admin, Author at Bowen Therapy in Dallas

Why does knee pain worsen with age?

Occasionally, young people, especially athletes, can develop osteoarthritis (OA) from injuries and mechanical imbalances. About 14% of Americans over the age of 24 have OA. This is characterized by the breaking down of the cartilage that protects the bones in joints. But after age 65, this number increases to 34%.

Many people as they age gain weight, which can load the joints, especially knees, with more pounds than they were designed to bear. This creates more wear and tear on knee joints. Also, your muscles shrink in size by about 40% between the ages of 20 and 60, resulting in loss of muscle strength and joint support. This leaves you more vulnerable to knee pain.

Another factor is the number of aging people with metabolic syndrome. This inflammatory condition of the body, characterized by high blood pressure and high blood glucose levels, sets the scene for widespread inflammation in the body, including the synovial membrane in knee joints.

If you haven’t developed knee pain with age, there are steps you can take to ensure that you stay pain-free. Research has shown that doing these two things can help you avoid knee pain with age:

Exercise more: A joint needs pressure on it to stay healthy (like strength training and walking). Also, exercising helps keep blood pressure and blood sugar within normal ranges.
Lose weight: Simply lowering your body weight by 5% can decrease disability and increase functionality.

If you already have knee pain, the sooner you get professional care, the better. It is rarely too late, even if you have advanced stages of OA. One facility in Dallas, TX where you can get excellent care WITHOUT surgery and a vicious cycle of medications and their side effects is our Pain Recovery Clinic at Living Well Dallas. Our multi-faceted approach to recovery gives hope for any age and almost any condition of knee pain.

First, the inflammation is addressed with nutrition. You will have a customized nutrition and supplementation program designed specifically for you by Health Coach Celia Naples. Next, you will be counseled through the depression, anxiety and insomnia of “pain brain” by Joy Schwartz. You will also receive brain training with the Brain Tap device which reprograms your brain’s pathways so that your body begins to respond other than with pain.

In addition, you will receive bodywork sessions with Brenda Briscoe called Bowen Therapy, which is done through the clothing, is gentle but works at a deep level through vibrations, and is known for its quick, profound, and long lasting resolution to the core problem. Another significant offering you will experience is LED Light Therapy, shown by clinical studies to reverse the conditions that set up arthritic joints. How? By stimulating the release of nitric oxide in the red blood cells and ATP (adenosine tryphosphate) in the mitrochondria (power house) of the cells. This simply means that you’ll receive a flood of healing nutrients and oxygen to the areas where the LED light pads are placed, as well as quicker cellular repair (clearing out debris and moving in the healing nutrients).

If you are suffering with knee pain, call the Pain Recovery Clinic at Living Well Dallas to set up a consultation to find out if you are a good candidate for these services at 972-930-0260.

Which came first . . . depression or back pain?

Bowen Therapy, LED Light Therapy, Nutrition Info, Uncategorized / By admin

Do you have a backache that just won’t go away? WebMD reports that studies show depression may be a risk factor for chronic lower back pain. In one study, up to 42% of people with chronic lower back pain experienced depression before their back pain started. Yet depression can often go undiagnosed or ignored because people don’t think to associate it with aches and pains. At the same time, having chronic pain puts you at risk for depression. It’s a vicious cycle.

We at Living Well Dallas have effective answers to both your chronic back pain and your depression. With a multi-pronged approach, our clients are recovering from both conditions whether they are related or not. As a client of the new Pain Recovery Clinic at Living Well, you will get to talk to our health coach about how to incorporate an anti-inflammatory diet and supplementation into your life. This nutrition piece is the foundation. It must be there for the healing to take place.

Next, you will receive LED Light Therapy which helps your blood to deliver these healthy nutrients, as well as more oxygen, to your back and to your brain for repair. This, along with Bowen Therapy, can promote a speedier recovery. Another amazing tool you will benefit from is our brand new Brain Tap device, which uses binaural beats, isochronic tones, and NeuroAcoustic harmonics, bringing a relaxation response for pleasure and achievement.

You will also receive aromatherapy blends for mood enhancement as well as for pain relief and get life coaching, if needed, for coping with your emotions in a healthy way.

If you want to jump on our Pain Recovery train, call 972-930-0260 to find out what your options are.

When should you come in for a Bowen Therapy Session?

Bowen Therapy / By admin

This is a common question people ask themselves. They get hurt or some kind of imbalance occurs and they think that if they just wait it out, it will go away. This is usually not the case. If you wait, several things may happen. First, the injury or imbalance is screaming, “I need attention . . . help!” If no help comes, your body begins to compensate for the imbalance or pain by recruiting other muscles to do the job that the injured muscle was doing. Then, even more imbalance occurs or other areas begin to be painful because of continual contraction of some muscles and continual stretching out of others. There becomes this pain/spasm/pain cycle for which Bowen Therapy is perfectly suited to break.

