Adjusting

You don't owe anyone anything... You owe yourself everything. By Dyversiti. ResizedIt’s not all sugar plums and dancing fairies even when bodily pain is minimized to any degree.  Especially in the injury that led to RSD/CRPS and the devastating consequences that just hasn’t let me forget. It has nothing to do with the loss of work, inspirations, or goals that might have been. The regret has remained heavy because of the manipulation involved in a decision, one I would have never considered had I not been told from health care providers that doing so would prevent a detrimental outcome and allow possibility in recovering. The choice was for the ones I already had. I never got better and as a result I not only felt deceived but also used to reduce cost and care for both of us.

I’m trying to tell myself this is what it was for. Today!  It just took 15 years to get there. I’ve already told me how stupid I was for believing in others when I knew better and that led to future distrust. I had already overcome, mostly, other trust issues and there I learned to build my wall so much stronger than it was before.

So here I am still trying to clean up my own mess from the first few months of this year and its aftermath that’s only 7 months old that I can’t even throw away as garbage yet because it’s still active with a new appointment in just a couple of days.

Every day that I get better is another day that I ask myself why. What was it all for?

I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see.

 

 

Review – Gohl Program | Part 3

Review – Gohl Program | Part 3

By Twinkle VanFleet

its-time-to-heal-by-kori-leigh

It’s time to heal by Kori Leigh

It’s important to understand that MLT isn’t a magic pill we get to swallow and become miraculously cured by. It’s the beginning of curing ourselves. Cure in medicine is defined as:

cure (kyur)
n.

  1. Restoration of health; recovery from disease.
  2. A method or course of treatment used to restore health.
  3. An agent that restores health; a remedy.
  4. cured cur·ing cures
  5. To restore a person to health.
  6. To effect a recovery from a disease or disorder.

Remission in Medicine is defined as:

remission re·mis·sion (rĭ-mĭsh’ən)
n.

  1. Abatement or subsiding of the symptoms of a disease.
  2. The period during which the symptoms of a disease abate or subside.

It’s not really difficult to understand that a cure is just as possible as remission can be. How? The answer is simply by restoring a person to health.

“Manual Ligament Therapy (MLT) is a new and original technique created by Arik Gohl. … We have learned that ligaments are a significant source of pain, especially in cases of chronic pain. Until injured ligaments can heal from their underlying dysfunction, muscles will remain in a tense and guarded state.”

I know what you’re thinking. If you have Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy/Complex Regional Pain Syndrome that you’ll forever live a life of pain with potential spreading from the original site of injury to the rest of your body.

It can be true, but it doesn’t have to be. All of those symptoms, burning, allodynia (pain resulting from a stimulus (as a light touch of the skin) which would not normally provoke pain; also :  a condition marked by allodynia) hyperalgesia (increased sensitivity to pain or enhanced intensity of pain sensation), hyperesthesia (unusual or pathological sensitivity of the skin or of a particular sense)

I really don’t have either of the above anymore. My body is still learning not to feel sensations of pain while also recognizing those areas that aren’t hurting.  If anything its just hyperesthesia I’m working through. Example, sock me and I’ll feel that sensation long after the actual event. Like a repetitive action.

Keep in mind after years of pain, signals misfiring, injuries taking on abnormal healing paths, other areas of my body becoming effected beyond the site of the original injury that I have a main role to play in reversing these abnormalities. I have to reset my perception to pain by reversing all that my body knows, felt, and has learned as a result.

5 days of Manual Ligament Therapy has gotten me to this point. The custom orthotics is correcting every abnormal step I’ve taken since January of 2001.

You might be thinking manual? Yes, you’ll have to be touched, and you’ll have to move areas you’ve stopped using due to RSD/CRPS, chronic pain. This isn’t traditional physical therapy, you’ll actually feel restricted tissue, muscles, and a myofascial release of those symptoms and connective fibrous tissue eased.

What about burning which is the hallmark symptom of RSD? It’s eased the same way.

Currently MLT isn’t a covered therapy under insurance. Like many other integrative, complimentary, or holistic practices, including acupuncture, acupressure and similar therapies which may be beneficial we’re still legislatively working on these options for you.

