@bulgebattler Myofascial release is physical therapy. Doctors have misunderstood living fascia for many years because when they study anatomy it's with cadavers, and they don't see living fascia that can expand. Yoga is a good example of a fascial stretch, but only if you don't stretch to the point of pain. The body will guard and overprotect if you do. Instead, this is gentle, like as if you are going to knead bread dough. You sink in with your hands, push until you find the "barrier" and hold it, and just wait for the tissue to start to slide. After that release, the therapist will change position finding the next path of tight fascia to release. You'll work though layers of this, but it's worth it. Be patient, it takes awhile, and we are all different, but you should start feeling benefits right away. At first, I got itchy skin because so many waste products were released from my dehydrated tissues. I soaked in epsom salt baths to detox which pulls it out through the skin.

I have been doing MFR a few years and doing home self treatments, and just yesterday at my physical therapy appointment, I had a breakthrough session that interconnected so many places we had worked on previously, and I felt pathways go from my neck and jaw, under the collar bone, to my chest, and diaphragm, to my hips and pelvis, my ankles, and all the way up to the base of my skull, and I felt all of it release. That happened in a one hour session, and it felt like as if I was being suspended by a parachute through the air. That's what it can do.

Guess what I can't do now....I've lost some of my ability to cause tingling in my arms because of moving the position of my head. I still feel some, but about 70 % of it is gone now. My head and neck moves better. This means that some of the fascia released around the compressed nerves in-between my collar bone and rib cage. It means that I can move my shoulder blades behind me instead of always winging forward and out to the sides. The tightness on the left side of my chest that has plagued me for years relaxed, and both sides of my chest are moving together equally now when I breathe. I am a cervical spine surgery patient, and also have a bulging lumbar disc. MFR has also released my fascial surgical path scar tissue. MFR kept my neck in better ergonomic position before my spine surgery, and my neck muscles were looser, which made it easier for my surgeon to retract during the procedure, and I had an easier recovery because of it. I didn't get the physical complications that were risks for my surgery. Surgical scar tissue is always a factor to consider in further surgeries in the same area. Tightness and neck spasms move the vertebrae and pull them out of alignment, and even fascial restrictions that crossed through my chest, pulled my thoracic vertebrae out of alignment into a functional scoliosis which my doctor could see on my back. That was corrected with MFR, and now my MRIs show a straight spine.

Don't worry. Just find the best expert level therapist that you can. This really isn't new and the MFR therapy has been around and successful for forty years. Sometimes medicine is slow to embrace change, but many doctors are recommending this for me now, including my surgeon at Mayo.