over & over again

Vegetarian Times, May, 2001 by Trisha Blanchet

With ART, practitioners probe a patient's muscles and connective tissues to find problem "sticky" areas and break apart adhesions in scar tissue using a combination of pressure, tension and motion. The treatment session can be painful and leave the patient feeling tender for up to 36 hours afterward. But the temporary discomfort eventually leads to permanent healing, Prokopiak says. "If you don't separate that scar tissue, it's like allowing glue to set," he explains. "It holds you in neutral, like a hinge that's rusted shut." If the scar tissue "glues" muscles and tissues together, it can lead to improper healing, causing pain, stiffness and numbness.

Like Alisa Strauss, many RSI sufferers have also turned to acupuncture for relief. This ancient Chinese treatment involves the use of micro-thin needles inserted into precise locations of the body to "normalize" the flow of electrical energy (or chi). For millennia, the Chinese have believed that this energy is the body's "life force" and enables it to function properly. When the life force is altered, as with an injury, the flow of energy must be restored. Acupuncture is usually painless and can be easily combined with other methods and medicines to speed up the healing process.

Strauss' other preferred therapy, the Feldenkrais Method, was developed in Paris in the early 20th century by an engineer named Moshe Feldenkrais, who was plagued by an old knee injury. When doctors couldn't help him, Feldenkrais combined his own knowledge of biomechanics and judo to create a rehabilitation method that finally brought him relief. It is based on the assumption that muscle movements are learned behaviors and can be re-learned to ease the body's everyday levels of stress. "People under stress, or who may have a musculo-skeletal complaint such as RSI, develop abnormal movement patterns and muscle tension patterns," writes Timothy J. Jameson, D.C., in his book Repetitive Strain Injuries: Alternative Treatments and Prevention (Keats Publishing, 1998). Those abnormal patterns can lead to injury and chronic pain; to heal the pain, sufferers must first change the movement patterns that caused it.

The Feldenkrais Method involves two components: In the first, called Functional Integration, practitioners manipulate the patient's muscles and joints through gentle touch. All movements lie within the normal range of motion and shouldn't be painful. The second component, called Awareness Through Movement, focuses on movements and motions from everyday life, such as sitting and walking. Patients are encouraged to perform the motions purposefully, re-learning their body's patterns of movement in a way that is healthier for the joints and muscles.

Another popular treatment for RSI is myotherapy, in which therapists use their elbows, knuckles and fingers to apply pressure to the body's "trigger points": tender spots in muscles that when pressed cause the muscles to spasm. "Trigger points develop with workplace injuries, sports injuries and some illnesses," explains Janice Dunleavy, a myotherapist in Waterford, Mich. To treat RSI and other injuries, myotherapists first locate trigger points by massaging and pressing on the patient's body and searching for spasmodic muscles. They then apply pressure to the irritable spots to loosen them up, allowing the muscles to relax. In the next step, the practitioner stretches and massages the muscles to return them to their natural, healthy form. "Many people say that even after surgery, their pain comes back," says Dunleavy. "Anyone considering surgery should try myotherapy first."