I can’t wait for my snack!

I can’t wait for my mid-morning snack because I am going to eat the leftovers of what has now become my Favorite Hash! This morning I made “Sweet Potato Hash with Eggs” for breakfast.  The recipe came from the Ultra Mind Solution Cookbook by Mark Hyman, M.D. and it was so wonderful that I ate two entire servings!

The crispy sweetness of the potato was combined with the savory flavors from red peppers, garlic and onions with a tiny bit of jalapeno pepper for contrast.  After I ate those two servings, had my brain not reminded my mouth that I needed a protein source I could have eaten even more.

You see my husband Michael and I started our newest adventure two weeks ago.  Usually that means that we pack up the 4x4 full of camping gear and head out backcountry camping but that has not been on our dance cards lately due to his health.  No, our newest adventure keeps us close to home and our bathroom facilities and is called Six-Weeks to an Ultra Mind and was produced by Mark Hyman, M.D.

For the last two weeks we have been listening to Dr. Hyman’s seven audio CD’s, watching his 3 DVD’s and working through the exercises in his workbook. He has told us countless patient stories and about interesting new research that prompted him to develop this program. He calls himself an accidental psychiatrist as he discovered that by healing bodies with whole food diets they were healing their brains as well as their bodies. People with chronic depression, dementia, and autism were all getting better on all levels with his medical but most importantly, his dietary help.

I never thought I would see the day when Michael would consider giving up any of his potato chips, cookies, candy or wine.  Even though I had been following a gluten free and sugar free diet for a few years now with good results he was never interested in considering that what he ate could be causing his health issues.  But after listening to this doctor’s message for only one hour, he picked up the phone and ordered the entire kit.

This program is not for the faint of heart and although it is simple in terms of having only a few components to it (healthy eating, supplements, lifestyle and living clean and green) it requires work, don’t let him fool you.  But more than putting in the time and effort towards this program, what helped Michael and I most to even entertain making these changes was when we sat down recently and did our annual review and goal setting for the upcoming year.

We spent a few days looking at our governing values and life balance wheels, reviewing the past year and dreaming of how we would like our futures to be. We already had made our vision boards and now we wanted to make those a reality.  In fact I felt as if we were at an impasse and I did not know what I was going to do if Michael, of his own accord, was not willing to live a healthier lifestyle.  How could I watch him suffer each day? Would I be able to remain compassionate? How was I going to set the boundaries I needed that would enable me to live a healthy life without his illnesses interfering? Did I need to leave this relationship in order to save myself?

These were heart wrenching questions and their answers would be life changing. Then one evening I gave up all of my “doing” and sat down to be with Michael as he watched television.  This was the night that he turned on Public Television. This was the night when we met Dr. Mark Hyman with his Ultra Mind Solution. This was the night we started down the road together towards better health.

Scatology

Scat-ol-ogy Noun.  The study of poops.

While training to be a hiking docent for the Southern California Nature Conservancy we were taught how we could determine the areas that animals inhabited even though they were nocturnal by looking for their poop.  Different shapes and sizes determined the species and close inspection could often tell you what they had most recently eaten.

The study of human poops is one that my sister Carol will not allow to be talked about in her presence.  Unfortunately a lack of knowledge about the human body’s elimination processes or at least what the end result should look like from a healthy body shortchanges us.  Looking back on my life I realize that no one ever really talked to me about what a healthy bowel movement should look like, its frequency or consistency, much less what I should do if I were to encounter problems.

I bring this topic up as I realized this morning that I am finally regular and it only took me fifty some odd years to get that way.  That is a sorry state of affairs for the elucidation of human scatology.  I wonder how my life might have been different if I had been taught that foul smelling gas and stools the consistency of thin cream of wheat cereal were not normal.  From the television commercials I observed growing up, I didn’t have constipation or diarrhea so everything must be okay, or so I thought.

