It’s Only Natural
Chapter XI
Tissue SludgeIn my early days of practice, a young woman patient of mine didn't respond to her treatment. She had had pains in her shoulder, neck, and arm for some time that resisted the best work of several fine physicians and that didn't respond to my own chiropractic manipulations. One day as I was treating her she started crying softly. In answer to my query about the cause, she replied, “Doctor, I'm the only one in my family who believes in natural methods and they all think I'm crazy for coming here. I want so much to show them all that your methods are right, but this arm of mine really isn't getting any better and everybody knows it because they can all see how much pain I'm in and how difficult it is for me to use it. I'm so upset about the whole thing, I just don't know what to do.”
I really didn't know what to do either. I had thoroughly examined and X-rayed her and given her the best chiropractic manipulations and modalities that I knew, and yet still she didn't improve. What was I to do? In desperation I put her face-down on my treatment table once again; using my thumbs I went over her affected areas, pressing here and there. “Does this hurt?,” I said. “No.” “Does this hurt, then?” “Oh yes, very much.”
Whenever she said an area was painful, I dug in with my thumbs. “Oh please don't, doctor, that hurts too much,” she would exclaim. “I know,” I said, feigning as much assurance as I could, “the more it hurts, the faster it will improve.” I really didn't know why I was doing this. I just didn't know what else to do. Actually, I was mad and upset at my failure with this patient and was probably taking out my aggression on this poor woman by assaulting her sore areas. But, relentlessly, I continued to prod all her irritated nerve and muscle areas I could find around her shoulder girdle.
When I thought she couldn't stand any more, I stopped and let her dress. “Let's see what happens now, Donna,” I said, “Make an appointment for Friday.” To myself I thought, “Well, that's the last I'll see of Donna. I sure hope somebody can help her; she really needs it.”
To my great surprise, Donna did show on Friday. Not only did she show up, but also for the first time since I had begun treating her she came in smiling. I rather reluctantly asked her how she felt. “You were right about that treatment, doctor,” she said, “That's the first real relief I've received in six weeks. Let's get on with another one.” Well, I was kind of in a fix now, for I had made up that treatment on the spot and really wasn't sure that I could duplicate it. Ever willing to try, however, I started checking and working over the inflamed shoulder areas. To my surprise, I found these areas were much less sore than they had been.
There was still some soreness left however, so I again began my deep prodding, this time with sincere scientific interest. After a while, I was able to work out much of the soreness in these areas. I stopped the treatment and let her dress. After three or four more treatments, Donna's shoulder problem was entirely cured and when I left the Seattle area some eight years later, it never returned. She was more than overjoyed, and her relatives were somewhat chagrined to find that this small town "quack" had corrected a condition that the best of their big city MDs couldn't touch.
The results in this case had been so dramatic that I began to check more and more of my patients for this same type of muscle-nerve-fibrous tissue inflammation. I discovered that such difficulties were present in sixty to seventy per cent of the patients that I was then treating. Although few of the disorders were as severe as Donna's, all were considerably improved by the prodding treatment of these muscle-nerve fibrous reflex areas.
Further research over the years has demonstrated that such nerve-muscle-fibrous reflex difficulties are so common that one of the first examinations I make on any new patient is to check for such problems. I believe that no patient with musculo-skeletal pain is adequately diagnosed or treated unless these reflexes are sought for and, if found, properly corrected. This research also led me to an explanation of the reason for the effectiveness of this method.
When the body is placed in a situation of stress (similar to that described in Chapter II), it is common for certain muscles to exhibit tension and eventual spasm. When such a muscle goes into spasm, the spasm usually irritates adjacent nerves and other soft-tissue structures. In time, this irritation can cause enough inflammation to aggravate the muscle again, causing more spasm. From this process a congested area is formed because of the sluggish exchanges of nutrients by the cells, and by irregular areas of vascular dilation and constriction. This process can, in time, even produce a substance I call tissue sludge. This tissue sludge can be felt by the physician's fingers as he works over these nerve-muscle areas. The flesh feels granular or nodular and has at times a doughy consistency instead of the soft smooth elastic feel of normal connective tissue and muscle.
One of the most common areas for these deposits to occur is around the scapula (shoulder bone) and upper spine. I place my patients face down and with my thumbs gently examine the tissues over the scapula, around its edges, particularly the area between the scapula and the spine, then I work into the shoulder tissues themselves and finally I work along the nape of the neck up into the cervical area of the spine. Some patients are so sensitive in these areas that the gentlest touch causes them to cry out in pain. Before my examination, many have no idea that they are sensitive in these areas. We therefore find it is possible for these tissue-sludge areas to be present causing reflex symptoms without the patient having experienced any previous pain or discomfort in the offending part.
With problems in the lower part of the body, similar reflexes, though nowhere nearly as sensitive, are usually found over the buttocks and in the large muscles on either side of the lower (lumbar) spine.
