Myofascial Release Therapy
for Headaches
John F. Barnes, PT
International lecturer, author and authority on Myofascial Release
Myofascial Release is a highly effective treatment for pain, headaches and fibromyalgia. Myofascial Restrictions can produce enormous pressures on pain sensitive structures.
WHAT IS HAPPENING?
The health professions have ignored the importance of an entire physiological system, the fascial system that profoundly influences all other structures and systems of the body. This glaring omission had severely affected therapists' effectiveness and the lasting quality of their efforts.
Myofascial restrictions can exert tremendous tensile forces on the neuromuscular-skeletal and other pain sensitive structures. This enormous pressure (more than 2,000 pounds per square inch) can be the cause of a wide range of diagnoses; pain, movement restriction, spasm, spasticity, neurological dysfunction like cerebral palsy, head and birth injury, scoliosis, menstrual and pelvic pain and dysfunction, headaches, temporomandibular pain and dysfunction, geriatrics, sports injuries, pediatrics, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, traumatic and surgical scarring, acute and chronic pain.
THE ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY OF FASCIA
Fascia is a tough connective tissue which spreads throughout the body in a three dimensional web from head to foot without interruption. The fascia surrounds every muscle, bone, nerve, blood vessel and organ of the body, all the way down to the cellular level. Therefore, malfunction of the fascial system due to trauma, surgery, or inflammation can create a binding down of the fascia, resulting in crushing pressure on nerves, muscles, bones, or organs. This can create pain or malfunction throughout the body. It is thought that an extremely high percentage of people suffering with pain, headaches, fibromyalgia may be having fascial problems; but most go undiagnosed, as the importance of fascia is just now being recognized. All of the standard tests, such as x-rays, myelograms, CAT scans, electromyography, blood work, etc., do not show the fascial restrictions.
Myofascial Release is safe, gentle and highly effective in reducing pain, headaches and fibromyalgia. |
