HandSpring Bodywork

 

As I was lying awake in the pre-dawn hours, wondering whether sleep would return, the phone rang. At that hour, it could only be a wrong number or a family emergency from another time zone. â??What!?â?, I barked into the phone. I heard a small voice. â??Nance, could you come over?â?

It was my neighbor, Gretchen. She has suffered a lifetime of migraines, anxiety disorder and panic attacks, which all escalated after a bitter divorce and an unrelated (and unrelenting) family tragedy. Even walking around the block triggered panic, and she avoided unfamiliar places and social situations. The EMS crews have been to her house so many times they know her by name. Several times, awakened by the sirens and flashing lights, I had peered out the window to see the firemen and EMTs stomping up to her house, milling around and then leaving. In the grip of a panic attack, it's hard to be convinced that death is not imminent. Each time, after the truck and empty ambulance pulled away, Gretchen felt exhausted and foolish. Her body had tricked her again.

One day, I had said, â??Why don't you call me? I can do you as much good as they can.â? By which I meant, just having someone sympathetic who will calm you down and convince you that you're not dying will be as good or better.

I dressed quickly and went over to Gretchen's. She was shaking so hard she could hardly stand, and felt nauseous. Her head felt like it was splitting, her heart was racing and she hurt all over, which wasn't surprising as her body was in full flight mode, with all muscles tensed, ready to flee. I had never seen anyone in this state before.

I sat beside her, rubbing her back lightly and speaking calmly but what I really wanted to do was treat her. Gretchen agreed to lie on her back on the sofa, and I began to test her tissues gently. Without doing the full testing, I couldn't be sure, but I found place between her head and neck that is frequently a primary lesion, and treated it with a flick of my thumbs. She said, â??Oh, it always hurts there. That's right where my headaches are.â? I rechecked the previous tests; they were negative.

Gretchen's breathing began to slow, and her shaking subsided. Her face started to relax, her color returned and she sat up. We visited a little bit more, and then it was time to get ready for work.

About two weeks later, we were walking together. â??How's your head?â?, I asked. â??I haven't had any headachesâ?, she said. I smiled. â??Did you do that?â?, she asked. â??Yes, I think so.â? â??I haven't had any anxiety, either. Last week, I went to my grandson's school for a program, and I made it through the whole thing, with all those people, and I didn't even take a Xanax!â? â??And even without the Xanax, you were fine?â? â??Yes!!, my mom and my daughter were amazed.â?

â??How about your stomach?â?, I asked, because I knew she had digestive problems.

â??Well, you know, that's better, too. Did you do that?â?

â??Yes, probably.â?

â??And you know what's weird? I've been sleeping. On Sunday night, I was watching television around 8pm and the next thing I knew, I woke up on the couch still in my clothes, still sitting up at ten o'clock. That's never happened before! And I went to bed and I slept all night. I've been sleeping MUCH better.â?

â??Now I just have to get rid of this auto-immune problem I'm having.â?

I explained that when the body's self-healing potential is freed using Mechanical Link, it then has more resources to use to fix itself. It was entirely possible that her auto-immune disorder would resolve, now that her body didn't have to expend so much energy mounting defenses to be in flight mode continuously. And being able to sleep well, and be out of pain would all aid her in improving her health. Mechanical Link just makes life easier, so our bodies can function as they were meant to.

â??Wowâ?, she said, â??I need to get my mom to come see you.â?

Name used with permission.

Ted, an overweight but active 55-year-old man, had chronic hip and low back pain, which he'd had for at least 20 years. He received regular chiropractic adjustments but was referred to Handspring Bodywork by friends. He said, "If you can help me, I'll think you are a *&%#@! genius.

Find It

Ted had restrictions in the left hip and behind the knee, the site of a benign tumor removed in childhood. Additional restrictions were found in the abdominal area (prostate/bladder), and also on the head and face. Through comparing the various restrictions, I determined that the primary restrictions were on the left side of Ted's neck and an invisible scar on his chin. He had no memory of an injury there, but that place was giving a large 'signal' as being the restriction of most importance.

Fix It

Six weeks after his treatment, Ted reported that he had had two weeks free of pain. He returned to his chiropractor four weeks after the Mechanical Link treatment, as he said, 'just in case'. I treated Ted a second time, and again his chin appeared to be the main restriction.

Leave It Alone

Two months later, Ted hadn't been back to the chiropractor. It was the longest gap he'd ever had with no chiropractic adjustments. He spent an intense two-week period teaching away from home, which would usually cause a lot of back problems, but this time he felt just fine. Still, he couldn't quite believe the results, and was a bit anxious about giving up the chiropractor.