MLT is non-invasive.

Another healing retreat will be held at the Sheraton Los Angeles International Airport beginning Monday, November 28, 2016. http://www.sheratonlax.com/

The cost for the treatment is $2,500 and doesn’t include travel or hotel. I know it sounds like a lot, but it’s not compared to a single injection or invasive procedure billed to insurance or accumulative and yearly co-pays.  For more information please contact Monica Depriest: Monica@gohlprogram.com

I’ll be present also to follow-up on my own therapy.

So with that I look forward to meeting you and hope that you’ll give yourself the opportunity to feel better. Sometimes it takes pain to get rid of it. It’s a process of not only healing but believing in yourselves enough to understand that’s it’s possible rather than impossible and pain being the rest of your lives.

To be continued…


Review – Gohl Program 

By Twinkle VanFleet

Part 1 – https://rsdadvisory.com/2016/10/31/review-gohl-program-part-1/

Part 2 – https://rsdadvisory.com/2016/11/06/review-gohl-program-part-2/

 

 

Review – Gohl Program | Part 2

Review – Gohl Program | Part 2

By Twinkle VanFleet

Monica Depriest and Arik Gohl picked me up from my son’s home on October 23rd, 2016. My husband and I had spent the weekend there to take care of our grandson De’Mantai so his mom could enjoy some time away. I had just had a cervical steroid injection. This was my second in 8 weeks. I had only ever had Lumbar Sympathetic Nerve blocks prior and over a dozen of them. I had began with a series of 3 scheduled one week apart in 2006. It had taken 6 years for any treatment other than medication management due to Worker’s Compensation. So that I’m precise rather than confusing, these weren’t denied. Had they been denied I could appeal, instead just stalled and delayed. Since the first 2 series of 3, I’ve had one injection a year since, generally during winter and often times delayed beyond my physician’s control.

We arrived in Loomis California an area outside of Sacramento that evening.

Photos above taken 3 hours apart and the same day as the video below. November 4, 2016.

Admittedly, my body was weak and pain was high, but I hadn’t shared that yet. I tend to go off on my own, and attempt to distract myself when among others. As we arrived, Susie and her son Tommy who has RSD/CRPS, along with her son David had also arrived. Jamie and Spencer arrived later. Jamie Pearson is active in the RSD/CRPS communities, too. Arik’s wife Veronica was amazing and helped us all feel at home. Vero’s hospitality and playful spirit afforded us the ease of being less anxious and at ease among those we didn’t know. Sam Ballentyne licensed therapist and energy healer was also present during the week. Dr. Edward Glaser arrived the next morning. Dr. Glaser is the owner of Sole Supports and an engineer and DPM specializing in Podiatry and Orthotics. Another Podiatrist joined us to observe and all our therapies would begin the morning of October 24th.

16 years. 10 with a permanent Spinal Cord Stimulator (SCS) that hasn’t been turned back on since the morning of the 24th. My only blessing that has been on day in and day out since 2006. The only time it’s ever been off is to either charge a drained battery or to push past 2-3 days to allow my brain to scramble and disguise the pain signals it provided. Our brains realize it’s being tricked. Turning it off let it work better again when turning it back on.



It’s been over a week since returning.  I wasn’t suppose to ever be able to do this, at least without added pain or causing a flare-up. Lets see if I can get to the point of running one day. 2 days ago, I was still told I never will.

So what is Manual Ligament Therapy?

Are you still curious?  ANATOMY PHYSIOLOGY, PATHOPHYSIOLOGY REVIEW Ligaments: A source of musculoskeletal disorders

Review – Gohl Program | Part 1

By Twinkle VanFleet

https://rsdadvisory.com/2016/10/31/review-gohl-program-part-1/


https://gohlprogram.com/

https://gohlprogram.wordpress.com/


I know you can’t wait to learn more and I can’t wait to share it with you. Stay tuned for Review – Gohl Program | Part 3

In the meantime, here’s Jamie’s story on

Dragonflyy’s Journey

To be Continued…

Review | Gohl Program | Part 1

Review – Gohl Program

By Twinkle VanFleet

Approximately 3 weeks ago I was contacted by Barby Ingle, President of the International Pain Foundation with a program to consider. Barby sent me Dr. Edward Glaser’s phone number and a link to what the program entailed.

