Letter to a Stressed Patient

WHY AM I FALLING APART?  I AM ONLY IN MY 40’s!

Osteopathic findings in a Patient under a neurologist diagnosed with an unusual post-viral inflammatory syndrome. 

Diagnosis: Sensory symptoms with generalised sensation of weakness and headache – no definite signs of central or peripheral nervous system pathology

Stress Response Your Sympathetic Nervous System is showing signs of being over stimulated.   Over time this can lead to a stress response called the General Adaptation Syndrome and cause chronic fatigue and exhaustion.

Postural Disturbance This state of affairs can be caused by postural mechanical disturbance which can become self reinforcing. Like a loop.

The physical findings that may suggest this are all consistent with an overall compression down through your midline axis from your face to tail bone. These include:IM spinal segments

A flexed and locked thoracic spine which revs up the sympathetic ganglion housed in that part of the spine. This can put your nervous system into a stress response.

A compressed hyper-mobile neck which can irritate nerve roots in the neck causing your arm and hand symptoms. Consequently your shoulder girdle is out of balance which puts further stress on the neck joints.

A severely compressed and locked upper neck and cranial base This will cause a reduction in the efficiency of the calming side of your autonomic nervous system, the parasympathetics, due to vagus nerve irritation at the occipito-mastoid sutures between the occiput and the temporal bones. The vagus nerve innervates all the organs in your thorax, abdomen and some of the pelvis, and if not working efficiently can cause a tightening of blood vessels and a sluggish, toxic effect on your digestive system.

A Unilateral Cross Bite  This situation is made worse by a unilateral cross bite on your left dental arches which can disrupt normal cranial base function quite severely, and cause over clenching of the teeth and a further ‘revving up’ of the stress response known in dental terms as parafunction of the chewing muscles.  This can severely disturb sleep patterns leading to further exhaustion.

A Clicking Jaw  You have a clicking jaw which may indicate the beginnings of pathology in one of your temporomandibular joints (jaw joints). These joints alone can cause severe global symptoms through the body, and, through overstimulation of the trigeminal nerves in the jaw cause headaches, muzzy-headedness, poor concentration, poor muscle co-ordination and balance, and sometimes quite severe anxiety states.

A Cranial Base Strain You have an assymetrical strain (a twist) through the spheno-IMAGE SKULLbasilar symphysis (a joint in the middle of your skull) and possibly a compression (a serious osteopathic mechanical lesion) which because of this joint’s close proximity to such structures as the pituitary stalk and the hypothalamus can upset the endocrine system (glands) and global physiological function.

Post Virus Whether a virus is causing many of these problems is not possible for me to confirm directly but your nervous tissue is certainly hot and irritated above the norm. However, many of your symptoms could be explained osteopathically in terms of long term mechanical disturbances which are certainly putting your body under some strain. A viral attack may have just pushed your body beyond the limits of adaptation.

Jaw Joint Centric Rebalancing My feeling is that the Mojo (neuromuscular reprogramming) appliance that I recommend is a first step to protect your jaw joints and,tmj-mojo_standard with cranial osteopathy, bring them into balance in order to help your body and skull release and realign. If this is achieved this will help remove the disruptive elements from the jaw whilst I improve the function of your cranial base and spine which will help your nervous system calm down and your immune system to fight back.

Facial Bone Restrictions Whether there was significant trauma to your facial bone complex during the BCC operation is hard to say but certainly there is severe disruption of both your palatine bones at the back of your upper jaw which connect up into the sphenoid bone behind your eyes and thus the spheno-basilar symphysis which could put a strain through your cranial base and higher centre functions as mentioned above. Your cheek bones were also severely functionally blocked and there seems to be low grade inflammation/infection remaining around the scar tissue to the right side of your nose.

My aim is to mobilise restricted joints and tissues throughout your body, including your skull, jaw and face, that may have locked you into a stress response.

My commendation to you in your comittment to seeking a resolution to your health problems. As we discussed, looking into mercury tissues levels and detox may be another avenue worth pursuing.

Kind regards

Tim Clark
Osteopath

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