Phrenic Nerve damage and paralyzed diaphragm: Anyone else have this?

Welcome to Connect, @jgreg1954 I'm tagging @allisonsnow who also has experience with phrenic nerve issues, not from radiation but rather from a tumor.

JGreg, it must be scary to have your diaphragm paralyzed and decreasing lung capacity. Are there lung or breathing exercises that might help like those that people with lung conditions do?

Hello- I'd like to introduce @tboyd03. She is having problems and hopefully some of you might be able to help direct her in the right direction and offer some help!

@giller198 I hope you feel better soon. Fascial work is amazing. Have them show you how you can do some of it at home so you can progress faster.

Well, forget the fascial blaster. The therapist I saw last week worked some using the Bowen Technique. It kind of uses a gentle approach like fascial. The therapist is going this week for more training. I go for session two in the morning. Have a good one.

@giller198 Yes, fascial work takes time to work through the layers. I've done this for 3 years for thoracic outlet syndome and have made a lot of progress, but still have a long way to go. MY PT had an opinion about the fascia blaster and said it was too aggressive and had caused injuries and lawsuits. If you tear the fascia, you'll create scar tissue which just makes it worse and binds it together. That is why it must be gentle and sustained to release fascial layers without tearing them. I'm not familiar with the Bowen technique. Keep at it, and ask what you can do at home to help. FYI- it takes a hands on training to learn how to do this well. If you don't find that wit the PT you're seeing, you might want to look for an expert level trained person. I don't think someone can just read about it, and then understand how to do it as it constantly changes directions and what you do one day may be entirely different than the next.

Well, Jennifer, the therapist I went to Friday is striking out on her own at the end of the year. She is going to get more info on fascial and after she gets settled will get in touch. Have you ever heard of a Fascial Blaster? Saw another therapist today who does the Bowen technique. She worked on me some and would like to see me again next week. She says she has had some good results with Bowen. Went for a swim this afternoon but didn't notice any change in my breathing. Might have to give it more time???

@giller198 That's great! It's nice to hear from you. Fascial work can really change your life. It may take a long time to open up the layers of restrictions, so be patient. Ask your therapist what you can do at home to help yourself. You can progress a lot faster if you do home stretches at the places that need intervention. Remember it's a gentle easy stretch that you might have to hold for 20 minutes before it starts to release, but you'll learn what that feels like and get a lot of body awareness from it. I just swim for exercise and don't compete. I used to be a lifeguard and did synchronized swimming when I was younger. I've had some asthma/allergy breathing issues that affected me and made me work harder at breathing. I even went back to Mayo and saw a pulmonologist. I do allergy shots, including for allergies to my cats, but that wasn't enough and I didn't know it was the cause of the problems and made the phlegm stickier, so I had trouble getting rid of it. I still have my kitties, but now I sleep with a surgical procedure mask that filters out 99% of particles down to .micron just like a HEPA filter in addition to the HEPA filter I have in the room. That is helping a lot. I start using my neck muscles when I can't breathe and it just compounds the chest tightness. Since I made these changes, I breathe easier and my therapist said I have a lot less of the neck spasms that pull my first rib upward where it doesn't belong. The masks are 3M # 1820 Procedure Masks with > 99% @ 0.1 Micron particles for bacterial filtration efficiency. I think I'll make better progress now that my lungs are working better.