Aches and pains - why suffer?

When you approach your ‘three score years and ten’ life allocation you come to assume that it is ‘normal’ to have aches and pains, stiffness and an increasing lack of energy  - at least I did. But after I ‘merely’ mentioned the lethargy in passing to my GP and was given a blood test which then led to a diagnosis of colon cancer, I dramatically learnt not to make such facile assumptions again. So a few years later when I became aware that the fairly constant rumbling pain in my left knee and shin and the periodic sharp shooting pains up from my toes seemed not to be going away, I  didn’t let myself put it down to  ‘old age’ but I presented myself to my GP.  No clots were found when I was given a leg scan in case I had a thrombosis , but , since no other diagnosis presented itself, all  I was then offered was a selection of painkillers and this ‘we can’t think of anything else’ solution was certainly not reassuring.

I have been involved with alternative medicines on and off throughout my life and I instinctively began to try to work out what to follow up regarding this increasingly debilitating aching leg.  A friend suggested I might benefit from Myofascial Release, about which I had never heard, but after some researching I arranged to meet up with Emma Gilmore early in 2014.  I have seen her pretty much every three weeks since then and, yes, the treatment has – bit by bit – made an enormous difference to my leg and to my general well being. Twelve years ago I dug up a whole garden, but before I met Emma I had got to the point where I didn’t have the flexibility or the inclination to bend or reach over to pull up even a weed – but now, whilst I might not yet dig up a whole garden, I will attack and tidy a bed of shrubs and flowers and even undertake pruning (when does not require a ladder). Who knows what tomorrow will bring!

Myofascial release therapy works on the knowledge that an intricate labyrinth of myofascia weaves its way throughout our bodies covering and surrounding every muscle, bone, nerve, artery and all internal organs and, because it is a continuous structure, it connects every part of the body to every other part. Myofascial release is just that – a means of releasing myofascia that because of trauma or inflammation has been damaged or has lost its pliability. Because the myofascia is connected all round the body any damage in one place can have a spin off impact in other areas of the body.

The myofascia release therapist, after taking a case history, will want you to remove your top layer of clothes and lie on a table. He/she will then put pressure on parts of the body that s(he) thinks may have relevance to the presenting problem – often it will be an obvious area (on your neck if you have presented a sore neck), but often it can be elsewhere, which, through the connections of the myofascia network, might also be influencing the problem. The hand pressure is placed for many minutes, quietly, gently. Apparently the therapist can often feel activity or heat under his/ her hands and, with practice, the patient can begin to feel tingling or twitching in response in other parts of the body. For me, with each treatment I have become increasingly aware of what is going on in my whole body whilst I am lying under the therapist’s hands.

Let me give an example from my case – this left leg and foot. Obviously in the first sessions,  pressure was mainly put on parts of that leg, but it was also put on parts of the other leg which sometimes led to responses (twitches, tingling) in the first leg. Then Emma began to wonder if the base of my back had any connection with the pains in my leg – I have had recurring back pain for twenty years – so she worked on that and there were a couple of times, for example, when to my amazement the pressure on my back triggered the profound shooting pains up from my toes, so something was certainly happening! (And for the record, my back has definitely improved as a result of her work there, too.) By now in my treatment journey, the pain and discomfort in my left leg had all but disappeared but we had become aware that there was a tendency for my ankles and feet to get puffy, particularly in the right leg. By now Emma was working on the scar of my colon cancer operation. In the operation I had had many lymph nodes removed which might now be affecting the leg and the causing the oedema. In recent treatment sessions, when she has been putting pressure on my leg – note, my leg -  I can have quite strong twinges underneath my scar of my stomach : nowhere else, just underneath my scar. And this is where we have got to so far – I am hoping, nay expecting, that the work on my scar will help my oedema, that it will assist in strengthening both legs and that it will help my battered colon, not to mention my body as a whole. It is not the end of the journey for me by any means. 

If you need any more information Emma Gilmore our resident Myofascial specialist will be on hand to answer any questions about  your health issues.

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