"One Muscle Can Change Your Life"

The central nervous system is a communication system made up of the brain, brain-stem, spinal cord, nerve roots, nerve tracts, dendrites and proprioceptors. The body has a purpose for everything it does, including muscle tension and discomfort. The tissues of the body are richly endowed with these proprioceptors which under normal muscle contraction, monitor tension, stretch, and minute functions of movement, pressure, and compression. This allows for constant surveillance of motion, tension and load levels. Certain receptors only become active during inflammation as part of the protective mechanism. These receptors can also communicate injury or "overload" in the system. The initial reactions could be muscle tension, joint stiffness, or severe pain and swelling. These symptoms can come and go. As time passes and if the cause of the problem is not corrected, the communication or symptoms will get worse. A diagnosed disease will then follow and constant drug therapy or surgery will be required.

If the body can develop a way to compensate by shifting the stress to another tissue, the symptoms may dissipate without medication. This lulls the individual into a false sense of sell-being until the next stress or injury. This process continues throughout our lives as we adapt into more complex strategies. With age, the accumulation of problems reduces the tissue options and our ability to adapt or compensate.

When a body part is stressed past its capacity to handle the load, there are predictable results: 1) The tissue tears, 2) The tendinous attachment pulls loose causing a fracture, or 3) The proprioceptors inhibit the contracting muscle to cause it to "give way". These are protective mechanisms that occur in order to reduce the amount of damage to the tissue. Once this occurs, the injured muscle stays inhibited and other tissues take on the added load in the adaptive process. If this compensation process is successful, the symptoms may disappear, but the imbalance remains permanent until such time as the problem is defined and corrected.

With the reduction in the muscles ability to contract under load, the connective tissue, ie.,ligaments, cartilage, bursa, disc and bone are forced to take on more of the burden of support. These tissues are not designed for this, so the proprioceptive centers create pain. This forces the person to reduce the amount of stress placed on the tissues or restrict movement in the joint. Repeated stress creates inflammation and swelling as the body tries to restrict movement and cushion the joint by increasing fluid to the area. At this point you get a diagnosis of bursitis, tendonitis, capsulitis, myofascitis arthritis, bulging discs, or stress fracture.

The common therapy for these problems is anti-inflammatants, pain pills, and therapy modalities like ultrasound, Russian Stim, or interferential. These therapies help to reduce the symptoms, even completely remove them for a time. The problem is the dysfunction of the muscle system is still present. These forms of therapy assist the body in the adaptive process, but do little to correct the problem. The muscles are still not capable of supporting the joint under a workload. Eventually the system becomes so inflamed that any movement of the joint is painful, thus the need for chronic anti-inflamant medication use.

When the protective mechanism is removed through the use of medication, the body can no longer monitor the tissue or feel the pain. This allows more stress to occur in a joint. With the loss of the protective mechanisms, degeneration of the joint is accelerated leading to degenerative joint disease.