Myofascial Release; The Great Conversation

[Eddy Maillot]

Walt,

I have some big problems with the implication that you can cure actual pathology with something called MFR that is based on Oschman's energy healing crapolito among other dubious and anti/pseudoscientific unperpinnings. Yes.

Here is the post you wrote in the fibromyalgia thread (so that everyone knows what you are supporting here..):



Lots of things called "arthritis" or labelled "fibromyalgia" by doctors in a hurry, on the one hand, are often just persistant pain problems that resolve well with some good handling. Cancer on the other hand, is cellular and genetic pathology that we have no business dabbling in directly or making any claims about. Get a few boundaries please. Stop putting my profession in a position where it is subject to ridicule. This sort of fantastic claim is what I would expect from chiropractic and the like, George Roth and his "Matrix Repatterning" also based on Oschman's "theories"... definitely sCAM.

Diane,

Lots of things called "arthritis" or labelled "fibromyalgia" by doctors in a hurry, on the one hand, are often just persistant pain problems that resolve well with some good handling. Cancer on the other hand, is cellular and genetic pathology that we have no business dabbling in directly or making any claims about. Get a few boundaries please. Stop putting my profession in a position where it is subject to ridicule.

I have to agree with as well. No business whatsoever, none. I wasn't aware of all the claims that MFR'ers presented either in this thread or in others. Thanks a bunch Diane.

It has been stated many times over in this thread that it is NOT the MFR results that are being scrutinized but rather the underlying reasoning and this statement about "there is no such thing as a disease"(if not taken out of context -I believe it was not), has driven the point home for me. I know I can be slow at times to link things together but Bernard had another thread on this site in the French section about Microkinesitherapie where a French M.D. made the exact same claim. Um...Do Microkinesitherapie and MFR share a kinship?

Eddy

[Eddy Maillot]

Barrett,

Perhaps you should remember that eccentrics like myself don't care about such things.

perhaps, this is why I found you interesting... as it takes one to know one.

Eddy

[bernard]

Um...Do Microkinesitherapie and MFR share a kinship?

Alas, Eddy, alas... "Memory in cells... my ankle sprain is the inheritage on your aunt!"... :thumbs_do

Great spirits are engaged to met themselves but it seems that others have the same wish.

I asked the MicroPT team to propose their theory on a Physics forum but there was just a sarcastic reply. It was clearly stated that I couldn't understand the theory behind the results.

Vey, that's is all the problem! But is there someone who could?

[bernard]

Eddy,

Some readers may see the similarities =>

Embryology and MicroKinesitherapy
Micro PT therapy?

[Barrett Dorko]

A letter for John

I really think that it’s time to get The Man Himself involved here. After all, without his direct input we risk the possibility of misquoting him and assuming he is motivated in ways that may not truly represent his thinking, such as it is.

In an effort to facilitate his participation I’ve composed a letter that can either be faxed or read aloud to him on the phone. Walt-if you called he’d pick up, wouldn’t he? After all, after fifty courses together I imagine you’re good friends by now. I know he’s busy, but he’d probably get back to you within a day or so. If he does, please tell us. We’re all waiting.

Hi John,

I thought you should know that for the past two weeks there’s been a discussion of your work on the Internet-on the computer. Nothing all that big, 448 posts and 5,523 views at this point. Just a small thing. I don’t think anybody’s really noticed it yet.

Here’s the thing-I’m running out of ideas and I need your help. (Walt, please feel free to change the wording here regarding authorship) I gave them the whole bit about how the fascia forms the primary problem once it gets restricted and how it stores memory but they weren’t impressed. In fact, they disagreed with me and went on to refer to all sorts of neuroscience we don’t even include at the courses! Then I went on to cite Oschman’s book and it was even worse! It seems that there was a review in some magazine I never heard of by some physician that pointed out all of the ways Oschman was completely wrong not only about what has been discovered but about the way science itself conducts investigation of anything. I’m still mulling this over myself.

In an effort to counterattack I brought up that thing you always say about there being no such thing as a disease and how that one time you really, really helped that one patient with cancer. You wouldn’t happen to have any records of that, would you? They’re real picky about that sort of thing. Go figure. There’s a whole bunch of other stuff like court actions and false memory syndrome but I don’t want to bore you with it.

By now I think you’ve probably figured out what these guys who don’t love MFR are up to. Yes, that’s right, they’re hiding behind science. Worse yet, they don’t even seem to know what that means! Can you believe it?

There was one question asked I wasn’t able to answer though (well, okay, there were a few). Why are there clouds behind you in that picture on the front of the brochure? Where was it taken? You aren’t dead are you? Ha ha-just kidding.

Anyway, I was sort of hoping you’d take a few minutes from your day and respond to some of this. I think I’ll fax this letter instead of calling. I know there’s a lot of noise in the background at the clinic and I want to make sure you get all of this.

Yours in healing,

[Diane]

:teeth: :thumbs_up

Barrett, you're a funny man.

[Luke Rickards]

Fax it!

Barrett, you've been hiding behind science way to long. Nowdays it can transferred telepathically through the quantum field from fascial network to fascial network, at 20,000 times the speed of light.