The tissue-sludge areas described for both the upper and lower parts of the body are general areas of inflammation and do not alone tell the treating physician what type of difficulty is involved. Almost any disease or nervous affliction that affects the upper portion of the body causes reflex irritation in the tissues around the scapula. This is particularly true of nervous disorders. I can't remember a patient with a nervous or emotional disorder who did not have inflamed scapular tissues. In like fashion, almost any disorder of the lower portion of the body affects tissues along the lower spine and buttocks. This is particularly true of old chronic pelvic torsions (Chapter III) and disc lesions of the lower back (Chapter IV).
In my many years of treating, I have found that no matter what other treatment is used, unless some help is given to reduce the inflammation in these reflex areas, other treatments will never be entirely successful. The patient will either never reach an optimum state of health, or if he does reach it for a short time, he will tend to retrogress continually until the tissue sludge is removed.
This treatment is not a massage, as thought by so many of my patients. Although massage of this area soothes the condition temporarily, it doesn't eliminate the basic inflammation. Many patients, before our care, have had long series of massage treatments, but I still find in them as high a percentage of muscle-nerve inflammatory states as in my ordinary cases. Ordinary massage doesn't eliminate this problem; only the specific muscle-nerve prodding can dispel the sludge deposits.
One might ask, if it is not massage, just what is this so-called muscle-nerve prodding. Let me describe just how it is performed. When I examine a patient, I first gently pass my thumb over all the usual reflex areas. If they seem to be not too severely inflamed, I repeat this procedure, but with increasing pressure. With this increased pressure, certain areas usually indicate sensitivity. The tissues in these areas also feel different to the knowledgeable hand from those of the adjacent areas. There may be a lumpy or hard doughy consistency to some; there is a nodular or granular feel to others. The patient is well aware when I find these areas and lets me know because he is generally exquisitely sensitive to the prodding. At this time, I concentrate my efforts on these offending areas. If the patient tenses, I back off just enough so the patient is comfortable while I still retain sufficient force to feel the tissue give properly under my touch. When the proper technique is used, the doughy or granular areas gradually give way and a more normal tissue feel is reinstated. The length of treatment depends entirely on the need and the ability of the patient to accept the therapy, but an average treatment lasts five to ten minutes.
I always work so that the patient has little adverse reaction from any of these treatments. The first and perhaps second treatments may produce a mild stiffness or soreness in the treated areas, but after these first few treatments there is enough general improvement to more than make up for the mild discomfort. Usually after the third or fourth treatment, there is no adverse reaction and the patient feels so much improvement that he is amazed at his own progress.
Once the tissue sludge and inflammation are corrected, we usually suggest an occasional maintenance treatment, the frequency of which depends on the severity of the original condition-usually from once a month to two or three times a year.Let me summarize what I've discussed thus far:
l. Most patients, from living in our stressful modern society, have in specific parts of their back, particularly in the tissues around the scapula, a certain degree of muscle and nerve inflammation of which they may be entirely unaware. This inflammatory condition can cause or aggravate many apparently unrelated conditions.
2. This common inflammatory condition can be readily corrected by a series of treatments utilizing specific deep manual prodding and manipulation of the substances produced by this inflammation-tissue sludge.
3. When inflammation is reduced, many related conditions also improve.
4. If tissue sludge exists and is not treated at the same time that other conditions in the body are treated, optimum improvement generally won't be achieved.
5. The conditions that respond most rapidly to this treatment are of a nervous or emotional nature. The nervous conditions that so frequently accompany menopause, hypoglycemia and hypoadrenalism (Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia) are helped rapidly by this therapy.
6. Once the inflammation is brought under control, it is readily controlled by an occasional maintenance treatment, and it shouldn't return if the patient is faithful in this therapy.
No other treatment in our Clinic has been so personally satisfying because it helps establish a successful physical and emotional rapport between physician and patient. Because of the simplicity of this therapy, I have had great difficulty interesting other physicians in the method.Acupuncture
The therapies known as acupuncture and acupressure use various forms of pressure on nerves and other elements of the body to produce beneficial effects. I have been asked by many patients if the tissue-sludge method is a style of acupuncture or acupressure. In general, I'd have to say no. In these Oriental techniques, a specific pressure is held over an area to produce a reflex action; in my method, I work not to produce a reflex action but to change a local physical tissue congestion. I don't disparage acupuncture and acupressure. They have a definite place in natural therapeutics, but they are based on principles different from mine.
In addition to the previously mentioned area, tissue sludge may occur almost anywhere in the body-in the deltoid muscles of the upper arm, the wrists, knees, calf, and thigh. Most deposits in the extremities come from some form of injury or malalignment of the bony structures. In treatment, the bony malalignments are first corrected; if rapid recovery doesn't take place, I search for inflamed tissue areas in the affected part. When such areas are found, I again use the prodding procedure. I dig into the affected areas, gradually working out the tension and spasms resulting from the injury. With this treatment it is possible to correct the after effects of injuries in a few days or weeks, which might otherwise take months to heal without specific therapy.
Now that we have the new MicroLight 830 low level laser, we have added it to our tissue sludge work. It has proven to be an invaluable aid in all these efforts. LLLT (Low Level Laser Therapy) is use on all the same areas as we tissue sludge. This therapy helps to reduce the inflammation in short order. Often remarkably. It also has one great advantage our tissue sludge alone-no discomfort.