Waking Up With Pain.....Things that may be the "why" of your pain.

... and I know the video piece as well but I truly can't create everything on my own so am always actively looking for reliable, valid and progressive providers to bring content to Lumigrate.com and I so very much appreciate the time, energy and 'learning curve' that you're putting in with creating educational videos, Frank!  Thank you so much!  I know this is stuff that is going to help tons and tons of people at Lumigrate.com.  ~~ Mardy

Just had a great day today....went to the FCC Office  in Washington DC and lectured to about 70 people about chronic pain. Talked for about an hour, and enjoyed myself tremendously.  The time went by so fast because they were ready for a natural holistic way to get rid of their chronic pain. I'm excited because they are lining up other health sections in different departments  of the government to hear my message, or I should say Dr. Travell's message.  Letting folks know "why" they hurt empowers them to fix the "why"  of their pain.  I 'll let you know as more goes on.....Mr. Smith goes to Washington.....oops I'm dating myself with that one.  :)

That's really exciting, Frank, thank you for stopping by and updating everyone here about your pursuits.  It's good to hear of things 'progressing' with progressive treatments that are solutions without side effects and which bring permanent relief/management.  It's wonderful you were a gifted student of a brilliant and creative provider of the past who took up the challenge of capturing, marketing and educating people about the techniques. 

Analii, who is in the Movement Therapies forum at Lumigrate is on that same track -- and I've been working with her as she was developing this here and there and so I've seen the evolution in the process of thinking things through, trying, refining, teaching, refining, thinking, talking, studying.   I have enormous respect for the innovation.  And then it takes many learning to make it be effective with a population as it is with individuals or a small community.  I figure with Analii if on average 10 people have chronic pain remedied per month, that's 100 a year, in a population of 100,000 that's too few.  I'm just happy I'm one of them so far and hope to encourage others to learn the work if she's ready to teach it and spread the word.  And when people like you get to go to Washington, that's really exciting and moves EVERYTHING forward for all.  Thanks!  ~~ Mardy

PS - Do you have some history about Dr Travell to share here?  Even if it's just the basics with a link to where you have it on your website or on another website, that's great to get people started if they want to learn more about it. 

youtu.be/CTCwrnE-PzU

I never met Dr. Travell, but I feel as if I'm carrying on her name and her dream of helping folks get pain free.

I'm truly amazed at how her protocol can help and eliminate pain that's been there for years.  She was a brilliant woman who had a gift and I'm blessed to be a part of her legacy. Unfortunately a lot of Therapist don't use her protocol. I learned from someone who studied and traveled with Travell for about 13 yrs. I consider myself blessed to have found this doctor's information and apply it to my life as well as others'.

One of the main things that Dr. Travell preached was how damaging sugar is.  I know most of us know this at some level or another, but there are a lot of folks that aren't aware of how much sugar there is in everything that we eat every day. I've made a video about sugar (link above), so folks can see how it affects their systems and what a large role it plays in their everyday pain.

Hope this can enlighten some out there. As always this is a privilege to be a part of this group and the work that everyone does here. 

youtu.be/PxkVuW37dlA

Here's a video on side sleeping.

There are more videos to view on Youtube; go to paininvirginia on youtube and you'll see about 10 videos or so that address everyday situations and how we can help ourselves become more dependent on doing the correct things that help us stay pain free.

Frank 

I thought I'd add a 'funny story' that has evolved in 2012. I offer it since it might help people indirectly realize how much they have to write things down, think AND TALK TO OTHERS about it and brainstorm what it might mean.  

In mid to late January I was to go hiking on a Friday at noon with a neighbor who had invited me at at Holiday party. And I woke up with a VERY sore neck that morning --- I mean, could barely raise my head to look at the computer monitor which is what I do every morning first thing when I get up to see if I have time to make something warm to drink first (coffee sometimes, green tea sometimes.)  

I remembered, very haziliy, maybe 'half-remembered' is a better choice of words, being in a position with my neck extended backwards pushing over the back of the pillow and clenching my teeth, sometime in the night.  "Wow, was that a seizure?"  And I just BARELY remembered it.  I likely wouldn't have made a mental note if not for having to report every month to the new medical provider I decided to focus my energy/time/money resources related to my medical issues early on in 2011, Dr Jim Kennedy, a holistic dentist who had made an oral appliance for me based on his evaluation of me (which cost around $100, a very reasonable fee in my opinion.)  

My general dentist had identified that I'd cracked a molar in mid 2010 and when I got to my semi-yearly cleaning and the dentist evaluated my teeth, since I'd reported REALLY bad pain that changed my eating even earlier in 2010, she simply and efficiently said 'yup, this tooth (telling the hygienist who recorded it in the computer) and we can fix that with a crown, which the receptionist can tell you about the expense of on your way out.  (GREAT, it was going to be $900).  

I'd scheduled for the crown but had not yet had it done when Dr Kennedy 'intervened' in my life.  I'd seen him speak at a medical education for providers on the subject of childhood sleep apnea and recognized my childhood throat/neck in the photos he included to show the outward signs and symptoms of sleep apnea in children! Here I was, well into middle life and I turned over ANOTHER stone that might be righted or at least put back closer into place that will contribute to my health returning to chronic wellness rather than being closer to chronic illness.  It was 'divine timing' because I really know not much about dental issues so I didn't realize that if the symptoms were gone from the cracked molar there was not need for a crown.  

So I cancelled getting the crown, which it turns out I no longer needed, and routed the $900 into the costs to see Dr Kennedy; nothing he does is covered by insurance which doesn't matter, I don't have dental nor medical insurance right now because -- I have to put money into the things that help my health and wellness and much of it is not covered by insurance, so my bills end up being well over $1,000/month for just ME!  I have Lumigrate to support as well.  And I need to keep paying the rent and the light bill and living among my wonderful neighbors.  

