Carpal Tunnel Testimonial/Session Breakdown👍🏼

My client “V” gave me permission to write a brief testimonial of her recent MFRelease sessions.

She came to me with reported 10/10 wrist pain, preventing her from doing most of her daily activities w/o either having to take frequent rest breaks due to pain, or needing to perform them with her non-dominant hand b/c of resultant dominant hand weakness. She could no longer garden for more than a couple minutes if that. By the time V came to see me her pain had decreased to a steady 5/10, following numerous PT visits and self treatment she had been doing to the best of her abilities. She felt ‘stuck’ at this point, with her progress hitting a plateau. I told her my goal was to have her pain decreased to a 0-1/10 in 3-5 visits.

First visit: extensive education on numerous topics such as this type of MFRelease work, how everything in our bodies is connected to each other in the web, how symptomatic pain distally is most often the ‘result’ of an issue proximally. As John always says “see the pain but look elsewhere for the cause”. I discussed her posture and stance, ergonomics at home and at her work space, etc etc. I began with balancing her pelvis, as I do with every client who comes to me with physical pain complaints (I also see folks with emotional/trauma related issues who have no physical pain). I worked on her upper back and scapula area, down her arm and briefly at her wrist/hand. Each hold is a minimum of 5 minutes each and usually much longer. She reported much relief when off the table.

2nd visit: V reported her pain was “50% improved” after session 1, as well as feeling relieved that she had hope for resolving this very long standing problem (she’s had a desk for over 25 years). More proximal to distal work done this session, always starting with pelvis balancing. Ongoing education of her posture, ergonomics at home and at her desk. V had made numerous changes in her stance, posture, body awareness, work area, kitchen work space, etc all that we had discussed in the first session (this is where my 36 years as an Occupational Therapist comes in really handy!).

3rd session: V reported her pain had improved by 90% following the second session. Arm pulls were done. This is a gentle and wonderful technique for opening the chest, upper back, neck and scapula areas, and for unraveling (‘unwinding’ as we call it) her tissue. Cervical treatment as well was done. Arm, wrist, hand treatment. It’s important to note that releases can be felt far from where my hands are. Our fascia/connective tissue is part of a web, so releases aren’t just felt directly under the area my hands are on…folks may feel a release in their knee while my hands are on their shoulder for example. Just as when a fly is caught in a spider web 🕸️, the integrity of the web is slightly altered, not just the exact fiber that the fly hit.

4th and final visit: 95% pain relief following 3 sessions. V was now back to hours of gardening pain free and thrilled to have 0-1/10 pain. She also is now educated on how to continue on this path of changing up her routine at her desk, paying attention to her stance and posture and neck positions, etc. She decided 4 visits was enough at this time and left a happy camper 🤗.