Chronic Tension and Pain - A new explanation and longer relief

It is not unusual for clients to blame their pain on muscles, posture, or where they store their stress. Please don't blame. Blame never solves problems. Instead, let's address the common source of this pain through compassionate understanding of our bodies. Then, let me share with you a new therapy that helps alleviate this pain, so that one day we can learn to prevent it. ​

Don't Blame Muscles
Muscles are not out to get us, they work for us. Muscles are responsive, protective workhorses driven by us and certain environments. Muscles in pain deserve R&R and a purple heart for all that we put them through.

Don't Blame Posture or Stress Storage
I hear many clients say to me, “I hold my stress here” or “I have poor posture.” Their tension is real, but it isn’t where stress is held per se. What they are likely feeling is the result of joint instability that leads to postural distortion that their already overworked muscles can't support without conscious attention. When a joint is unstable, for any reason, our muscles quietly hold on to give support. Over time, the muscles get tired and overworked, dehydration sets in and inflammation begins. Where there is inflammation there is pain. Suddenly, you have trouble maintaining a good posture or think you must be holding stress there. Stress and your posture may be a cause of pain, but just as often if not more so, they are victims of chronic tension and pain, not the cause. 

Muscle Clarity

• Muscles are inseparable muscle-tendon units that connect from joint to joint.
• Tendons are connective tissue. 
• At the muscle belly in the center, there's much more muscle than connective tissue. 
• At the tendon where the muscle attaches to the bone, there's much more connective tissue than muscle.

Pain Clarity

• Without nerves and their associated glial cells, you can't feel physical pain.
• With nerves, you cannot feel pain without some kind of inflammation.
• Nerves appear to end in the connective tissue according to early science, so muscles can't be the source of pain, but they can suffer as a result.To make an absurd point: If you removed all the connective tissue of a muscle, then cut that muscle with a dull, jagged knife, you'd feel nothing. 

Joint Instability
Our joints are a major hub of activity. Lots of things can affect our joints causing instability. Overuse over time of our muscles is a leading cause of joint instability. Overuse can cause joint dehydration, inflammation, and destabilization of tendon attachments. Then, our already overworked muscles step in to support the joint, doubling down on their already overused state. Then, the bones step in to help.

Down To The Bone
Aside from their marrow, our bones are the deepest connective tissue in the body. I call them hard fascia as compared to most fascia which is soft. Our bones may also be the least understood anatomical structure. If muscles are accused of being wicked masterminds, bones aren't considered at all aside from being taken for granted as inert scaffolding. Seems to me we have it backwards, for muscles are our servants and bones are incredibly sensitive and intelligent regulatory engines. So what do we do? We fear to hear what our bones are saying!

Fear and Pain
We tend to fear what we do not understand. I've never encountered more fear from people until I started talking about their issues coming up from the bones, using the dreaded, misunderstood umbrella term "arthritis." By using that word, I inadvertently contribute to their pain because fear exacerbates pain. Health professionals call it catastrophizing. Fear faced is a fear evaporated, so let's get to it, starting with the distilled definition of Arthritis: inflammation at or near a joint. That's it. And guess what? I've found that most arthritis is actually calcific tendonitis. Same thing. One begets fear, the other does not.

The Circular Path of Musculoskeletal Pain
Without your awareness of any symptoms, muscles are already in chronic contraction in any situation where the bones - or joints - are saying, "Hey, I need help here!" When the bones need help, the muscles obey. If muscles are overworked, they become tight which can pull joints out of alignment. If back or neck muscles are the overworked ones, it's the spine that gets affected - leading to poor posture. If muscle tightness is too severe or goes on for too long, it can destabilize their tendon attachments on the bone. The smart, caring bones step in and lay down "scar tissue" to help secure that tendon's connection. Ever wondered what a muscle knot really is? When muscles have been too tight for too long, the infamous "knot" forms at the center of the muscle belly, practically strangling the nerves of the connection tissue, and voila! We have muscle pain. That knot results in more pull on the tendons causing more joint destabilization. See the vicious cycle? Interestingly, ironing out the knots is not the solution to muscle pain, it gives only temporary relief, like a 15-minute break after 16-hours of working.

When Bones Lay Down Supportive Tissue
I don't have to convince you that the skin (also connective tissue) will lay down scar tissue to help heal a cut in the skin. Well, the bones do the same thing. But because bones are more dense and also mineralized, that scar tissue takes the form of what is called in laymen's terms, a bone spur. Science labels those spurs differently and by too many names depending on their location, but it's all the same thing: calcifications as a result of the wound healing process that results in scar tissue. It may be helpful to know two main medical terms for when bones lay down scar tissue: Osteophytes are bone spurs located inside the joint between the ends of bones (although in some joints they are called lesions or pincers!); enthesophytes are bone spurs located where tendons attach to the bone, most often at or near a joint. Both are the result of the intelligent and sensitive bones of the body trying to handle overuse, stress, or trauma of some kind. And because bones are hard and mineralized, the scar tissue they lay down often has teeny, tiny sharp jagged edges. <-- This is key and this is why we are here. Let's take a look at why a sharpie, as I call them, would be a problem for muscles.

