A micro movement changed everything. She was standing on ladder, a slightly unstable ladder as she was in a rush and would be quickly up and down. Reaching out a little too far for the small box on top, the ladder shifted…..The loud thud and the pain of 1000 needles of fire running from her butt to her foot alerted her to the seriousness of the fall. Limping upstairs in excruciating pain, crawling to the phone, and finally laying on the floor, she waited for her ride to the ER to come.
After several hours and scans in the Emergency Room the initial fiery needles feeling had settled into a deep ache and a loss of range of motion. Limping out of the hospital holding her bill, she began to feel the stress of realizing the fall wasn’t the only pain in the ass she now had to deal with. She could feel stress induced tension increase in her stomach causing the deep ache in her hip to transform back into the needles of fire.
Micro Movement for Healing
After a restless night she woke to an achey hip, with symptoms that fluctuated between the ache that never really went away and intermittent nerve pain down her leg. The next several months were long as she worked though Physical Therapy, which sometimes brought some temporary relief, but it never seemed to last despite her doing all of the home exercises.
Six months after the initial injury she found herself walking with a noticeable limp and consistent pain in the hip that was now moving into the low back. She had learned to ignore the pain as much as possible and get through the day, resolved that this was the beginning of the downhill slope that is aging. Another 3 months and a further decline in function, she started looking for “alternative” care……
Within 1 session she was 80% better, after 3 months she was pain free, within 6 months she was back on the slopes skiing. We did this by focusing on micro movements.
What was this alternative treatment? Micro movements. Her pain all stemmed from the fact that her sacrum could no longer move on her illium, a classic “SI Joint” issue. The original fall from the ladder had pushed her sacrum forward. Her initial “fiery needle” pain was from neural impingement. Her long term pain was due to a compensation in her gait and sitting patterns due to the fact that she could not create micro-moments between the sacrum and “hip” bone. This then caused her macro-movements to compensate.
To create the micro movements we utilized proprioceptive and awareness exercises so that her brain “knew” how to process incoming and outgoing forces though the SI Joint. We followed that up with Myofascial Stretches to restore gliding potential to the musculature surrounding the SI Joint. We finished things off with some ELDOA™ specifically for the SI Joint. Once she was pain free and moving properly though the joint again we moved on the strength and conditioning phase to return her back to an active lifestyle.
Like any good program the work was hard and required self discipline, the cost was not cheap, unless you compare it to surgery and a lifetime of medication bills. The ability to return to a normal life was priceless.
If you or anyone you know is having any muscle-skeletal related issues, be sure to look into micro-movements, myofascial stretching, and of course the ELDOA™ Method. Or just visit and come see me and we will take care of you. We offer in-person massage therapy, exercise programming, personal training and group classes. We also offer online options if you can’t make the drive.
