One of the most interesting speakers at the convention was Dr Bernie Filner. This man used to be an anesthesiologist. He met and learned about trigger points from Janet Travell and later delivered 250 thousand trigger point injections, one of her preferred methods of TrP deactivation. After he himself experienced the discomfort of this procedure he looked to find another less painful method to relieve the pain.

Dr Filner was one of the first to start using cold laser or LLLT (low level laser therapy). In just the last 4 years he has inactivated 150,000 trigger point in his Rockville, MD office. One of his patients was Dr Jay Shah. Shah was so impressed with the relief to his heel pain that he began to study the trigger point phenomenon in his NIH laboratory in Bethesda MD. It was Dr Shah who subsequently published his pivotal body of work on the ‘biochemical milieu’ surrounding the trigger point. Remember the hollowed out acupuncture needle?

The cold laser can switch-off trigger points up to a depth of 3 inches, but it can’t penetrate clothing or bone. Dr Filner wants it to be research-tested by Jay Shah but there are no moves afoot. The system can be bought or leased. At present there are none available in the North East to my knowledge. I will be looking into my scope of practice to see if I can legally operate one in the state of Massachusetts. I’ll keep you posted.

Funnily enough, there was another exhibitor demonstrating ‘Shockwave Therapy’. This is another European invention showing promising, but research unproven, results for trigger point deactivation. If all these gadgets prove effective we manual therapists may have to invest to avoid ending up like the dinosaurs. Of course, we will still need educated palpation skills to physically find the trigger point location first.

Dr Filner was one of many presenters who stressed the importance of checking out the feet for hyperpronation. I got into Posture Control Insoles, as marketed by Posture Dynamics, at a JBMT conference in Seattle WA. in 2002. I was convinced of their efficacy and had great results with them for the ubiquitous Morton’s foot condition. The full set of PCI testing equipment has been sitting in my garage since I arrived in MA (we just don’t have any room in our 360NMT clinic rooms). I am going to dust off the box and reacquaint myself with the procedure as soon as I can. This hyperpronation topic is worth quite a few more blog entries.

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The day’s schedule started with the very excellent Tasso Spanos, CMTPT, from Pittsburgh. Tasso’s myopain career goes back to the seventies and he can, and does, share many great personal Janet Travell stories. His animated topic centered on the weird and whacky non-painful things that trigger point can do, including a droopy eyelid that he spotted and treated on his bank teller by reaching through the teller window and grabbing her SCM (to her surprise).

First some of the non-painful things that trigger points can do:

• Ptosis of the eyelid
• Blurred or double vision
• Dimming of perceived light
• Reddening of the conjunctiva
• Excessive lacrimation
• Dry cough
• Sinus congestion
• ‘swollen gland’
• ipsilateral sweating of the forehead

These can all be caused by trigger points in the sternal head of the sternocleidomastoid

What about:

• postural dizziness
• hearing impairment
• stuffiness or itchiness in the ear
• dysmetria (inability to judge weight)

These can all be caused by trigger points in the clavicular head of SCM.

My question to you is, do you have the ability to distinguish the sternal from the clavicular heads of SCM with your fingers and thumbs?

If the answer is no you better stay tuned for our up-coming Myopain Seminars.

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The attendees trickled into Chicago within windows of calm that alternated with lashings of rain, hail and even an almost unheard of tornado warning. I arrived three hours late and funnily enough hooked up with the same people I was due to ride-share with three hours earlier. The organizers had some very switched on transport guys who tracked us down at each chaotic terminal, herded us by cell and delivered us safely in the storm. Well done Mary B and Mary Jo S for organizing this.

It was an extra warm welcome when we finally arrived at the Indian Lakes Resort.

Some background on NAMTPT. This organization prides themselves on their high standards. As a double certified NMT my credentials were still considered not good enough to join as a professional member a few years back. I had to do the full Myopain Seminar certification to achieve this. Does this make the NMT certification redundant? No. But it is still a partial steppingstone. The CMTPT standard is tougher to obtain, and involves much more study and more expertise.

You don’t need to be a graduate massage therapist and you don’t use massage techniques here in NAMTPT-land. Because of this it may turn out to physically prolong our careers. Less injuries will occur when you employ techniques like Stretch and Spray as taught by Jeff Lutz from Pittsburgh, and elbow work, jackknobber and ball rolling to rid those pesky trigger points, as taught by Mary Biancalana and Sharon Sauer. These two fine ladies have recently authored a low back pain self-help book to continue the Clair Davies series of books. A free copy was in the conference pack.

The audience here at the conference all seem highly educated, skilled and seemingly all run successful businesses. The atmosphere is like one big happy family, making it easy for a new boy like me to fit in. That is until I give my presentation tomorrow.

Stew

PS Our esteemed President, Erika Bourne, also from Boston, has still not arrived after her flight got canceled.

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