At the end of the year, Ted was experiencing no more than an occasional twinge in his back. More than a year later with no additional Mechanical Link treatments -- he reported that he'd had only two or three chiropractor visits in the past year, and was doing fine.

Nancy's Note

Ted's reluctance to give up his chiropractic adjustments was not unusual. It's common for people with long-standing chronic pain to believe they will need ongoing, frequent treatments whether that is chiropractic, massage therapy, or other manual therapy. The fact that Ted's chin, where he had never experienced any injury or pain that he recalled, was at the root of his back and hip pain was also a fairly common finding. Surprising causes, fast and thorough results -- just two aspects of the *&%#@! genius of Mechanical Link!

Bev and Joe are old clients of mine. I have been treating them for nearly twenty years, off and on. Around 1999, they were involved in a car accident when a truck driver turned in front of them. Joe was driving, and hit the left side of his head on the window frame with the impact, and had a seizure. Otherwise they were miraculously unharmed, with no other injuries.

Joe is a vigorous man in his eighties, who chops his own wood, fixes his own vehicles, and bounds up the stairs two at a time. Ten years after the accident, he was on his way out to the barn while talking to his wife, behind him at the door. He turned his head and smacked it into an arbor post, in the same location as the previous injury. Although seeing stars, he carried on with his errands and felt fine.

About a month later, Joe noticed that his energy was dropping dramatically. No longer was he bounding up the stairs, and as the week went on, he found it harder and harder to get out of bed. This precipitous drop in energy was accompanied by wild mood swings from elation to despair and back again.

Even stranger was the behavior of Bev's cat, Dove. Joe and this cat had no particular friendship, but now, every time he sat down or laid down, Dove came running. She licked and nibbled at the place on the left side of his head where he had struck it. After this, she would curl herself up pressing against it and purr industriously for as long as he'd stay still.

Alarmed by his own erratic moods and increasing lethargy, Joe came to see me. He had previously consulted his physician, who wanted to induce a seizure through sleep deprivation. After careful assessment, I located the primary lesion at the site the cat had been doctoring, and treated it with the Mechanical Link recoil. Joe's post-treatment instructions were to go home and have a nap if he felt tired.

Two days later, I phoned to check on Joe's progress. He said, "Well, I did just what you said. Bev and I lay down to take a nap, and the cat came running, like she did, and jumped up on the bed, and took a sniff that place on my head, and jumped back down and went away. She hasn't bothered me since.

All his energy came back, and Joe was soon back to chopping wood, fixing cars and running up the stairs like a hyperactive teenager. Dove, the cat doctor, went back to sitting on Bev's lap and ignoring Joe.

In May, I spent 6 days in a human anatomy lab in Newark, New Jersey with Gil Hedley, Ph.D. who runs Integral Anatomy Workshops. This is the second time I have taken this class, and will continue to take it every year. In the spirit of exploration with which the course is taught, Gil calls us ‘somanauts’, explorers of the ‘soma’ or body. Many people are quite curious about this kind of study, and in case you are one of them, here is some of what I learn, each time.

Yes, we work on real bodies. The people and their families who donate their bodies to science are our generous teachers. They have truly relinquished control, as we all will after death, however, these donors and their families accepted that fact while still alive.

Is it disturbing to work on cadavers? Yes, of course. They are too like us, or someone we love or have loved. Death separates them from us, but  they dwell in the destination of us all. Even in our aliveness we possess more similarities than differences from these mostly elderly forms. For those of us now in the oldest generation, we are afraid we see our own future bed sores, gnarled arthritic fingers, surgical staples and emaciated bodies.

And yet in the scary ways they resemble us, we also carry, in our own forms, the wonders found in them. It’s terrible, and mysterious, and magnificent and beautiful, all at the same time. It is possible to side-step the internal voice that says, ‘I’m holding a real heart, and it came out of what used to be this person lying in front of me after I cut her ribs with the secaturs .’ One must hush this voice to allow learning, curiousity and wonder. “Wow, how can I begin to understand this complex vortex of chambers and valves that was pillowed by the lungs and intimately connected with them, encased with its own special sac and communicating with the rest of the body?”

The dead are truly dead. Nobody’s home, an empty husk. Cutting through the rib cage with a big set of pruners can make the student wince, but the heart that beat in that rib cage has long since ceased its motion.  The indignities or brutalities we students  visit upon these forms in our explorations make no difference to them, and a profound change in our understanding of the uniqueness and wonder of our warm, breathing, living bodies.