Those of you who know me would also know that I had to do more research on the Manual Ligament Therapy (MLT) being offered. I had to learn more! I had to try to understand the concept, and how it might work if it could. It wasn’t just the Gohl Program itself that I researched. I also pulled up each name involved. 3 of which were Dr. Glaser, Arik Gohl, and Dr. Forbes. Then I read up on Monica DePriest and her daughter Haley DePriest who had CRPS and who is well today because of the program and the techniques that Mr. Gohl’s therapy provider her. Testimonials.

http://rsds.org/tag/the-gohl-program/

See how my curiosity piqued even more? We’ve all been told that CRPS/RSD is incurable. We’ve learned that it’s also in our blood not just our bodies. I wasn’t as skeptical as some may have been because I had already, several times, researched techniques involving manual trigger point therapies, acupressure, Chinese medicine techniques and similar holistic treatments dating back to the 1800’s. I had already been treated earlier this year with the Bowen Technique.

I had become so let down by western medicine not being able to relieve my own CRPS, or specifically CRPS Type 2/Causalgia in any way other than by Lumbar Sympathetic Nerve Blocks, medications, and traditional physical therapies that only provided minimal relief, if any, that depressions worsened and hope was nowhere to be found. Since December of 2006 the only steady I had was my Medtronic Spinal Cord Stimulator which reduced or disguised enough symptoms that walking wasn’t as painful as it was prior, and pain medications could be reduced by my choice in the permanent placement.

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: Systemic Complications
CRPS is becoming the great imitator in pain medicine. This article discusses the symptomatology of the disease, including atypical presentations.
By Robert J. Schwartzman, MD

http://www.practicalpainmanagement.com/pain/complex-regional-pain-syndrome-systemic-complications

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Guidelines 4th Edition 

CRPS-guidlines-4th-ed-2013-PM

All those things I had accomplished over the years, I found little happiness in. I put on the fake it to make it mask and I wore it quite well. Who would have ever thought that I struggled so badly with suicidal ideations that even my spiritual beliefs couldn’t stop me from wanting to bail on this world.

A mid-metatarsal separation of my right foot (also known as a Lis Franc fracture) January of 2001 in an industrial injury began the last 16 years of uncertainty, loss, rejection, abandonment, failure, and secondary diagnosis’. I still had my upper body though. My hands, fingers, and arms would make up the difference. I could still write type and use social media. In 2009, 9 years after, I got a left foot accelerator pedal installed on our van to be able to drive again. Oh I tried! By that time my left leg was too weak also to drive safely.

I had already had degenerative changes in my spine, but pretended that I didn’t. My legs hurt so bad that it diverted any back pain. 3 years ago my arms started doing things I didn’t understand. Beginning with my left and worsening on the right. By the time I had an EMG my left was reduced and my right just continued to worsen. I’ve never had an EMG or nerve conduction studies on the right side. As 2016 approached the pain in my neck, shoulder, chest, upper and mid back, head, face, the sensations of pulling, tugging, ripping, intense pins and needles, paraesthesia, became so unrelenting that I really couldn’t take it anymore. Bending at the waist started a flare each and every time. I still have to work on that. I had lost feeling in my thumb, forefinger and wrist. My right hand had lost strength.

But wait! I still had my left hand and arm. If I ever needed the gift in being ambidextrous, I would really need it now more than ever to be a part of anything, offline or online.

I had unknowingly believed in hope while other’s told me I was in denial and that I had to accept all those things I wouldn’t be and couldn’t do and would never do. At a higher level of consciousness I saw the light ahead, but was conflicted by the darkness of despair.

I’m already so much better than I’ve ever been in 16 years because of MLT.

I celebrated my 48th birthday while at the program. My son drove my husband to Loomis CA to spend an hour or so with me. First time I’ve been away, on my own, anywhere in 15 years.

While I’m still wrapping my own head around it, it’s not as unbelievable as it seems. I promise.

But wait! There’s more..

To be continued…