Neuroplasticity through Sensorimotor & Somatic Integration
Manual Therapy & Dry Needling
Fascia & Nervous System Oriented Treatments
Is Manual Therapy right for me or my child? Have you or your child experienced chronic overactivation of your body's nervous system that makes it impossible to feel relaxed? Do you experience on-going pain or tightness in the body regardless of how much stretching, exercise, or training you do? Do you feel weakness or disconnection to your body or parts of it?? Are you looking for a more integrated approach that teaches you how to also use the same techniques at home? We can help.
What's Included: We will provide you or your child with specialized dry needling and manual therapy treatments that targets fascial system health and helps rebalance the nervous system so you can immediately reduce discomfort and feel and move better.
What Manual Techniques Do We Use? All of our techniques help to stimulate the nervous system and fascial network in ways that help you reduce pain, move easier, and ultimately support your healing process. These techniques help to support the body's natural integration process and rebalancing the nervous system in ways that leave you feeling more connected.
Fascial and manual techniques that we use are different than spa and massage therapy and include:
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dry needling
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joint mobilizations
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sensory activation
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desensitization techniques
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trigger point release
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soft tissue massage
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fascial unwinding
What are the effects of dry needling, manual therapy, and therapeutic massage? These techniques are used with a focus to stimulate the fascial and nervous system in ways that help your body rebalance itself, strengthen your immune system and improve circulation, posture, flexibility, and range of motion. Dry needling, therapeutic massage, and manual therapy also help to specifically treat myofascial trigger points (MTrPs) and the associated symptoms they produce that are found to interfere with healthy body movement and autonomic nervous system functioning.
What are Myofascial Trigger Points (MTrPs)? MTrPs are thought to occur as overactive areas of connective tissue in the body that is due to excessive release of a chemical called acetylcholine. Often these trigger points are found within tight bands of surrounding connective tissue and muscle tissue and are often formed due to poor posture, movement imbalances, protective responses, over stressing of a muscle, or lack of use of muscle. In many cases these trigger points are found to be hungry for oxygen and do not receive normal blood flow like other healthy tissue.
They are divided into both Active and Latent myofascial trigger points.
Active myofascial trigger points can spontaneously cause local or referred pain to occur. These are often easy to identify, easily triggered, and ca cause all types of local and referred pain, muscle weaknesses, movement difficulties, and sensory problems.
Latent myofascial trigger points are often are more hidden and less easy to identify unless they are stimulated or pressed on. Nonetheless, these trigger points also create similar symptom as above.
Due to the deeply rooted relationships between the fascial system and the nervous system, myofascial trigger points can create a whole variety of different symptoms. Over time these ongoing symptoms can create a cascading effect on both the nervous system and fascial system and can lead to conditions we refer to as Myofascial Pain Syndrome.
What are Symptoms of MTrPs & Myofascial Pain Syndrome?
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chronic stiffness/tightness in tissue
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pain with exercise
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hyperirritability
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feelings of "nerve pain"
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decrease range of motion
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deep, aching pain in a muscle.
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pain that doesn't go away or gets worse at rest
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a tender knot in a muscle.
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trouble sleeping due to pain.
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a general feeling of being not well, called malaise.
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tiredness and feelings of no energy
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extreme fatigue following exercise
Where Common Trigger Points Are Found: Myofascial Trigger Points can show up really anywhere in muscle that undergoes stress or injury, but are most often found in areas that include:
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calf muscles
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lower back
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mid back
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neck
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shins
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shoulders
How we Treat Trigger Points & Myofascial Pain: At each session, we will work to understand your symptoms and concerns and help to identify areas of you or your child's body that may be "stuck" due pain or over-activity of the nervous system due to myofascial trigger points.
We will then help you to reconnect to these areas of the body through the use of dry needling, manual therapy, and other fascial oriented techniques. In may cases, these techniques will help you to rebalance areas of the body that may have gotten disconnected due to stress, injury, or trauma and re-stimulate the healing and recovery process. Most importantly, we will teach you at the end of each session movement and self-care techniques on how you can keep these areas free from future trigger points development and discomfort.
What Is Dry Needling & How Does It Work: Dry needling works by using a very thin sterile needle that is directly inserted into MTrPs. This processes prompts the muscle tissue to spontaneously contract which is often felt as a quick twitch in the muscle and is referred to as a "twitch response." This is often followed by a release in the tissue causing it to relax. Through this process this technique is able to disrupts the pain signal involved in the tight muscle or fascia and results in a decrease guarding response from the nervous system.
For most cases 20 minutes is efficient for a single treatment. Depending on the treatment, dry needling may be done as stand alone or used as a complementary plan of care for treatment.
How Dry Needling is Different Than Acupuncture: Dry needling helps to decrease myofascial sensitivity, improve range of motion, decrease muscle tone/tightness and reduce pain in patients with musculoskeletal conditions. Dry needling is also focused on employing strong stimulation on the muscles to get them reactivate.
Acupuncture, on the other hand, does not use strong stimulation and it is established on channel theory and uses points to heal the body naturally.
Self-Care & Self-Treatment: In addition to providing you treatment to address your pain and myofascial trigger point problems, we can also provide you with specific instrument assisted tools that you can use at home so you can create similar self-care treatments at home.
For many of these techniques, many can also be done as self care once you know what you are looking to feel. We can help guide you through this process on how to accurately treat your tissue so you can get the most out of your treatments at home. We enjoy teaching children and adults of all ages. It can be a process, but a fun one at that.
