Fibromyalgia: Can I be helped with manual therapies?

It has been estimated that over 7 million Americans have the syndrome called Fibromyalgia. We see many people in our practice every day with this condition and it leads us to believe that 7 million is a low estimate.

There are a lot of theories about this condition, and patients have been given lots of different drugs and have been told that they will have to live with it the rest of their lives.

We do not believe this.  We have seen people helped.

We believe that Fibromyalgia is a chronic, low-grade inflammatory condition of the muscle, fascia and other connective tissue. The main cause is the accumulation of pathological hyper-tonus (tightness) in muscles over a prolonged period of time. The origin of the hyper-tonus came about as a result of either trauma, stress, poor sleep, hormonal changes, and/or structural imbalances in the body due to accidents, surgeries, and poor postural alignment.

In our practice, we have worked with a number of individuals with Fibromyalgia who are able to gain initial immediate relief from the very first session of Structural Integration as well as from Sensory Re-patterning and CranioSacral work.

If we may generalize, clients tend to fall into 3 general categories:

1) Person has fibrous tissue lumps in certain body areas, predominately upper arms and chest wall. Tissue has a hard cardboard type feel. This tissue responds well to normal Structural Integration work, with the tissue dissolving within the first 3 sessions.

2) Person has swollen tissue, sometimes puffy tissue. The person is very sensitive to touch. Areas of intense pain around the lymph nodes of the arms, neck, groin, inner legs, sometimes the breast bone (this is the area above the drainage of lymph in the vena cava). This type of person needs very soft touch so Psychophysical Integration is a very good starting point. These persons also need counseling (if they haven't already been counseled) about diet (low inflammation diet - avoiding sugars, alcohol, foods that can cause allergic reactions such as dairy and wheat). We ask them to do lymph stimulating exercises such as walking 20-30 minutes per day and/or bouncing on a fitness ball 5-10 minutes per day. Without fail, these people have been undergoing intense emotional stress as a precursor to these symptoms.

3) Person who says she has fibromyalgia, but symptoms started soon after an intense physical trauma, usually a car accident. We think of what they are experiencing is like a total body whiplash. Their bodies are on red alert (survival instinct has been turned on, and they don't know how to turn it off). These people also need very gentle touch so Psychophysical Integration is the most appropriate approach.

All of these people have gained great benefit from these two modalities when approached appropriately. One woman remarked recently:

"Before I came for Structural Integration I had pain levels of 10+ on a scale of 1-10. After only 3 sessions I am now most often at a pain level of only 4 which is quite tolerable. I am looking forward to finishing the series. I wish my schedule allowed me to go faster!"

                                                                                                              Andrea, Age 42