• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Pain Free Performance — Posture Alignment Therapy

Posture Alignment Therapists, Graduates of Egoscue University

  • HOME
  • Live Pain Free
    • BACK PAIN
    • KNEE PAIN
  • What We Do
    • Therapy Appointments
    • Virtual Appointments
    • FAQ
  • Testimonials
    • Doctor Testimonials
    • Client Testimonials
      • Lynn’s Story
      • BACK PAIN: MISSY’S STORY
    • Case Studies
  • ABOUT US
    • Our Team
    • Cindy Meyers, PTA/PAS
    • Jessica Powell, RN, BA/PAS
  • Contact
  • BLOG
  • Resources

shoulder injury

Misalignment leads to Neck & TMJ Pain

January 4, 2024 by Lisa

 

Our head is the center and peak of our body. When the head and neck are out of alignment, the weight of our head increases the load on our neck by 10 pounds per every inch that our head is forward. As our culture continues to become tech focused, the root of neck pain and jaw pain are due to our misaligned necks and forward heads. 

 

Our neck is made up of the top part of our spine: the cervical spine. The cervical spine is a slightly concave curve that develops during the first three months of life as infants learn to lift and turn their head. The curve of our neck allows for enhanced mobility of our head. This is why we can turn our head to see something without rotating or turning our spine and shoulders. 

 

Throughout the past 20 years our culture’s behavior has changed. We no longer turn our head to look for cars behind us while driving because our rear cameras alert us when someone is there. Work days have shifted to being predominantly at the computer. The average time an adult spends on their phone is more than three hours per day. The decrease in movement of our neck and increased forward head has led to a loss of the concave cervical curve.  Without the cervical curve of our neck to support our head, our skeletal system shifts and leads to increased tension in the muscles that connect our neck to our shoulders and jaw misalignment.  

 

Within the past few years at our practice, we have seen this increase in clients presenting with neck pain and temporomandibular joints (TMJ) pain.  As the head becomes more flexed forward, the joints that connect our jaw to our head begin to shift in response to the misaligned spine of our neck. The misaligned jaw often is identified by “clicking” or pain from overuse of chewing/talking in a misaligned joint positioning. Often clients with forward head positioning and jaw misalignment present with headaches in conjugation to neck pain and TMJ pain. Forward head positioning leads to decreased blood flow to the brain from poor alignment. It might sound unusual that headaches and jaw pain are connected to your alignment, but as the head shifts forward the cervical spine becomes more flexed, decreasing blood flow to the brain, enhancing strain on the muscles around the neck, and often creating shifts within the jaw.

 

At our practice, we treat the misalignment of the head positioning that creates TMJ pain and neck pain by addressing the body as a unit. We focus to align the body vertically and reduce the flexion of the neck. One example of this would be aligning the body against a wall and placing a block between the knees with active pressure. This position allows the feedback of the wall against the head, shoulders, hips, and ankles. When holding this positioning daily, the muscles of the neck and shoulders begin to relax and have reduced tension and muscular compensation. Overtime, we are able to see a reduction in the flexed position of the head, correct curvature within the spine, and the jaw becomes more aligned.

 

Our goal during a postural alignment therapy evaluation is to identify what is driving the forward head position and jaw misalignment. Through a complete health assessment, functional testing, and gait analysis we can begin to understand the muscular imbalances in a client’s body. This will allow us to identify the muscles that need to be strengthened or released to bring the body into alignment. We do this through corrective exercises that will be done daily at home in the order to address the misaligned neck, forward shoulders, and jaw positioning. Once the body is aligned and the forward head position and shoulders are less rounded, the pain will subside and our clients are able to live a functional pain free life.

