Physiotherapy in general and manual neurotherapy in particular is not always easy. Let me tell you the story of a young fellow of 21 years with strange forms of pain.We met this young man in one of our courses as a case study. On his hollidays he was crossing the desert in a off road with a SUV. His car slipped in a deep ravine and rolled over several times. He immediately felt that he was badly hurt but he succeeded to get back on the top of the ravine and to call for help with his mobile. In the hospital the medical team detected a massive bleeding in the stomach area. He needed immenent chirurgy and as the doctors could not know which organ was bleeding they cut in the whole midline of the stomach. It was the spleen that was responsible for the bleeding and this organ was removed and the bleeding arteries were repaired. Shortly after the operation the patient started to have pain in the whole stomach area, climbing up to both shoulders and arms and climbing down in the legs. He had difficulties in studying and in concentrating and focusing. We started to test his nervous sytem by pricking and brushing the skin over different areas and we soon find out that the whole central nervous system was sensitised, starting from the spinal cord to the brain. It was impossible to do any massage or mobilisation on the spine so the only thing we could do was to work with nerve reflex points and/or with zonetherapy on the foot. But, surprise, also the skin of the feet were to sensitive to work on. My assistant teacher, Griet, tried all the skills she could but there was no response a she could not go deep enough on the soft tissue on the feet. There was another strange thing in the patient symptoms. There was a clear difference in temperature and skin behaviour on both sides of the operation scarf on the stomach. Clearly, the energy flow from left to right was interupted. As the exams were approaching and the young man could'nt take to strong pain killers, he asked us to give advice about other possibilities to treat the pain. We had to recognise that the results of our tests were pointing at "hands off!" regarding manual neurotherapy or other kinds of physiotherapy. Anyway we had to suggest a way to first treat the scarf and then to desensitise the central nervous system. For the scarf we advised infiltrations of lidocaine (neural therapy) and for the central nervous sytem special acupuncture for stimulating the descending endogenous pain system. We will see the boy back in a couple of weeks after having four sessions of acupuncture and infiltrations. I keep you informed. Maybe this case seems not spectacular but for all the therapists in the course it was a good lesson. Sometimes you have to admit that hands off are better than hands on.
Two weeks ago I was in the good old U.K. For the the 9th time already I teached Nerve Reflexology for foot reflexologists. Not only Britsh ones but in the different courses there were participants from U.S., Mexico, Venezuela and even Belgium. The courses are organised by Lynne Booth. She is a lovely English lady and a very well known reflexologist. She developed her own method, called VRT = vertical reflex techniques. In this method you treat the reflexzones at the weight baring foot. The patient is sitting or standing. She is teaching her method all over the world from Australia to Japan. And she is a great organiser! Teaching in her organisation is a real relaxing job. From weeks before every detail is scheduled like a fim script. Things I have to bring, were to stay, were to eat, pick up time for the course ....The only thing I have to do is to teach, to rest, to go for dinner, to sleep and to teach again. Lynne is married with Adam. He is an engineer and he is very keen in driving us around, look for fine restaurants an to cook lunch for us. I love them both very much. And then you have the course participants. Imagine in each course 20 women reflexologists (lucky me!) very smart in handling meridians, reiki and other alternative therapies. And suddenly, they are dropped in the pool of the very complex nervous system, in pain science and clinical reasoning. It must be like hel for the brains. But anyway they manage to build in the nerve reflex points in a wel balanced treatment schema. And I don't make it easy. Have you ever heard of terms like, C-fibers, nocireceptors, wind-up and sensitisation of dorsal horn, sympathetic maintained pain, neuromatrix of pain? They have to go to all of this stuff. And in practice they have to learn and handle over more then 300 nerve reflex points. You can not imagine how they perform this effort in three course weekends: 8 days in total. And they have to got to exams before they can have a diploma. No wonder they look a little bit tired on the photo. Or was it the champagne?
You want to know my hot topic? MANUAL NEUROTHERAPY
Manual Neurotherapy is a sofisticated kind of physio treatment. I am doing this therapy over more than 15 years now and I am also teaching this therapy to physiotherapists. The therapy is a mix of manual handlings at the spine and other joints and nerve reflex points at the foot. You all know about foot reflexology? You know that you can reach every structure of your body by pressing special reflex zones at your foot? MNT is also sing the feet but now it is by pressing very well located points at the foot skeleton. Each point reflexes to a specific nerve or nerve structure. So, the physio, using MNT is capable to interfere in the message transport of the nerves. Every pain is transported by the nerves system and it can change the qualities of pain on different levels: in the peripheral nerves, in the spinal cord, in the brainstem and in in the brain. You can divide pain in different componts like: somatic pain in the motor system transported by the somatic nervous system; autonomous pain in the organs, blood-lymphvessels, glands... transported by the autonomous nervous system. Central pain created in the spinal cord or the brain. All these parts of the nervous system are influencing each other because they are interfering with their inputs in the spinal cord or brain. Lets take an example like migraine. This terrible kind of headache can be caused by a lot of inputs: - neck problems becaus nerves of the cervical spine and muscles are interfering with bloodflow nerves of the brain, - bloodflow nerves (sympathetic nerves) can decrease blood flow in the brain - organs: many nerves from the organs (sympathetic, parasympathetic, phrenical nerve)are climbing uop to the brainstem and interfere with nerves from cervical spine, thoracic spine and muscles - sress might involve sympathetic nerves and changing blood flow and hormones. Manual Neurotherapy is focused on the pathways of pain and tries to normalise these pathways. Therefore the MNT-therapist is carefully assessing the patients pain by a structured hystory taking and an asssessment of the spinal movements and the sensory nerves. Treatment always starts at the spine because this is the ideal instrument to deal with the nerves in the spinal cord. Neuroreflectory frictions in the soft tissues around the spine( muscles, fascia...) are completed with nerve reflex points for the spinal nerves. High velocity impulses and mobilisations of the spine must make the whole thing move like it should be. Then the MNT-therapist goes over a lot of nerve reflex points on the foot to change the behaviour of all nerves that are involved in the patients pain. He can add classic foot rteflexology to enhance the functions of blood- and lymphflow or the organs. MNT is a holistic treatment. All factors that might influence pain are treated manually. No needles, no drugs, only the hands. MNT is a therapy that has a great impact on all kinds of chronic pain like chronic lumbar pain, multiple sclerosis, chronique fatigue .... If you are in pain you should try it out!
