Laurie's Blogs.

So I hadn’t thought about using my own personal story as a blog post, but then I listened to a Physical Therapist’s podcast about a patient who had Temporomandibular Pain.  (http://www.themanualtherapist.com/2017/04/untold-physio-stories-s4e10-who-wants.html)  Facial pain, neck pain, headaches and difficulty eating were all found in the patient described.  She had physical dysfunctions with the jaw and neck and received manual therapy and exercises, which helped her neck pain, but didn’t help her facial pain.  She had however incidentally found that eating ice cream or yogurt made her face feel better.  So the therapist prescribed for her to eat these foods several times a day!  Maybe it would reset her nervous system.  She reported back that the yogurt wasn’t as effective as the ice cream (not cold enough)… but she was afraid to eat ice cream all day long as she was already starting to notice a weight gain.  So the physical therapist suggested for her to eat frozen blended bananas instead - a spoonful or two several times a day.  Well, golly!  That worked!  It took away her facial pain!  She was cured of the facial pain!

Now, as I’m scrolling through the listings of blogs I check out weekly / biweekly, I thought ‘WOW, someone else had this experience!’  So, my story, is that two summers ago, I cracked a tooth.  Not a visible crack mind you, but it quickly turned into an issue with cold and hot sensitivity.  Well, I toughed it out for about a month until I thought, ‘Something is really wrong’.  That’s when I went into my dentist.  He couldn’t see a crack, but painted the tooth with a sealant that should reduce sensitivity.  NO GO!  NO change!  So I went back in.  This time, he drilled out the existing filling, found the crack, buffed it out (who knew you could do that!), and refilled it.  He casually mentioned, “If this doesn’t work, you might end up like my wife.  She needed a root canal.”  

WHAT!??  I’m not getting a stupid root canal for this!!!

So, I’ve not been back to the dentist since, and unfortunately the pain remained the same.  I simply learned to eat food all on the left side of my mouth.  I avoid very cold foods.  I learned to tolerate hot food.  Totally normal, right?  

WRONG!

Turns out I’ve also started to develop more neck pain and some jaw achiness on my right side as well.  I tried some ‘happy thoughts therapy’  (I made that up).  And every time I’d eat something, I’d try to chew on BOTH sides of my mouth but focus on and think about the left/good side sensations and taste.  I tried thinking happy thoughts while chewing on the right side; “Isn’t it beautiful out right now?”  “I’m so happy I’m heading home”, “How luck am I to live in the country”, etc.  Well, that sort of helped.  Sort of.  It didn’t help AT ALL unless I was very conscious about it.

Then a few weeks ago, I was driving home and eating my celery and almond butter.  (Behind the scenes explanation:  I work 11 hour days on Tues & Thurs, and pack enough food to eat for my ride home as well.  Now, I know that dipping celery into almond butter MIGHT be considered distracted driving… but I’ve gotten so good at it, I don’t need to look down to do it!!)  Anyways… I dipped the celery in the almond butter and quickly popped the goopy end into my mouth, bit off a chunk, and a large bit of gooey almond butter coated the offending tooth on the right side of my mouth.  I was immediately panicked (usually, that would cause pain), but because it was so gooey, there was nothing I could do to remove the ‘offending’ goop fast enough.  So, my brain went into counter measures, and said, “Just enjoy the flavour instead”.  And I did just that!  To which I realized… I have forgotten to be tasting food with the right side of my mouth!  It’s like the taste buds were rusty!  And just like that, my tooth pain started to dissipate.  I continued to eat very flavourful food on the right side of my mouth and focus on savouring the taste.  In fact, now, I only have a bit of pressure sensitivity (like you do after getting a new filling… and since I didn’t use that tooth properly after the filling two years ago, it’s not been pressure desensitized or ‘reshaped’), but the cold sensitivity is almost gone!

It’s a long winded story with the moral being:  What are happy, pleasure causing things, that you can add into your therapy for canine patients?  Does licking peanut butter while doing a new exercise help the brain equate ‘happy’ with the exercise, or reduce pain signalling?  Maybe mixing up therapies so as to intermingle more uncomfortable therapies with relaxing / comforting ones could be beneficial.  Maybe use the TENS Machine or Alpha Stim as pain management strategies prior to exercise or in conjunction with manual therapies.  Maybe dogs get better faster than humans because their therapy sessions typically include treats!  Food for thought!  (Literally!  Ha ha!)

Until next time!

Cheers!   Laurie

PS  For more info, Members can check out Video Training 130 to see my “Back Pain Dance”.  

And for those, not wanting to see my dance, you can check out this cool video I found about Pain by one of my favourite physiotherapists, David Butler:

https://www.facebook.com/noigroup/videos/10154605323433527/?hc_ref=PAGES_TIMELINE