Filed Under: Alignment, Neck Pain, Posture Alignment Tagged With: alignment, alignment expert, alternative to surgery, forward head, Functional movement, headache pain, herniated disc, jaw pain, misalignment, muscle imbalance, neck pain, nerve pain, pain management, Pain relief, pain treatment, Posture Alignment, Posture Alignment Exercises, Posture Alignment Specialists, Posture Alignment Therapist, shoulder injury, shoulder pain, tech neck, TMJ, TMJ pain, treatment for pain

Continuing Exercises After Injury

August 23, 2019 by Lisa

People come to Pain Free Performance to confront their pain by resolving their body’s muscular imbalance.  When our clients begin noticing a significant reduction in their pain level, they are motivated to continue their Egoscue program creating improvement in their mobility and function.  So, what happens when our client experiences an acute injury from a fall, twist, sport or some heavy lifting?

Although the client’s pain may be tied to a particular event or movement, discontinuing their Egoscue exercises is not part of the best recovery. Acute pain after an injury is the perfect time to come in and see us Pain Free. Your therapist is trained to look at you and determine the best path to unravel this sudden shift in the body that resulted in your acute pain. At Pain Free, we analyze the body’s current function, identify restrictions in range of motion and then restore muscle imbalance and movement.

If your body becomes injured, give your therapist a call.  There is no need to suffer through the pain.  You can get back to the life you love and the ability to do what you enjoy and be pain free sooner than you think!

Filed Under: Injury and exercise, Sports Injury and Egoscue Tagged With: knee injury, Posture Alignment, Posture Alignment Therapist, shoulder injury, treatment for pain

You get injured, what do you do about your Egoscue program?

April 17, 2018 by Lisa

It’s a beautiful day and you’re enjoying the outdoors. Then, bam! You slip over an acorn on the sidewalk and you’re down. And, you’re hurt. You have a knee injury, bruised elbows, a jammed wrist, you have swelling and ankle pain, not to mention you hit your head and the neck pain is killing you. Even if nothing is broken, there is so much pain!

When something like this happens and you’re injured, the advice used to be to put your feet up and rest. And, the last thing you want to do is “exercise”. But, we know better now. Your body will start compromising the minute you get up off the sidewalk. You’ll be guarding, limping and twisting to try to avoid the pain and that will throw everything off in your body. We don’t want you to get “stuck” there, so don’t stop moving but knowing the type of movement to do based on your injuries is key.

Your alignment will affect the outcome and recovery of the new injury. Even if there is a fracture, we’ll provide a revised program based upon your injury and how it affects your ability to do your Egoscue menu. For example, if you can’t handle full weight because of your foot pain or knee pain, we alter the position to take pressure off your injury. If you have a shoulder injury and you have arm pain, we can work around that. We align the rest of the body focusing on straightening your spine and your shoulder becomes less forward making you more functional. This will keep you on your path toward becoming properly aligned, assist in healing your injury properly and get you back to being pain free.

So if you’re injured, after getting the necessary diagnostics, call us and we’ll provide you with an updated program to get you through this unexpected setback. If you have an upcoming appointment with us, don’t cancel it, call us and come in. Your new menu will address the changes that occurred from the fall, while correcting the previous imbalances without compromising your recovery. This will speed up your body’s innate ability to heal by giving it the proper stimulus! We’ll keep you moving forward toward your pain free alignment goal while you’re healing.

Filed Under: Egoscue, Injury and exercise Tagged With: alignment, ankle injury, balance, Egoscue, joint pain, knee injury, knee pain, neck injury, Pain relief, Posture Alignment Exercises, shoulder injury, treatment for pain, wrist injury

Footer

Pain Free Performance, Posture Alignment Specialists

QUICK LINKS

  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Virtual Appointments
  • About Back Pain
  • About Knee Pain
  • Client Testimonials
  • Our Team
  • Contact Us Today

Our Studio is located at
3054 Berkmar Drive, Suite C
Charlottesville, VA 22901
(434) 296-0600
We are also available for virtual appointments by skype or facetime.

FacebookConnect with us!

Copyright Pain Free Performance, Posture Alignment Therapy, Charlottesville, Virginia.
Posture Alignment Therapists Graduated from Egoscue University
Charlottesville Posture Alignment Therapy to relieve back pain, neck pain, hip pain, and other muscular and body pain.
PainFreePerformance.com
Web development by EJ Communications