I very much like to hike but I was having so much trouble with my sleep cycle that by the time I was out of bed and clear-headed each day, it was mid-day for much of the United States and I have to basically work when those I need to work with are available.  

So, in other words, "no rest for the wicked" translates into "no walk for the rested".  But I SO value how important sleep is to recovering your adrenals and last year my adrenals showed on testing that they were very fatigued.  "At least they're still working SOME" were the words that I kept in mind all these months, making it a priority to not lose more ground on that -- the years since 2008/9 have been VERY stressful to me not only with starting Lumigrate, but the end of life and medical mangling, according to my standards, that went on with my father.   And, really, EVERYONE has felt a lot of stress with the economy, health care costs/insurances rising or becoming unavailable, etc...).  So new year, I'll get back to hiking again and that will be even BETTER for my body/mind/spirit recovery, right?  

Late in 2011, I had asked Dr Kennedy to evaluate the muscle relaxant that used to be prescribed for me, as he does a form of kinesiology testing that I happen to think is very helpful in finding if something is 'good' for you or not (many health providers who write on Lumigrate utilize this at least sometimes to sort out which specific supplement a person can benefit from).  He found it 'neutral'... not good, not bad, just "in the middle -- not good not bad", so since I was having so much trouble getting to sleep after I'd had a refreshing four hours at the start of the night, I thought that was a good way of getting back to sleep.  

The medication also reduces the substance P in the spinal fluid which is high in people with FM typically. (I used to be prescribed at least two and up to three of these muscle relaxants every day and my health had gotten better in that timeframe, but I was doing a lot of things so you don't know what causes what sometimes).  

So I reported the episode at my next appointment with him (I go once a month for cranial vault work that is through his studies with The Cranial Academy, look them up online and see on the Finder if there's someone near you perhaps), and he said 'well, that sounds like apnea to me, and that muscle relaxant is relaxing the muscles of the neck more -- sleeping medications will do that too and contribute to sleep apnea'.  I sure was glad to have that oral appliance he made for me to wear ALL the time except when eating (although I don't wear it all the time as I'm afraid I'll lose it and I drink and nibble throughout the day).  

The months go by, about six of them, I tell him that I've gotten the opportunity to have a wrist oximeter at night that will record my oxygen levels and heart rate, and that I'm going to do a little informal experiment to monitor without and then with the oral appliance for sleep apnea. (The oxygen/ CPAP vendor I have known for many  years has not seen compelling results from oral appliances for apnea, but as I have written at Lumigrate, the compliance of wearing CPAP for those who obtain the units is very low, so it seems like the oral appliance is "a way to go".  There are many ways to go, rarely is it a THE way to go!  

He said: "The appliance I made you is for your TMJ, that's what I'm treating you for now, so that would be a different appliance for sleep apnea." So all this time, because what he was doing was so 'different' than any point of reference I have for the body and treating it, he had focused on the path about TMJ and I thought he was focusing on both TMJ and the apnea I'd originally suspected from seeing the AMAZING photograph in his presentation about what the neck/throat can look like in children with sleep apnea (from compensating and sticking their jaw forward.)

I'd noticed when working with the live group of people with fibromyalgia in the educational forum in 2007, that many of us have "the head forward thing", and, while most of us have cervical disk problems, not all did!  And so that makes you have to keep your mind open to what the chicken and egg is.  The head being forward has likely contributed to the disk issues seen in these patients, and myself.  I also had foolishly not put my seatbelt on one day in college to ride the 2 blocks to change our schedules after they came in the mail.

The driver, my husband at the time, who I was ALWAYS asking/pleading and once YELLING AT to slow down, he scared me/made me feel unsafe, was distracted "having to"/chosing to look and not just let me read him his schedule and the light had turned green ahead but the cars hadn't started moving and we rear-ended a classic convertible VW beetle owned by a very nice man who owned a car rental agency so wasn't tied up in his car's body as it was a bit damanged.  

My neck was just a little stiff the next day, like I'd slept on my pillow wrong is all, and I didn't suspect ANYTHING but it was around that time that I had an increase in my symptoms that lead to chronic fatigue syndrome.  (However, the symptoms track back to birth once I learned how to peel the onion of chronic illness and that is why I am able to be such an 'illness detective' as part of my work doing education with people related to the occupation of health care.  (Anything that occupies time is an 'occupation').  

Like you, Frank, I can do this remotely due to the advances of technologies that most people have, and truly, the telephone and emails are a core of the work in addition to what is here at Lumigrate, naturally.  So, I now look at that incident where I flew into and bent the visor on the passenger seat of my car, as a 'blessing in disguise' which was meant to be, along with so many other things that allow me to really understand this chronic pain and illness 'stuff'.  Rather than working forever in the illness model of insurance-based medicine I have transitioned here with Lumigrate to the private-pay model and a wellness model.    

So, Frank, and others reading this, I hope this was a good 'tie' to link what you do and what I do and how it is that we can work together to help medical consumers 'out there' who find their way to you or me.  Collaborations can be very powerful with providers because it allows us to put our heads together.  Synergy .. 1+1 = Greater than one and another separately more often than not.  

I'll look forward to your comments on this, Frank.  I have a question: Do you have any information about sleep position and breathing.  As a person who learned in elementary school to use my diaphragm for breathing when trying to learn to play the flute and deciding to stick with vocals, where the diaphragm obviously is ALSO a key concept, you use that muscle when lying on your back.  But for people with obstructive sleep apnea and/or snoring, that can be a position that increases the obstruction.  Is that part of your evaluation process with your clients/patients (whatever you call them... 'consumers' is a good word I find!)  

Live and Learn.  Learn and Live Better!  ~~ Mardy