Much of what I work with in my office is the result of shock trauma. What is shock trauma? Think of the moment before a car accident; the breath is held in on inspiration, the shoulders tense upwards, and the eyes are opened wide. Then the force of the accident is delivered. Most physical traumas are shocking and elicit that same response described above. After the event is over, our body's structure is not the same. The force has traveled through like a lightning strike and created either increased or decreased resting tone in the fascia and ligaments of the body and locking in the tension created by the shock response decribed above. The change may only present itself to our awareness briefly, for a day or two, or it could become a chronic companion. If our body is able to accomate that change well enough we will not have any problem other than an unoticed loss of fluidity, but if it can't then some sort of undesireable symptom will develop (frequently pain, but can be many different disease processes). Either way, the balance of tension is changed in the body. What do I mean by balance of tension? One way to understand it is to imagine the body totally relaxed and floating in space. What position would it take? Would it twist to the right? Bend off to the left? Flex forward? etc. The ideal balance of tension is for all structures to be symmetric around the mid line without perfering motion in any direction over another. In this ideal balance, there is a minumum amount of tension in the body and all of the channels (lymphatic, blood vessels, nerves) are free to do their jobs without resistance.
Now imagine how a side impact car accident could effect the balance of tension in the body. For this thougt experiment let's imagine that the driver of a car is hit hard on the left side of their car. Their spine abruptly bends to the left, perhaps throwing their head into the driver side window (or airbag if it deploys). Then it will whip back the other way. Typically the first motion will set the tone for the change in the bodies balance of tension because it is the point of greatest force delivery, by the time the body whips back much force has already dissipated. This sort of force trauma would likely result in the person's spine overall preferring to go into left sidebending over right sidebending. So their new balance of tension would be found with them in slight left sidebending. This balance of tension would require the muscles along the right side of the spine to be kept at a greater length, which will result in them trying to pull back to their normal length. This new increased resting muscle tone sets the muscle up to become painful. This can be confusing to body work practitioners because they think they should work on the painful muscle, but if we consider the underlying change in the balance of tension in the fascial ligamentous system that gives us a totally different window in on how to resolve the problem. Now, this is a very simple, 2 dimensional explantion. We can imagine of more complex changes could be made through force that produces a combination of motions (flexion/extension, rotation, sidebending, compression, traction) with more complex problems resulting from it (impingement of nerves, arteries, veins, lymphatics, etc)
My job it is find my patient's balance of tension and gently coax their structure to let go of the traumatic holding so that treatment by treatment they move closer and closer to their ideal balance. The great thing about this approach is that as they let go of their shock trauma they do not need to come in an see me as oftens and they do not need to do as much homework (exercise prescription) to stay out of pain.
For my next entry I will discuss the means by an Osteopath can help patient release their shock trauma.
Now imagine how a side impact car accident could effect the balance of tension in the body. For this thougt experiment let's imagine that the driver of a car is hit hard on the left side of their car. Their spine abruptly bends to the left, perhaps throwing their head into the driver side window (or airbag if it deploys). Then it will whip back the other way. Typically the first motion will set the tone for the change in the bodies balance of tension because it is the point of greatest force delivery, by the time the body whips back much force has already dissipated. This sort of force trauma would likely result in the person's spine overall preferring to go into left sidebending over right sidebending. So their new balance of tension would be found with them in slight left sidebending. This balance of tension would require the muscles along the right side of the spine to be kept at a greater length, which will result in them trying to pull back to their normal length. This new increased resting muscle tone sets the muscle up to become painful. This can be confusing to body work practitioners because they think they should work on the painful muscle, but if we consider the underlying change in the balance of tension in the fascial ligamentous system that gives us a totally different window in on how to resolve the problem. Now, this is a very simple, 2 dimensional explantion. We can imagine of more complex changes could be made through force that produces a combination of motions (flexion/extension, rotation, sidebending, compression, traction) with more complex problems resulting from it (impingement of nerves, arteries, veins, lymphatics, etc)
My job it is find my patient's balance of tension and gently coax their structure to let go of the traumatic holding so that treatment by treatment they move closer and closer to their ideal balance. The great thing about this approach is that as they let go of their shock trauma they do not need to come in an see me as oftens and they do not need to do as much homework (exercise prescription) to stay out of pain.
For my next entry I will discuss the means by an Osteopath can help patient release their shock trauma.
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