Repetitive Slouch Syndrome

I work with a lot of clients who suffer with long-term chronic pains, and a disturbing number of them complain of very similar pain patterns... Pain between the shoulder blades that spreads upward towards the neck; numbness and pain in their arms and wrists; low back pains (generally towards one side or the other).

I know these symptoms well, because I have them myself... It's probably just that dreaded disease AGE (pronounced Ay-Gee-Eee), but maybe there is another cause... Maybe their is something that we can actually control...

"Sit up straight!" scolded you mother... and she was right.

Most of us have atrocious posture. Most of us slouch in our chairs, hunch over our keyboards, and crease our necks to look at our computer monitors for hours every day.
We are constantly and persistently molding ourselves into a "whiplashed-fetal" shape that is reminiscent of our origins in our mother's wombs ... but with a neck thrown back as if we've been rear ended in a car wreck.

The problem with our chronic slouching is that our postural muscles (the muscles in our bodies that help us maintain normal sitting and standing posture) were not designed to be held in the whiplashed-fetal shape for prolonged periods of time: When we slouch, the postural muscles of our backs are stretched. When we slouch, the postural muscles of our fronts are shortened. If we slouch long enough the muscles of our backs begin to think that their "normal" length is long, and the muscles of our fronts begin to think that their "normal" length is short. Add to this the strain that we are putting on our necks (the whiplashed part of this posture) and the result is muscles that do not work as well as they should, and (of more immediate concern to those in pain) muscles that tend to hurt (a lot) and muscles that often constrict the nerves that pass through them.

Of course the preceding paragraphs are a radical simplification of what is "really" going on, but I think you get the point. Bad posture (over the long run) molds your body shape, and that can lead to pain.

With Trigger Point Therapy and Myofascial Release techniques I can generally help reduce a client's pain... but for lasting relief my clients have work on their own to improve their posture. They have to unlearn the habits that led to their pain - through Yoga, through Pilates, through Tai Chi - many programs teach good posture (the "best" one is the program that the client will actually adopt and make a part of their life) but the main point of pursuing any of these programs is that my clients learn to sit up straight and stop slouching. In many cases that is "the cure" that will bring them relief over the long run.
(Image Copyrights: Nicholas Monu and Fred Goldstein from iStockPhoto.com)

The Attack of the Massage Robots

It was bound to happen sooner or later; a robot has been developed to perform what is essentially Trigger Point Therapy.

Pictures of the Melius Therbo Robot show a device that looks a bit more like a contraption for inflicting rather than relieving pain, but the theories behind the device are sound, and with a good operator it might just work.

Waking up in pain

If you regularly wake up in the morning with pain that wasn't there the night before, then there is a good chance that the culprit is the position in which you sleep.

We've all seen mattress advertisements extolling the virtues of specific sleep surfaces, but only a few of these sources address the correct posture for sleeping. If a health care professional has talked to you about your sleep posture, they've probably focused on the sound advice: "Don't sleep on your stomach!"

Sleeping on your stomach can irritate your neck and back due to the sustained rotation of the neck to one side while sleeping in this position. If you use a pillow while sleeping on your stomach, then you are also pushing the neck into a rotated and backward extended position. In either case, you are twisting your cervical spine, you are stretching all of the neck muscles on one side of your body, and you have shortened all of the neck muscles on the other side of your body. Hold this position for several hours each night and you've a good a great long term recipe for pain.

The pain that you experience may be due to the pinching of a nerve by a vertebrae, but it can also be caused by over-stretched and chronically shortened muscles.

Good posture is not just about the position of your spine;
good posture is also about the position of your muscles.

To avoid pain, avoid sleeping positions that overly lengthen and shorten your muscles. This rule applies whether you sleep on your stomach, your back, or your side. The important factor is to encourage a neutral posture; one where most of your muscles can assume their natural resting lengths.

If you sleep on your side, avoid the fetal position.

The fetal position is the human body's position of maximum flexion. When sleeping in the fetal position, most of your flexor muscles are shortened, and most of your extensor muscles are streched. Your spine is fairly happy, but your muscles aren't and they will probably tell you about it the next morning.

Sit up straight, stand up straight, and sleep straight. Easier said than done, but good advice none-the-less.

Science and Health

There is no question that in the last 150 years science has dramatically improved our knowledge of what really causes disease and pain.

Unfortunately, the scientific method that was used to gain this knowledge can't always be applied towards actually treating diseases and easing pain.

For example, a recent study indicates that intensive rehabilitation is more effective then spinal fusion for treating chronic back pain.

Does that mean that science indicates you should pursue physical therapy rather than spinal fusion if you have chronic lower back pain?

No. This is just one study, and one study is not enough to draw an absolute conclusion one way or the other. There are many factors that contribute to each person's pain, and there are variables in the skills of different surgeons and in the skills of different physical therapists. The best course to take for your own pain relief is dependent on all these factors.

Science alone can't pick your treatment path.

This study shows that a non-invasive physical technique for treating chronic pain works in some cases. Surgery was slightly more effective than the physical therapy, but there were complications in 11% of patients treated with surgery versus no complications in the rehabilitation group.

Everyone must make their own choices, but non-invasive techniques can often be pursued before those that are non-reversible and before those that have a higher risk of complications. This is a very hard choice to make when the "safer" treatment may itself be painful and may take much longer to ease your pain than the "quick fix" option, but in some cases the longer path back to health may be the better choice.

Why secondpath?

Sometime in the early-to-mid-90's I decided that I should register my own domain name. I checked out the domain name "secondstory.com" and was very happy to find that it was available.

I liked "secondstory" because my home office was on the second floor, and I kind of liked the idea that I would publish short stories on the web... stories that would only take "just a second" to read.

Unfortunately, I am a procrastinator, so by the time I got around to actually registering the URL it was gone. I recently checked out secondstory.com, and it looks like a wonderful site, so I don't feel too bad.

Disappointed that I couldn't get my first pick, I started looking for a URL close to secondstory.com that I could register. I wanted to find a "clean" URL, one where I could register .com, .net, and .org. Somehow I stumbled on secondpath. Voila!

I think secondpath's availability was actually serendipity at work. I am middle aged and ready to pursue a different path... a second path so-to-speak. If I wanted to get picky, I'm probably on my 3rd or 13th path, but second path suits my needs just fine.

Life Drawing Sketch

From 1999...

Shortly after drawing this I got engaged to my wonderful wife, and I seem to have been too busy with other pursuits to concentrate on drawing ;-)

Life Drawing Sketch

This sketch, "Untitled", was drawn on August 11th, 1998. It is graphite on paper, 11" by 14".

The hair braids and necklace set this sketch apart from most of my work from this time period.