The obnoxious smelling gas coming from my body resulted in separate bedrooms for my first husband and I, which products like Beano (to help digest vegetables) or Lactaid (to help digest diary) could not quell.  After our eventual divorce I had my second round of Colitis during which time I worked from home on those days when I couldn’t make it in time to the upstairs bathroom at my office (can you say embarrassing?).   Through fog inducing drugs and the grace of God I finally got to the point that I could actually leave the porcelain throne for hours at a time but things were still anything but normal and this appeared to be the best I could hope for.

My husband Michael is the first person I’ve met where we both felt comfortable talking about poop.  He used to proudly announce that his daily constitution was “well formed, odorless and buoyant”.  Three years ago when he stopped his daily bragging I should have had a clue that something was wrong but I just thought he had finally gotten tired of his morning disclosure and had moved on to other topics.  It wasn’t until after a trip to the Emergency Room with a temp of 103 degrees (which for an adult I learned was not a good thing) did I discover that he had Ulcerative Colitis and had been bleeding with diarrhea for weeks and was now anemic.  He decided to take the allopathic medical route for his condition, which eventually led to the complete removal of his colon and three surgeries within six months.

I on the other hand opted for the help from a Naturopathic Medical Doctor.  Actually she was thrown in my path and I asked her for some help with the gas that still plagued me as it was affecting my work as a massage therapist.  Can you imagine being in a small quiet room with this 120 pound woman ripping a couple of them off in the middle of your massage?  Not the type of relaxation and healing environment I was going after. 

Anyway after working with the naturopath for two years I was able to get to the bottom of my digestive issues which consisted of low stomach acid, insufficient enzyme production and food sensitivities.  None of the dozen or more doctors I had seen over the years had ever tested me for any of these issues.  As long as I wasn’t bleeding to death or didn’t have cancer, everything was okay in their book.  Now with the help of enzymes and a wheat free, sugar free diet I too can now say that my morning constitution is well formed, odorless and buoyant.

I say all of this as an introduction to the lifestyle changes my husband and I are starting next month.  Michael has decided that he has had enough of the skin inflammation, the soreness in his joints and muscles, intestinal gas, BM frequency, depression, and food cravings and purchased a complete program to help called Six Weeks to an Ultra Mind by Mark Hyman, MD.  So come with us on the road as we work to change our lifestyles and our health.

Three Questions

I realized today that I had dedicated my blog to my study of Myofascial Release and I’ve never really told you what any of that is.  Well here in my words are the answers to these three questions:

·      What is a JFB-MFR Specialist? 

·      Where does the pain come from?

·      How is JFB-MFR different?

(In a nutshell therapists using this method work with people wishing to rid themselves of chronic pain. For more info, read on).

What is a JFB-MFR Specialist? 

“JFB” stands for John F. Barnes, the physical therapist who has perfected full body hands on techniques over the last 50 years.  “MFR” stands for Myofascial Release.  In Doctor-speak “myo” is muscle.  And “fascia” is connective tissue in our bodies.  A JFB-MFR Specialist works using techniques learned from John F. Barnes to release the connective tissue associated with the body’s muscles.  These techniques assist people to resolve issues with chronic pain.

Where does the pain come from?

According to Merriam-Webster fascia is “a sheet of connective tissue covering or binding together body structures.” In addition to covering structures more recent discoveries show that fascia is a three dimensional web that runs throughout our bodies.  It not only holds muscles together it actually provides the overall structure and the communication highway for our cells to talk to each other which is necessary for our bodies to function. 

One example of fascia is if you have ever picked up a piece of raw, skinless chicken breast.  Remember the white and yellowish materials that were attached to it?  The yellow was fat but the white material, that’s fascia.  Did you notice how the fascia surrounded the chicken breast holding it into its shape?  Well the fascia, since it is a three dimensional web, also penetrates through the chicken breast.  In fact fascia surrounds each and every muscle cell, nerve cell, and blood vessel in that chicken breast and in our bodies as well.

Now when fascia is at its best it is full of fluid and has a slippery quality and feel to it.  Remember that chicken breast experience?  That slippery, slimy white stuff was actually good healthy fascia and was designed that way so that we can move and yet be held together.   Look at the top of your hand as you make a fist and notice how the tendons for each finger move and slide around underneath your skin.