[Diane]

It's weird, but I don't see fascia anywhere in this diagram as being part of memory retention/storage. I suppose that science is also hiding behind science. I suppose that includes pubmed. With so many and so much hiding going on behind science I should think that science will soon run out of space to hide any more individuals/institutions. Someday something or someone is going to get crowded out of the hiding place, and be "revealed."

[bernard]

I tried on Pubmed (myofascial memory) and found three papers =>
Unfortunately these ones bring us to brain, just weird!

1: Schweiz Rundsch Med Prax. 1999 Oct 28;88(44):1815-24. Related Articles, Links
[Examining the shoulder in general practice]

[Article in German]

Fischer L.

Allgemeine Medizin FMH, Ostermundigen.

When the cause of pain or the loss of function lies in the shoulder area itself, in most cases it can be related to a certain anatomical structure by means of a precise clinical examination. The individual tests are depicted in illustrations and concise texts. As a memory aid, the structure being tested has been added in each picture. Also, the clinically most relevant trigger points are depicted, along with their corresponding pseudoradicular symptomatology (referred pain). The aim of this article is to assist in the day-to-day treatment of common shoulder problems.

Publication Types:

• Review

PMID: 10584552 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

2: Pain. 1985 Dec;23(4):375-80. Related Articles, Links
Memory for pain: relation between past and present pain intensity.

Eich E, Reeves JL, Jaeger B, Graff-Radford SB.

Memory for the intensity of past physical pain depends critically on the intensity of present pain. When their present pain intensity was high, patients with chronic headaches of myofascial origin rated their maximum, usual, and minimum levels of prior pain as being more severe than their hourly pain diaries indicated. When their present pain intensity was low, the same patients remembered all 3 levels of prior pain as being less severe than they actually had been. The results show that pain produces systematic distortions of memory similar to those associated with alterations of affect or mood, and suggest a resolution to a conspicuous conflict in the current pain literature.

PMID: 4088698 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

3: Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 1981 Mar;62(3):114-7. Related Articles, Links
Myofascial trigger points: relation to acupuncture and mechanisms of pain.

Melzack R.

The gate control theory of pain describes the modulation of sensory nerve impulses by inhibitory mechanisms in the central nervous system. One of the oldest methods of pain relief is hyperstimulation analgesia produced by stimulating myofascial trigger points by dry needling, acupuncture, intense cold, intense heat, or chemical irritation of the skin. The moderate-to-intense sensory input of hyperstimulation analgesia is applied to sites over, or sometimes distant from, the pain. A brief painful stimulus may relieve chronic pain for long periods, sometimes permanently. Pain may be relieved by "closing the gate" by means of a central biasing mechanism possibly located in the brainstem reticular formation. Prolonged relief may require the disruption of reverberatory neural circuits responsible for the "memory" of pain. The termination of pain by either hyperstimulation, or by local injection of an anesthetic, normalizes function, which helps to prevent recurrence of abnormal neural activity. Thus, modulation of sensory inputs by use of many techniques may reduce pain more than by surgically interrupting the sensory input.

PMID: 6972204 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[Jon Newman]

I disagree that myofascial release is not CAM. MFR anchors its clinical rationale in energy medicine and requires one to believe the tissues have characteristics they don't actually have. In the MFR brochure, John states (or whoever is the voice of the brochure) "Our education in traditional therapy is antiquated and obsolete..."

Am I wrong to think that MFR certainly sounds like CAM? How is it not CAM?

[Synergy]

Jon,

I think I'll take that a step further and ask how is traditional therapy defined according to the 'voice' of the brochure? Are my methods antiquated and obselete since I do not practice MFR? If that's the case, then I will continue to provide my patients unworthy and sub-par care.

[Jon Newman]

Hi Chris,

Well Walt points out in an earlier post

By the way, doesn’t our APTA Code of Ethic (principle 11) say, “A physical therapist shall respect the rights, knowledge, and skills of colleagues and other health care professionals”? Seems like you are in violation with the constant inflammatory barrage that you heap on John as well as the rest of us in the MFR community.

so I'm sure that the comment (printed in their brochure and distributed around the country) about your skills being obsolete and antiquated is to be interpreted as hyperbole. Geez Chris, you're always so literal.

(I deleted the ps that appeared here because it no longer makes sense after Chris changed his avatar to his outer child)

[Synergy]

Oops! I must've missed that Jon and thanks for the clarification. I was beginning to think I was a waste of space.

[David W]

610-644-1662 is the fax # that's on the mfr website. Somebody should send it. :teeth:

[Barrett Dorko]

I agree that the comments in the brochure exceed anything I've said about MFR practice. I also maintain that my objections have been proven justified.

I'm traveling at the moment and read Willis' "The Sea Monster and the Whirlpool" on the plane to Detroit.
http://www.friendsinlowplaces.co.uk/..._whirlpool.htm

Diane linked this to the "Deconstruction" thread and I was amazed at its clarity. I'd recommend it to anyone reading this thread and several others here. I especially would like to see this read by the "evidence based" crowd now so influential in the US.

No comments from the MFR people since my "letter." It occurred to me recently that two groups watching the same movie can interpret it quite differently but that ordinarily they will agree upon its genre. Here between the opposing sides we're not even getting that. While Barnes (I'm speculating a bit here) sees this situation in the clinic as an exciting drama, I and others see it as a tragicomedy. Hence my previous post. I'm not sure they know what to do with it because it doesn't fit into their drama.

Maybe.