TREATMENT: TECHNIQUES VS ROOT CAUSES

 A doctor couldn’t care less,

chasing away your pain with ease, He’d rather ponder and address

the genuine source of your disease.

–       How do you feel?

–       I’m much better, doctor, thank you.

I just can’t figure out how you manage to do it.  I went to a host of doctors who used the same techniques like manipulations, massage, acupuncture, and physical therapy, all to no avail. But two visits to your office have made my neck turn as if I were 20 again!

“How” or “what”?

Our center focuses on “what” is to be treated rather than “how” to treat.

You have just read a rather typical dialogue at our rehabilitation center. In fact, we do focus on “what” is to be treated rather than “how” to treat.

Here is an example.

Early in my professional career, I would often team up with a colleague. 

• “What shall we treat in this case, Mike?” I would ask him.

• “Well, - he replies, - let’s first try massage and ultrasound.”

• “You don’t understand, - I say. – I didn’t ask “how”, I asked “what.”

• “If ultrasound is no good, we’ll try acupuncture with electrical stimulation.”

What an ultimate lack of communication! Mind it, this attitude had little to do with my colleague’s personal preferences. It was fairly standard, especially in physical therapy. Moreover, most American medical centers still believe in the power of technique alone, including fancy pills, acupuncture, sophisticated matrix therapy devices, the Ceragem bed, or the VAX-D computerized tables for vertebral axial decompression.

Treatment by trial and error 

Thus, physicians often do not care for fixing the source of pain. Rather, they would use whatever technique comes in handy or enjoys their trust. Recall that classical joke about a man searching the ground near a lamppost for his car keys lost across the street. “Why look here?” somebody asks. “The light is so much better here,” the man responds.

Our body is a smart system naturally programmed to strive for good health as a loaded cart is programmed to go down a slope.

Location of trigger points

If a given technique fails, an alternative will be tried, in the hope that some method would ultimately work. Amazingly, a lot of patients who undergo trial-and-error treatment do get better. How come? The reason is that our body is a smart system naturally programmed to strive for good health as a loaded cart is “programmed” to go down a slope. If the cart stops, it must be blocked by a boulder or have a wheel stuck in a pothole. It may often be set back in motion by any external push such as electrical stimulation, massage, or simply some rest. Yet if it is trapped in earnest, senseless tinkering and mindless zeal would only make things worse. 

Pushing body “buttons”

We find the body’s trigger points that, if pushed the right way, launch the right program.

The term "trigger point" was coined in 1942 by Dr. Janet Travel. When compressed, these points may trigger acute pain.

Our patients are mostly those who had no luck with “finding their keys under the lamppost.” Having undergone various treatments, stimulation, or acupuncture that helped their more fortunate fellow sufferers, they got desperate and disappointed. If you are one of these, come to our clinic where we practice systemic relief and manual decompression. In each case, we find the precise individual blocks and boulders that prevent the patient’s health from “going down the slope”.  We analyze every joint and every muscle to locate the trigger points that are similar to computer keys. 

Compressed the right way, such a point launches the right program. The only problem is that the keyboard is crumbling and some keys get stuck or do not respond. One needs special intuition and skills to press them just to make them relax, allowing the doctor to proceed to careful decompression that releases pinched nerves and herniated roots.

A wrong step may either simply fail to cause any muscle relaxation (like in the case of a light superficial massage) or even trigger a deep long-term spasm (like in the case of rigid manipulations). Trigger point therapy, therefore, is like a double-edged sword that can either hurt or heal.

Keep in mind that only skilled professionals with a natural gift for sophisticated and delicate manual therapy can help you restore your good health rather than inflict further damage. No one else can recognize your trigger points and handle them right to let your body embark on a road to better health.