Myofascial Release Therapy (MFR) for treating compression and pain

Thanks, I've heard about this type of therapy. I contact a PT in my area from your link.. I sat at a job most of my life and have shortening of the gluteus medius muscle and arthritis in my facet and SI joints and one bulging disc. I'm 59 years old and walking/standing was extremely painful. Stretching/self compression and massage has helped a great deal. I am off pain meds now and the pain is not as extreme as it was 6 months ago. I Also go to the gym mostly for swimming. I used the Hydro Therapy bed at Planet Fitness. I'm on SSDI so I'm eligible for free gym membership through the Silver Sneakers Program so I have a free membership at the YMCA to swim. I'm going to a free 20 minute appointment. I'll write again in future

Thanks for the tip on free gym membership through SSDI. I too am on SSDI and will have to check into my options. Be well.

Hi @rwinney, let me know what you find out about eligibility for a free gym membership through SSDI. I would be interested. There may be an income limit for free services.

Hello @cocodab, thank you for your private message. I thought I would answer your private message in this discussion on Myofascial Release Therapy (MFR) because I believe it may be something you have not thought about and it may help relieve some of your pain. I wasn't quite sure of your question in the private message but I thought you were trying to figure out which approach to take of 2 choices. Please forgive me if I misread your message.

1. Trying cryogenic to cool down so you are not so anxious at night. They list a whole lot of positives. One negative is the price for 3 minutes. I am not familiar with cryogenic therapy - do you have a clinic name or website link?
2. Trying to go off of medications but not knowing how to do it and how to know which ones are working and which ones don't help. I think this is a discussion you really need to have with your doctor or pharmacist to see if there may be drug interactions. I'm not sure any members can answer this one.

In your profile you mentioned you have adult erb's palsy resulting from nerve damage and neuropathy. Did you have an injury that caused the nerve damage? If you read the description of this discussion and watch the video describing the treatment I think it may be something that can help you. Here's the link to the top of this discussion - https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/myofascial-release-therapy-mfr-for-treating-compression-and-pain/.

Good morning John, yes I have permanent damage from the erb’s palsy. I think that’s causes my greatest difficulties and worst pain. My arm or c-5 injury hangs enough that all muscle in neck are always tight. Did many exray and scans and Spine is well it’s all nerve damage from injury. It also caused my PN.

Good morning Trish, I'm tagging @jenniferhunter to see if she is able to offer some insight or suggestions that might be helpful for you. It sounds like you have been dealing with the related pain for a long time. Hoping you are able to find something that helps soon.

Thank you John!

@cocodab I had to look up Erb's Palsy and it seems to be a birth injury of the brachial plexus. Is that separate from your C5 injury? Am I correct in thinking the spinal cord is OK, and you have injuries to nerves outside of that? Do you have an injury at the C5 nerve root?

My experience is that I have Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (a compression of the brachial plexus) and I had an old injury from a whiplash that caused my C5C6 disc to rupture and collapse and bone spurs compressing the spinal cord. I had surgery at Mayo for cervical stenosis. I have been doing myofascial release with my physical therapist for several years for TOS before my spine surgery and for my spine condition and rehab. I have similar symptoms with tight neck muscles because of TOS that MFR helps. Some of the tightness comes from the body guarding the injury, and I catch myself doing that and relax my shoulders. The constant guarding creates tension in my neck and shoulder, and that causes misalignment or bad posture, and the body gets stuck that way. The spaces the nerves travel through between muscle and bones are small, and adding pressure there creates a problem. MFR might be something to try as it can help a lot of problems caused by compression in the body.

Did you have results from nerve and EMG testing that said the nerves were permanently damaged and the electric potentials were listed as zeros? There is a point where permanent damage happens. Nerves can sometimes recover after decompression through therapy, etc. and peripheral nerves ( those outside of the spinal cord) have some ability to regenerate. I had some damage because my spinal cord was compressed for 2 years and I've recovered well. I did loose a lot of arm and shoulder muscle that I am still working to rebuild, and I've probably regained a little more than half of what I lost in the 2 years since my surgery. I did not have any nerve root compression, but with my disc that had collapsed 50% of it's height, if I was side bending my neck, the bones would touch the nerve root and send sharp pain down my arm. Sometimes spine patients get arthritis or bone spurs in the area around the nerve roots
where they exit the spine.

Here are some links that may be of interest. The first is about peripheral nerve regeneration. The last link is from an MFR expert in the John Barnes methods that lists Erb's Palsy as something that MFR can treat.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2770804/
https://trainingandrehabilitation.com/how-truly-treat-thoracic-outlet-syndrome/
https://monadnockmyofascialrelease.com/who-benefits-from-mfr/

Hi Jennifer, nice to meet you and find someone either close to what this is because their are few. The actual erb’s palsy was a result of surgery. The surgeon cut the nerve at the end of the surgery at doing a corpectomy. Had a EMG showed the damage but I woke up from surgery with a completely dead right limb. It after 10 years has regained to about 50 percent but hangs on my neck and makes me feel like I am carrying my arm and by mid day can’t hold my head up.
I have and can move my right arm but I actually see it as a useless limb of pain. Believe me I have tried everything I know but if anything new what to radar out there. A bit more on my situation and thank you will read the link.

@cocodab This sounds like a complex problem, and it sounds like your shoulders and neck muscles are weak. It might not be a problem of compression, and instead nerves that are damaged or missing that in turn caused muscle wasting. I understand the fatigue from that, but what I've been through doesn't come close to your experience. The surgical scar tissue also creates tightness and the muscles can't move correctly, so that will add to the problem of weakness and exhaustion and there could be some nerve compression issues from that. MFR can help release the tightness of fascial scar tissue and it might be worth a try to see if it helps. You could have had nerve regeneration and have compression from scar tissue affecting that. My neck periodically gets tight around my surgical scar and I stretch it and release it. It sounds like you have had some regeneration, but not enough for a recovery. I'm not a doctor, and I can't diagnose that, and it is probably something that is being researched in regenerative medicine.

I have also run across a website for a practice of a few surgeons who graft nerves from other parts of the body. I have no experience with this and I don't know any patients who have seen them, but I found the website after another patient recommended a doctor and I looked him up. The website lists procedures they can do and surgery for the brachial plexus is listed as a grafting procedure. I had contacted a researcher at Mayo asking if they had a similar procedure because I know someone who is paralyzed at the level of the diaphragm, and the researcher at Mayo said they did not have a nerve grafting procedure yet for patients. These doctors say they are the only ones doing this in the country and they have a procedure for brachial plexus injuries. Here is the link. https://www.advancedreconstruction.com/brachial-plexus-injuries-program/

Have you tried physical therapy? After 10 years, perhaps no one thinks about it anymore, and a lot of doctors don't understand myofascial release. I know from my experience that MFR made it easier for my neurosurgeon to do his decompression surgery because the muscles in my neck were looser and would be easier to retract. I had asked my surgeon what I could do to make his job easier and he told me I could stretch the skin in my neck and told me where his incision would be. When he checked my neck, he said it was loose and that was because of the MFR I'd been doing for a few years, then after I was recovered enough post op, MFR helped get everything moving better again. I also wonder if there is any type on neurostimulation therapy that could trigger muscles and aid in muscle development and if MFR could open up the spaces and circulation for those nerves to exist. Your body might be compensating for nerves that are gone and haven't regenerated. The question then remains if the nerves have enough function to service those muscles.