Solve Chronic Pain Problems Quickly
Even on the Air!
Powerful Patient, 2010 Week 24
Host: Joyce Graff, http://powerfulpatient.org, editor@vhl.org 800-767-4845
Tasso Spanos |
Chronic pain can become debilitating. Specialists may have checked your bones, nerves, blood vessels, discs or arthritis and found nothing, but pain may be stored in the muscles, triggering distant parts of the body. Tasso Spanos, a Certified Myofascial Trigger Point Therapist , will talk with Joyce about pain. He is willing to take calls on the air to see if he can resolve your chronic pain through targeted exercise and stretching.
About our guest:
Tasso Spanos is an expert in myofascial trigger point therapy (MTPT). He studied with Dr. Janet Travell, physician to President John Kennedy, and has practiced MTPT for more than thirty years. He is one of the founders of the Center for Pain Treatment in Pittsburgh, and teaches during the summers at the Chautauqua Institute in New York state.
About MTPT for Chronic Pain
President Kennedy was on crutches for two years during his time in the Senate. Dr. Travell gave him exercises that got him off his crutches in two weeks. The principle of trigger point therapy is to identify the injured muscle that is triggering the pain – sometimes far from the site where the pain is felt.
During this interview, Joyce asked him about her nagging lower back pain. She has asked the doctors about it, but they do not find anything worrisome on an MRI, and no significant signs of arthritis that might be causing the pain. Acupuncture does provide relief for a week or two, but then it comes back.
Tasso suggested an exercise – basically a Yoga “lunge” pose – to strengthen the psoas muscle in the abdomen, behind the organs, that attaches to the vertebra called T12, the 12th (low) thoracic vertebra and L1-5 the lumbar vertebrae. She did the exercise with Tasso during the interview, and in fact felt relief! (She has been doing this exercise faithfully since, to good effect.)
Tasso stressed that you should always see a Western doctor first, to determine whether there is an underlying medical condition, such as arthritis or a tumor, that might require treatment first. But in a case where the western doctor can’t find a cause, then MTPT is definitely worth trying. Trigger point irritations do not show up on scans, but they are still very real and very treatable. This treatment is especially helpful following sports injuries or surgeries where the muscles have been injured.
Tasso has prepared a DVD where he teaches 100 stretches to address 100 different kinds of pain. For listeners of this program, you can obtain a copy for $20 by calling his office at 412-431-9180.
If you would like to find a practitioner of myofascial trigger point therapy in your area, please see the National Association of Myofascial Trigger Point Therapists at www.myofascialtherapy.org and click on “Find a Therapist”. The program is pretty specific. If your zip code doesn’t work, try the full name of the city and state, or even just the state. I found only four Professional Members in Massachusetts.
Tel. 412-431-9180
www.centerforpaintreatment.com
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