The medical world begins to acknowledge fascia

When we think of research on pain and how it manifests within the physiology of the human body, myofascial tissues have been a persistently understudied part of the picture.

The following is from Dr. Helene Langevin, M.D., Directorof the National Centre for Complimentary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) in the U.S. ” Myofascial tissues are potentially involved in nearly all common chronic musculoskeletal pain conditions, like chronic low-back pain, neck and shoulder pain, headache, and temporomandibular disorders. But our understanding of myofascial pain is severely hampered by a basic lack of tools to differentiate between normal and abnormal myofascial tissues. “

While this is a promising advancement in the relationship of chemical and surgery medicine with mind-body medicine, the medical world needs help with the language and basic understanding about fascia and connective tissues. Thousands of practitioners and their clients around the world have known about (and for thousands of years) taught about fascia before a research lab or test-tube told us anything. Fascia is a continuum, a system, it houses your sensorial nerve endings, it is the organ of being and gives you sentience. It is fluid, and hence, will change with pressure and tension and movement so there is nothing “abnormal” about it. This kind of cartesian dualism thinking is not going to work when understanding fascia. It is my hope that the NCCIH includes fascial researchers like Dr. Robert Schleip, John Sharkey, and Sue Hitzmann, integral anatomists like Gil Hedley, and Pilates, ELDOA, Feldenkrais, Tai Chi, some yoga, and MELT Method teachers and their clients as well.