The problem our bodies encounter is fascial-restriction.  This is an area of fascia that through trauma, repetitive motion or repetitive positioning (injury, surgery, daily lifting, daily sitting) is now hard and restricted.   Think of scar tissue.  This restriction instead of being filled with fluid and sliding over and between our cells is now hard and immoveable, exerting up to 2,000 pounds of tension per square inch. This force from a restriction can actually crush nerves or blood vessels causing pain or system dysfunction. Because the fascial system is an interconnected web from the top of our heads to the bottom of our feet, over time these restrictions can tighten even more spreading pain and dysfunction throughout our body.

How is JFB-MFR different than other forms of Myofascial bodywork?

It is important to note that myofascial restrictions cannot be located utilizing any of our current medical imaging processes or machines.  It is only through being trained and treated that a skilled JFB-MFR therapist can locate these restrictions.  A treatment involves engaging the myofascial barrier and then allowing the restriction to release.  This release process takes from 4 to 7 minutes per location at a minimum.  Anything less only provides temporary relief and is not allowing the tissue to make a permanent change.  Therapists are taught to let the body release naturally and to not force it.  This does not mean that the release will not be painful but the patient has complete control over the amount of therapeutic pain they are willing to experience in order to effect their healing.

The King’s Speech

A hearty welcome to the year 2011.  I spent most of the last week of 2010 processing and analyzing my current family and our relationships.  The last day of the year I spent largely absorbed watching other people’s lives on the big screen as I tried to take a break from my mind’s incessant ruminating.  I felt guilty at first for not being more productive, a typical problem of my Enneagram type One personality, but gave up these thought lines when I realized that I just really needed a break.

My husband and I compromised on our theater experience as we negotiated between seeing Black Swan, True Grit or The King’s Speech.  I used the critic’s grading system as my trump card and we went to see The King’s Speech.  We both enjoyed the story and the acting, and the audience even clapped at the end of the movie. It depicted the life of King George VI who was given the throne after his older brother abdicated the position in order to marry a divorcee, a very unprecedented and unexpected development at the time.

King George VI (Colin Firth) had a very pronounced stammer, which was one reason his wife agreed to marry him, as she knew that his speech problem would keep them out of public life, which was a fear of hers when contemplating a marriage to him.  Even so, she tirelessly tried to assist him and to locate specialists that could help him.  Why does all of this have a place on my Myofascial Release  (MFR) blog?  There is a particular scene where this newest specialist, Lionel Logue (played by Geoffrey Rush) and Bertie (George’s family given nickname) are working together and they are doing a self-treatment technique that we learn in MFR called Jiggling.  It was quite a shock to see it on the big screen but very affirming.

As the story unfolds we get to see how Bertie was raised to believe that his family is divinely picked to head the Church of England and how that separated him from others.  Also of interest is how two brothers raised by the same father react differently to his domineering and how negative childhood experiences manifest in Bertie’s adult life. 

When we really look deeply into the story we can consider how we are all products of our past and childhoods and how that wounding plays out in our adult lives.  “What wounding?” many high functioning adults may wonder.  Well unless you are among the relatively few with Autobiographical Memory and can remember every detail of every day of your life, there is much that is stored in your brain tissue that you are not cognizant of.  Those of us that have been involved with bodywork for years know from experience, even without empirical data, that other parts of our bodies store these long forgotten memories as well.  We are learning through MFR that myofascial restrictions are caused not only by physical trauma and inflammation but emotional trauma as well.

These myofascial restrictions, in whatever manner they are caused, then lead us to experience pain and/or dysfunction in our organ systems, manifesting in what the medical community calls disease, which we are finding is really just a combination of symptoms.  Unfortunately, traditional western medicine will treat our symptoms but rarely the underlying causes.  In John F. Barnes Myofascial Release (JFB-MFR) seminars we learn early on to “Look at the symptom (pain), but look elsewhere for the cause.”  For those of you that have tried everything, or those of you that aren’t willing to deal with the side effects of western medical practices, I urge you to locate a JFB-MFR therapist.  If you are sick and tired of being sick and tired, consider starting this new year by looking into treating the cause with JFB-MFR.