make my way through more than one area and also to do some things like my exercise pedaler just to keep in general shape. From PT type exercises to isometrics and continuing on with the yoga and Robert Masters work I’ve done for years, I moved slowly through each sore piece. By this last March I’d finally narrowed in more on which areas to work on, one at a time, and unlocked enough tight stuff to feel like the small amount I could afford for massage might be enough to move it along faster.

I did some research to find someone with the kind of credentials I wanted. One fab thing about the Upledger Institute (home of craniosacral therapy studies) is that their “find a practitioner” pages include info on all the certifications the person has from Upledger. I wanted someone with at least 4 levels of craniosacral, 1 or 2 from their visceral manipulation or lymph drainage therapy and to have massage certification as well (not listed on Upledger).

I found Jennifer, with 4 levels of craniosacral, both visceral manipulation and lymph drainage, 4 kinds of massage certifications and more! She’s been amazing. I’ve had 6 appointments so far and so much has improved in such a short time. Thanks to all the opening through her work the exercises I’m doing are going deeper and helping even more.

She mentioned scar tissue several times and that the cerebellum will move bones and muscles away from pressing on scar tissue. She pretty quickly realized the top of my left femur is rotated. Finally on the 5th appointment while talking about it she mentioned that just a minor fall can create scar tissue. As she spoke she circled her hand around the central area of her lower left back — basically the pelvis/piriformis area and emphasized how scar tissue there could affect the femur.

Later that evening as I reflected on the appointment a lightbulb went on: when I was maybe 8 or 9, at a riding lesson where we’d gone outside late in a droughty summer, my horse took off and I wound up flying off, landing on exactly that area on the left side. My parents took me to the family doctor who didn’t bother to take an x-ray. There was a giant BLACK bruise over that area for the next couple of months but no treatment ever.

Suddenly, an explanation for the many decades of issues with that hip and low back area! Jennifer did a bunch of work on the next appointment to break up the scar tissue (calcium deposits) and it’s already made quite a difference.

Bringing up the memory has me thinking about a lot of the issues swirling around that incident and the messages I took in. The riding master’s first reaction was “Who told you you could get off the horse?” along with a command to get right back up. The doctor’s attitude was that it was just a bruise and to buck up. The overwhelming message I received was to pretend nothing had happened, that it didn’t hurt and that somehow maintaining a perception of stoicism and gung-ho “keeping on” was more important than any wound I’d received.

Stoicism and “keeping on” fit right in with the “grind culture” I’ve been arguing against for a while. Those notions go deep in American culture and when they have a personal drama driving them deeper, it’s a long journey of spiraling up through the many levels where it holds and moving beyond…

I’m so incredibly grateful this round of journeying with that area going out again has finally led to figuring out the key issue and how well the healing is progressing.

Healing Journey Monday: Helping the Body Work Progress

Posted in Health, New Age, Personal Growth, Spiritual Journey, Uncategorized, Wellness by

Years ago when I was living in the Bay Area, I’d been practicing yoga for six or seven years but it still didn’t occur to me to do some yoga before I went to a massage appointment. Early in my years out there someone I knew introduced me to Kabuki Springs, the Japanese baths, and I became a regular for the rest of my time in the area.

One week I happened to have a massage appointment for a time slot shortly after my regular time to go soak and steam, etc. at Kabuki.  So I arrived at the appointment having spent an hour in the sauna, steam room, and hot tub and the massage therapist exclaimed over how much easier it was to get into my muscles. When I told her I went regularly to the Kabuki we arranged my massage schedule from then on to follow my sessions in Japantown. You’d think I’d have figured out more but somehow it didn’t sink in.

After I moved to Kentucky I couldn’t afford as much bodywork as I’d previously been getting so I made quite an effort to be practicing yoga and doing the Robert Masters work in between appointments to try to keep the releases they achieved. But it wasn’t until some years after that that I was down to an every other week appointment for Bodypatterning and, determined to get every advantage from those appointments, I not only created the work I’m doing now that combines yoga with the Robert Masters movements but I started making sure that I did stretches, movements and energy work right before every appointment (with a soak in a hot bath in between). For the first time ever not only did the releases from one appointment often hold until the next but sometimes I arrived having released even more than where we were when I left.

In more of those chats with body workers I’ve been gathering that I’m unusual for the amount of effort I put in, especially as to making sure that I’m as stretched out and balanced as I can be before I start an appointment. Without doing the work, usually in those appointments the first half to three-quarters of the session is spent on just getting out the kinks that have appeared or reappeared in between appointments. So only a small amount of time can be spent on moving further in the process.  When I get to an appointment they can usually move very quickly to the point of taking up where they left off instead of taking so much time just do undo what has gone off.  If you participate in the work to keep your body open and balanced, you can speed the healing journey tremendously.

For me, the combination has been the thing that finally broke through the muscle patterns that no one had been able to release. Now, Kreig’s Bodypatterning is brilliant so I have to give a big nod to his work. But I also know (and we’ve discussed this) that without the effort I have made we probably wouldn’t be nearly as far along. I wonder if the ultimate releases at the core level that I’m experiencing now would ever have been reached without all that added effort on my part.

I mention all this because I knew a lot about how the body works and yet I didn’t put it together that I could seriously help the process. I’ve been regular at practicing yoga for the entire 26+ years I’ve been doing it but I never made a point of doing a practice right before an appointment. So I thought I’d make a big point of mentioning this—in addition to the last post about participating. If you’re getting therapeutic bodywork, practice something like yoga or Feldenkreis and make sure you take some time before an appointment to stretch and re-balance and, if possible, get a soak in a hot bath before you go. The more you’ve worked out the kinks before you arrive, the more the practitioner can get done in your appointment. If you seriously want to release painful holding patterns, help the body work along by keeping your body in tune.

Added note: I did some of the Masters work as an adjunct to massage, etc. but also didn’t use that work right before appointments. The triggers work from Masters and Feldenkrais is powerful stuff and it has been particularly useful at getting deeper into holding patterns and creating new, healthier patterns. If there’s someone in your area who teaches Feldenkrais, Somatics or Masters’ Psychophysical Method, I highly recommend that you look into it. I’ll have a text-only manual up on Kindle soon if you want some instructions for practicing on your own.