Several years ago I was working at a Physical Therapy practice in Charlottesville, Virginia. The patient I was treating asked me if I had heard of the book “Pain Free” by Pete Egoscue. I told her that I had not and she offered to lend me her copy to read. When I read the book I had one of those “ah-ha” moments you have when something is so clear that it hits you over the head! Up until that point I thought of myself as a well rounded therapist. I did out-of-the-box types of manual therapies such as Strain/Counterstrain, Crainosacral Therapy, Myofascial Release and Zero Balancing along with more traditional treatments like ultrasound, electric stimulation and therapeutic exercise. I helped many people get out of pain yet many times those people would be back with the same pain or a new pain. After reading “Pain Free”, I realized that I was treating their symptom and not the cause of the pain. It just so happened that I was suffering from a meniscus tear in my right knee. I decided to try some of the suggested e-cises in the book for knee pain. My knee pain was only slightly better but I noticed other things in my body were feeling really different. I no longer had the need to crack my neck, I was standing straighter and my morning stiffness was gone. After studying the Egoscue Method I learned to look at how every part of the body works together. Western medicine trains us to focus on separate parts of the body. But what I learned from Egoscue is that my knee pain was coming from the position of my pelvis and my upper back. The knee pain was the symptom of a dysfunctional pelvis and a mid back that was not moving. It took time to heal my meniscus but I fully recovered with the added benefit of improved overall function utilizing Egoscue.
Pick up a copy of “Pain Free” and start with just the first three chapters. If it makes sense to you then give us a call and set up a free screen. You can meet us, see what we’re all about and we’ll do a mini-evaluation. We will take photos and be able to show you the imbalances in your body, how these are contributing to your pain and then get you on the road to recovery too!
