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Muscle Pain

5 Ways Your Shoes Are Deforming Your Feet

By Gait, Osteopathic Techniques, Osteopathy, Physical HealthOne Comment

An Osteopathic Physician’s Perspective Shoes are not designed to mold to the shape of our feet. Instead our feet are forced to mold the shape of your shoes. Over time, our feet lose their pliability. The interesting thing is that when pliability is lost, it becomes more painful to walk without shoes. Some people interpret this as evidence that walking barefoot is not good for them. Any time the distance between attachments of muscles is changed, weakness takes place. As humans, we abuse our feet a lot. Society has determined that high-heels and the unnatural gait they produce are “sexy.”…

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Is Your Neck Pain Affecting Your Life?

By Osteopathy, Physical Health2 Comments

Do you carry stress in your shoulders? When you squeeze the fleshy area between your neck and your shoulder, do you find achy, “crunchy” knots? Do you get tension headaches, have tenderness at the base of your skull, neck, between your shoulder blades, and down to the middle of your back? Do you find yourself constantly searching for a corner to press up against or massaging your neck? If you answered ‘yes,’ you may be suffering from an extremely tight trapezius muscle. How often are people suffering with tension in their necks and shoulders trying to get at least temporary relief…

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Are You Considering The Iliacus In Low Back Pain?

By Osteopathic Techniques, Osteopathy4 Comments

Most manual practitioners view the iliacus muscle and the psoas major muscle as one muscle. These two muscles do share something in common and that is they both insert into the same tendon. In many books you’ll see them referred to as the ‘iliopsoas’ and are described as hip flexors. The ‘iliopsoas’ or even more often the psoas is blamed for a lot of back pain problems, especially when one has a difficult time straightening out.  The psoas is implicated for a lot of back pain issues. The iliacus, on the other hand, is difficult to reach as it is located…

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Intermetatarsal Space Release Of The Foot

By Gait, Health, Osteopathy, Physical Health, Self-HelpNo Comments

The purpose of this article is to describe a simple exercise you can do to help maintain the health of your feet. Our shoes are narrower than our feet. (1) Shoes have an impact in the overall shape of our feet.(2) Because of this I have found that over time our feet are also narrower than they should be. Part of this is because some of the small muscles and the connective tissue in our feet become chronically contracted. As a result, this can cause muscles and joints in the legs, thighs, and low back to tighten. The narrowing of our…

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Osteopathic Approach To A Dysfunctional Iliacus Muscle

By Osteopathic Techniques, Osteopathy, Physical Health7 Comments

The iliacus muscle lies on the inside of the pelvic bones. Although it can be a big factor in low back pain, is seldom evaluated or treated. I have previously written that often times when we treat a dysfunctional psoas major, we assume that we are also treating a dysfunctional iliacus muscle. However, I rarely find that a treatment for psoas major truly does help resolve a dysfunctional iliacus. Although these two muscles share a tendon, they are two separate muscles with separate innervation. It has been my experience that to treat iliacus dysfunction requires a different approach than treating a…

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Why Do We Get Knots In Our Muscles?

By Osteopathy, Physical Health4 Comments

I once went to a doctor who did manual therapy to try to get relief for neck and shoulder pain. He worked on it for a while but I had a knot  in my neck that just wouldn’t go away. “Muscles are stupid,” he said, “all we need to do is inject it with numbing medication and the brain will think everything is okay and tell the muscle to relax.” a few hours later when the numbing medication wore off, the knot was still there unchanged. “If muscles are stupid,” I thought, “then that doctor was just outsmarted by a…

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Why Pain Is Not Caused By Weak Muscles And Why Exercising May Not Work

By Health, Osteopathy, Physical Health3 Comments

Have you ever been told your pain is because one group of muscles have been over exercised? Many of my patients are told this. Therefore they are told that the solution for their pain is that they need to exercise the “weak” muscles to balance out the muscles. Many patients I see go to physical therapists and trainers believing that there will be a “magical” exercise that once they do will rid them of all pain. According to this theory once this balance is restored, then one’s pain should disappear. Although this occasionally works and I do believe exercising is…

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