Don't Poke A Sleeping Muscle
Decades ago, science wanted to learn what would make a muscle relax. To do that, they had to first figure out what would make a muscle contract or tighten. To do that, they pinned a muscle fiber on each end and tried various chemicals and methods to get it to spasm. Nothing worked consistently. The day they took the sharp end of a pin and started poking the thing, they learned that after a number of pokes, the fiber would contract. Well, duh. If I kept poking you, repeatedly, you would likely contract on me, too!

It's All About The Sharpies
If you have something super sharp inside your body, even if it's really tiny (Ever been cut by a baby's fingernail? So tiny and yet so painful!), it's going to stab or cut whatever gets in its way. The kind of tissue getting slashed determines the kind of pain and symptoms. Regardless, to get cut or stabbed is to bring about the inflammatory process of the body called "healing" - and inflammation often means pain. Whatever the many causes of sharpies, it sets up a non-stop harm/healing cycle. 

Sharpie Therapy
Until we learn to prevent this chronic pain cycle, the therapy to arrest the pain involves finding then dulling, melting, or otherwise subduing the sharpies. By so doing, the muscles relax, the inflammation and "cloudy" congestion that’s usually also there is disbursed, and relief is felt as healing begins and the cycle finally ends. In clients with thin muscles or connective tissue, it is easier to palpate for these “sharp” conditions and also easier to change them. Clients with dense or healthy and strong connective tissue are more of a challenge as it is like trying to feel detail through a rubber wall, but the therapy still works even if it takes a little longer.

Case Study
One such “rubbery” challenge was an athletic fella who was coming in fairly regularly, and overall improvements in his body were reflected in his competition scores and post-event recoveries. However, there were areas of pain and restriction that just wouldn’t go away. One day, he entered the office looking thinner. He had changed his diet and was taking a little break from intense athletic activities. And for the first time, because his tissues were less dense, my fingers started finding things on his bones. He didn’t just have inflamed sharp edges on the bone in the usual locations, he had them everywhere and in difficult to access locations, like the ribs under the collarbone. However, he also had grit and determination. Between the two of us, we ground down every one of those “sharpies” and he’s doing great today. I feel like a proud mama as he does extraordinary things like ice climb, post-hurricane cleanup, and raising a family.

Prevention
I hope to one day have definitive insights for prevention. Awareness, though, is an important first step to helping people get out of pain. As for why our bones are talking to us in larger numbers in earlier years, I don’t know, but emotional and mental stress is high on my list of suspects. There is no doubt in my experience that much comes from our diets. The question is whether dietary triggers are causative or just aggravators. What I know is that sometimes our sharpies form on the bones as some kind of allergic reaction to chemicals or foods. I often refer to such people as having "porcupine bones." Even in myself, taming the sharpies on my sinus bones tamed my allergic rhinitis that flared up as a result of an episode of excess sugar in my diet at a time when I was vulnerable.

For now, I suggest that we all listen a little more closely to our bodies:

• Rest and drink plain water when we are tired;
• Eat healthy and clean foods when we are hungry, and only when we are hungry;
• Keep our distance from people who create toxic emotional environments; and
• Take a break and play when we are stressed.

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A Word About Gout
Sometimes, there are tiny sharp objects in the soft tissues just outside the bones. They can cause their own fair share of pain troubles, so it's important to include them here, but these are usually caused by diet combined with cellular dehydration. (Please drink just enough plain water, daily.) A buildup of uric acid “crystals” is one type of sharp object that, in high enough concentrations, may get labeled as gout or gouty arthritis. Long before gout is painful enough to be identified as a diagnosis, its beginnings are often the reason for underlying pain and tension (stiffness) in many people. Wouldn't it be nice to get those crystals out of the tissues before they accumulate to the point of being diagnosed as an illness? Well, crystals in the soft tissues and fascial fluids can be "melted" with the right "touch."

X-Rays and Other Fancy Tests
While small, sharp calcifications can create havoc with neighboring tissues, including nerves, lymph, fascia, and our muscles, for a very long time they are usually too small to be identified even by today's best imaging machines. If you don't think something that small, that deep, could possibly hurt, may I remind you of the most painful of all cuts - the paper cut? But they can be found by skilled palpation.

The Exercise Dilemma
Dulling down the sharpies is the best solution, for now, and best done with manual therapies. More exercise is not the answer for it adds to the overuse syndrome that often starts the cycle, causing a buildup of scar tissue - which can then form a callus that only insulates the sharpie. Pain medications are not the answer, either, for they mask the problem allowing it to grow worse. Better to get rid of the sharp edges and then seek to alter any lifestyle issue that caused them to begin with. I've had a few stress- and trauma-caused sharpie flareups, myself, and I've palpated and treated them as well as altered my lifestyle in order to prevent or reduce the number and size of flareups. In fact, it was through helping my clients that I discovered my own sharpie problem - and the first solution I employed that helped was to reduce exercise.

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Originally posted 5/20/2015. Second update 6/30/2019.
As information changes, the content and latest date, up-top, will change.