A patient recently came in after a visit to his friend, an orthopedic surgeon, for an evaluation of his shoulder pain. The surgeon told him that his MRI showed some damaged tendons that would need surgery sooner or later, so he should get it now. He didn’t think anything else would suffice. He told the patient that the rehabilitation process would take 6 to 12 months, and radically hamper his very athletic lifestyle. The patient really didn’t want surgery, but also didn’t want to do the wrong thing. He asked what I thought.
This is always an interesting issue. I am not trained in surgery, so I can’t really give an informed surgical opinion. My training, and my inclination, is to look for alternatives to surgery if possible. While it is never my intent to contradict another practitioner, or place you in the middle of a professional battle for your patronage, I believe it is my job to present options, so you, the patient, can make an informed decision.
One of the cardinal rules of healing is “first, do no harm.”
To me, this means that we should always start with the least invasive interventions first, and only escalate to more invasive procedures if the conservative measures fail to resolve the problem. In other words, try the various methods of natural health care like we provide at Confluence Wellness Center first, and if our techniques are not sufficient to handle your problems, seek pharmaceutical help, and only if all else fails look for a surgical solution.
Years ago, when I was new in practice, there was an orthopedic surgeon in town I occasionally referred patients to for an opinion. He would ask them: “are you desperate?” If they answered no he would send them back to me, telling them the only time to get surgery was when nothing else had helped, and the symptoms were overwhelming. He understood that surgery has risks as well as potential benefits.
Anyway, in the case I’m writing about, the surgeon told his friend my patient that his tendons must have been damaged in a fall or similar injury; that they would never heal by themselves; and that they would indubitably continue to break down. His belief was that the damaged tendons and other soft tissue were why he had pain.
This points out another difference between my world, which is informed by the discoveries of Matrix Repatterning, and the world of surgery.
I have learned that when joint mechanics are normal, soft tissues like tendons and muscles work normally, and when they are injured they can heal. It is only when joint mechanics are abnormal that injured tissues remain damaged or progressively degrade. I have found that the damaged tendons don’t cause the joint dysfunction, they are a symptom of the joint dysfunction. The reason this is important is that fixing the soft tissues without fixing the underlying problem will never make a permanent fix.
The underlying problem is usually an injury affecting the deeper structures of the body, sometimes near the symptomatic area but more often somewhere entirely different. The force of an injury impact is absorbed by your molecular structure, causing the affected organs or bones to expand a bit and get more rigid. This changes the way the joints fit, which changes the way your body works mechanically, and leads to pain, areas of tension and stiffness, limited ranges of motion, and breakdown of the tissues forced to work under such extra stress.
The only way I know to fix such situations is Matrix Repatterning.
Matrix Repatterning is unique. It is a gentle therapy done by hand that identifies where in your body injuries have been absorbed, (not necessarily where you feel pain,) and enables your body to discharge the imprints of the injuries it has experienced. This allows your joints to work the way they are supposed to, so the patterns of tension and stiffness relax, and pain disappears. As this happens your mechanics become normalized, which takes the stress off the damaged muscles and tendons, so they can heal. You can feel better and function better. There is nothing else like Matrix Repatterning.
Surgery, physical therapy, chiropractic, and every other method of physical medicine treat the damaged, dysfunctional areas without addressing the cause of your problems. Only Matrix Repatterning sees the soft tissue dysfunction as a symptom of deeper problems, and works on the cause.
Back to my patient.
When I checked him the major problem I found was in his jaw. This made sense because he had recently had a tooth pulled. When I used Matrix Repatterning to fix the jawbone where the tooth had been extracted, his shoulder instantly began to move more freely, and with much less pain. On that visit I also worked on his foot and an old abdominal scar, but not his shoulder, or even his neck, where the nerves that go to his shoulder come from, and where chiropractic would focus. At the end of the visit, his shoulder moved through a full range of motion without pain. And he’s still feeling better. His improvements came without my touching his shoulder except to test it.
My patients often marvel at how their problems usually come from other areas of their bodies far removed from their pain. But that’s how things work.
Does he need surgery? So far he’s happy without it.
If you or anyone you know have problems that are not responding to more conventional care,
call 303-394-4204 and experience the amazing world of Matrix Repatterning.