We are each outwardly, and inwardly, different from each other. When one learns from clean, tidy, non-smelly anatomy books, one sees an idealized, tidied-up version of reality. A very particular reality, being a combination of the body used to present that image, the work of the dissector, and the work of the artist. If one learns only from pictures, it’s easy to miss the depth and direction of all those structures which play such important roles in how well (or poorly) our bodies function. With each patient, I recall what I learned in the lab to guide my hands to a truer understanding of what I touch.

 

Thinking of skin problems, we tend to consider texture, surface characteristics; roughness, redness, wrinkles, sagging, freckles, flaking, etc. Scars, whether from surgery or trauma, pose another kind of skin problem. Ideally, our skin, like a designer suit, moves with us in all directions, so we are not even aware of it. But if one were to take that well-tailored suit, and tighten a seam or two, or cut a hole and patch it with fabric of a different texture, the suit would no longer feel so fluid. We become accustomed to these changes, but the loss of movement will affect the way one moves and how well the body works.

Common scars on women’s bodies include C-sections, breast cancer surgery and reconstruction, other cosmetic surgery and of course, surgical scars. Women are also more often victims of domestic abuse that leaves physical scars. Troublesome scars can also come from childhood accidents and surgery, burns, skin cancer removal, traffic accidents, etc.

No matter the age of a scar, the way it moves with the body can be improved by expert, gentle manipulation. A scar may be handled as soon as the stitches are removed, and one can do this to oneself to reduce the risk of adhesions and stimulate healing. Move the skin of the scar in all directions so it will move when completely healed. Though it may be painful at first, the benefits are big, and sensitivity soon decreases.

In my practice, I often find scars to be a contributor to many other common problems, such as back pain, headaches and digestive issues. Patients say; “Wow, after 30 years I can’t feel my C-section scar!”, “My doctor was amazed at how fast it healed.” and “I feel as though the corset I’d been wearing loosened, opened up and then dropped off.”

Back in the 1970’s, breast cancer invariably meant a ‘radical mastectomy’. The whole breast was taken, plus lymph nodes. Pamela (name has been changed) had had such a surgery, and her scar was large and deep, from the middle of her chest into her armpit. She had come to me initially for pain in her hips and legs, which she attributed to frequent falls and clumsiness. We located the primary treatment area as the mastectomy scar and although it took several treatments, Pamela’s pain levels diminished greatly and her balance began to improve, so she fell less often. She felt much better overall as well.

Today, surgery for breast cancer (and everything else) is often less drastic, but scars of any surgery or accident, no matter how long ago, can have a profound affect on our health and how comfortable we are in our bodies. If you have a scar, you can test it yourself to see if the skin moves easily in all directions. Treatment by a skilled and sensitive practitioner can make all the difference in how fluidly and effortlessly your birthday suit moves with you.

Mechanical Link (ML) is a very gentle treatment that gets big results. It is a systemic approach that respects the integrity of the whole body, and is guided by the bodyâ??s wisdom about its unique needs.

 

Mechanical Link is:

â?¢ Painless

â?¢ Results are often felt immediately

â?¢ Improvement continues post-treatment

â?¢ Fewer treatments are needed

â?¢ Addresses conditions not treatable by other means

â?¢ Safe for everyone, including frail elderly, infants and expectant mothers

 

Who can benefit? 

 

You don't need to be in pain to benefit from a Mechanical Link session. Maybe you'd just like to be able to feel younger, move more effortlessly, or play your sport more easily, or prepare yourself for strenuous travel or adventure! Everyone has something that could work better for them, and ML is safe for all. Mechanical Link is helpful for the following conditions, and more:

 

â?¢ Fibromyalgia and myofascial pain syndrome
â?¢ Emotional Difficulties

â?¢ Indigestion 
â?¢ Temporomandibular Joint Syndrome (TMJ)

â?¢ Irritable bowel syndrome
â?¢ Stress and Tension-Related Problems

â?¢ Constipation
â?¢ Orthopedic Problems

â?¢ Migraine Headaches
â?¢ Tingling, aching hands

â?¢ Premenstrual Syndrome
â?¢ Athletic injury

â?¢ Asthma
â?¢ Arthritis

â?¢ Chronic Fatigue
â?¢ Repetitive strain injuries

â?¢ Chronic Neck and Back Pain
â?¢ Pelvic pain

â?¢ Central Nervous System Disorders

â?¢ Frozen shoulder

â?¢ Vertigo