While doing a rotation at another physician\u2019s office I had the opportunity to treat an interesting patient. \u00a0M.M. is a 21-year-old white male who has a long history of scoliosis. \u00a0His chief complaint was intermittent, debilitating lower back pain. \u00a0He stated that when the pain begins the medication he takes to reduce the pain and allow him to rest would leave him mentally and physically \u201cincapacitated\u201d for 3 days. \u00a0He did not like the feeling in his body when this happened and did not like taking time off work, which always accompanied a pain episode. \u00a0His medical history is significant for placement of Harrington rods in the upper thoracic area bilaterally as a treatment for his scoliosis during adolescence. \u00a0He takes no regular medications and does take daily vitamin supplements.<\/p>\n
When palpating M.M.\u2019s back to access motion, I was struck by the tension of the musculature. \u00a0The erector spinae and iliocostalis muscles were akin to steel cables. \u00a0No motion I could induce would get them to soften. \u00a0At the same moment I thought I was in over my head I realized that M.M.\u2019s body was doing its best to adapt to motion, but that the surgery he had was limiting his adaptive ability. \u00a0His body could not get to a relaxed state. This predisposed him to muscle sprain\/strain episodes. \u00a0I decided to try trigger point injections into the tight erector spinae muscles to assist in their relaxation.<\/p>\n
Being in another physician\u2019s office has its limitations \u2013 I was able to find lidocaine and normal saline. \u00a0Since this is not my normal mixture, I tried a 1:2 injection ratio respectively into the tightest, most-painful-to-palpation areas of the erector spinae bilaterally and into a tight, painful right rhomboid. \u00a0I was hoping that the volume of fluid would relax the muscles. \u00a0I instructed M.M. to follow up with me in 3 days.<\/p>\n
In 3 days he returned with a smile, stating that he did initially have some discomfort, which had subsided, and that he had not felt this loose in years. \u00a0He also stated that he had moved some furniture for a friend since the injections and had no pain afterwards. \u00a0He said this would have normally triggered a painful episode. \u00a0He pointed out a few new areas of discomfort and requested some injections at these sites to help with the discomfort. \u00a0I confirmed their trigger point status and injected these points (sacral ligaments and left rhomboid) as well. \u00a0His return visit yielded even less pain and improved motion.<\/p>\n
M.M. has received three trigger point injections thus far. \u00a0He has had no episodes of pain and with each treatment has noticed further improvement in motion. \u00a0At the last treatment the erector spinae and iliocostalis muscles were soft and supple, indicating to me that the body\u2019s ability to adapt had significantly improved.\u00a0 M.M. was instructed to follow up as needed after the last treatment since his condition had improved so much.\u00a0 It was wonderful to watch the transformation in his body from the application of Still\u2019s osteopathic principles.\u00a0 They continue to stand the test of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While doing a rotation at another physician\u2019s office I had the opportunity to treat an interesting patient. \u00a0M.M. is a 21-year-old white male who has a long history of scoliosis. \u00a0His chief complaint was intermittent, debilitating lower back pain. \u00a0He stated that when the pain begins the medication he takes to reduce the pain and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":634,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-652","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":830,"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/652\/revisions\/830"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/osteopathicvision.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}