8833 Perimeter Park Blvd.
Suite 904
Jacksonville, FL 32216
904-928-3303
904-928-3343 fax

Fascia

Fascia is a three-dimensional web of connective tissue.  It supports, protects and connects all of the structures in our body.  It can exert 2000 pound per square inch of tensile strength.  Fascia surrounds and interpenetrates every bone, muscle, nerve, artery, vein, organ, even our brain and spinal cord.  It attaches our skin to our body and runs uninterrupted from our head to our toe.

One example of what fascia looks like is the thin membrane that you see when you remove the skin from a raw chicken breast before you cook it.  Another example would be that thin line that you find in a steak (not gristle) that is so tough that you have to cut it with a sharp knife.

Fascial restrictions and adhesions can be caused by trauma such as a fall or whiplash, the inflammatory process, surgery, poor posture and even stress.   These restrictions and adhesions now tighten around blood vessels, nerves, organs, joints and muscles causing pain and/or restricted movement.  There can also be a loss of function or impaired function on organs.  An example would be the effect of such a binding force closing off the fallopian tubes.

Trying to lift your arm with fascia’s 2000 pounds of tensile strength pulling against you is definitely a losing proposition.  But with exercise-based therapy the answer would be that you need to strengthen your arm.  Our answer is that when we release the restrictive fascia and alleviate the massive pull against your arm that your arm will be just as strong as it was before, and you will be ready to work out, without pain or restrictions.

Unfortunately, there are no tests such as x-ray, CAT scans, MRI’s, myelograms, electromyography, etc., that can detect fascial restrictions or adhesions.  Because of this, the problem remains undiagnosed when a high percentage of people with the symptoms of pain or restricted movement have fascial restrictions or adhesions as the cause.

Fascial restrictions and adhesions cannot be released by a pill, by surgery, by exercise or by a machine or by a piece of equipment.  Since fascia is three dimensional and not linear, the release of fascia must be done by hand.  It takes time for the fascia to move and it moves in the direction that it needs to in order to release, not a direction you decide on.

A young woman, just seventeen, was referred to us by her primary physician. She came in and said that she had been having debilitating headaches and severe neck pain for two years.  She and her father had started with her primary care physician when she was fifteen, and she had had all the tests known to mankind, was sent to exercised-based physical therapy which made the pain worse, and then she went to every specialist from neurologist to endocrinologist and every specialist in between.  She and her father were told much about what she did not have and that everything was normal, except of course for her continuing, debilitating headaches and severe neck pain.

On their own they decided to try massage and acupuncture with the same results,  no improvement.   By this time her primary care physician knew about our work and referred her here.  She had severe fascial restrictions and adhesions in her thorax (anterior chest) and both the anterior and posterior cervical region with the restriction running up the back of her head.  These were released and the pain stopped.  She has been doing great for several years now.

Fascia is almost always involved if there is pain and/or restrictions in movement.

Patients have come in that have had pressure on their chest causing constant pain and difficulty breathing; and after having their abdominal and thorax fascia released, their pain was gone and they could breathe deeply and easily.  They leave saying, “I wish I had found you sooner, before years of pain and frustration”.

We hear that a lot and we never get tired of hearing it.

Other articles on contributing factors:

8833 Perimeter Park Blvd., Suite 904, Jacksonville, FL 32216 | 904-928-3303 | 904-928-3343 fax | solutions@stillinpain.info

The information presented here is informative only and is not intended to replace the advice of your physician.  There has been no intent to provide medical advice, diagnose illness or in any way practice medicine.
Always consult your physician on matters of your health.  License MM33984