If the pain or imbalance is in the lower extremeties, there is splinting of muscles and limping sometimes. This creates imbalances in the back and posture muscles. Finally, you either give in to it and bring yourself in for help, or your body decides that this is the new norm and then keeps this imbalance, with the pain subsiding and slipping into the background. At this point, now you probably are going to need a series of sessions to retrain your body to go back to its original state of balance.

On the contrary, if you recognize there is a problem from the beginning and get in for a Bowen treatment right away in the first week, one session of Bowen Therapy is usually all that is needed to return to full balance and harmony. So call quickly and get set up for a Bowen appointment once you realize that you have been hurt or have an imbalance. You will save yourself time, frustration, and money in the long-run.

Holiday Health Myths

Health News / By admin

Ever heard the one about Poinsettia’s being poisonous? Not true, it’s a myth. What about the suicide count being highest at this time of year? Again, not true. And how about New Year’s Eve being the worst night of the year to be driving? Not so, that would be July 4th.

But there are some health hazards to be concerned with or careful about during the holidays, such as overeating, climbing on the roof to hang Christmas lights, or letting a live tree get too dry and being a fire hazard. Click here to read more about what you should be careful of during the holidays.

Having said this, if you do find yourself with an injured back from falling off a ladder or even being just a little down during this holiday season, consider a Bowen Therapy session. Bowen Therapy not only is a quick fix for acute injuries, but also balances the emotions, especially when used with LED Light Therapy at Living Well Dallas. The LED eye mask stimulates the release of melatonin and seratonin (the “happy hormone”) to help you get a good night’s sleep and be uplifted while you are awake.

To schedule your Bowen Therapy with LED Light treatment, call Living Well Dallas 15 972-930-0260. And have a safe and happy holiday season!

The Movie Concussion

1 Comment / Bowen Therapy / By admin

Brenda at LWD — Brenda Briscoe, Bowen Therapy Practitioner

I just saw the preview last night of an upcoming movie called Concussion, to be released in theaters in December. Concussion focuses on the incredible true story of Bennet Omalu, played by Will Smith, a forensic pathologist who discovered a brain disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in a dead football star named Mike Webster. Already, before its release, the movie is very controversial (read more here.)

Be sure to see this movie (watch trailer here), as it reveals the truth about the dangers of repeated concussions, especially as it relates to football. THEN, when you watch it, think about the Bowen Technique and LED Light Therapy, because these are two extremely effective treatments for CONCUSSION . Clients who have seen me for treatment soon after their concussion or traumatic brain injury (TBI) have quickly realized very positive results. Research has shown that LED Light Therapy works even when the TBI occurred years prior to treatment.

For treatment, call Living Well Dallas at 972-930-0260 to schedule an appointment.

How Does Bowen Therapy Reduce Stress & Anxiety?

Bowen Therapy / By admin

The holidays can bring on more than a normal amount of stress, with family gatherings, work functions, crowded shopping malls, meeting end-of-year goals, and the like. How do YOU combat the effects of stress during what should be the most joyous season of the year? There are many ways to get grounded and bring back a sense of normalcy and relaxation to your life.

One of those ways is through a fairly new (to the U.S.) bodywork modality called Bowen Technique. If you have never had a session, or even heard of this remarkable technique, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

Bowenwork is done on a massage table, but it is not massage. It removes blockages in meridians, or energy points, and improves the flow of chi, but it is not acupuncture. Bowen therapy brings a slight irritation to the immune and nervous system, so that it stimulates those systems to initiate healing, but it is not homeopathy (although some people refer to Bowenwork as tactile homeopathy). This modality improves the flow of lymphatic fluid, but it is not lymphatic drainage.

So then what IS Bowen Therapy? Technically, it is an osteopathic type of technique which is performed by varied therapists and practitioners, including massage therapists, chiropractors, physio therapists, physical therapists, nurses, energy workers, and more. It involves gentle, rolling movements on the client’s skin (bare or clothed). These moves communicate directly with the autonomic nervous system, giving subtle messages like, “Hey, remember when you used to be normal, healthy, and balanced? Wouldn’t you like to be that way again?” It sets the body up for deep, core healing at the cellular level.

Basically, these Bowen moves stimulate the proprioceptors in the muscles and tendons to respond in a new way to brand new neurological signals being sent to the brain and nervous system. A body that has been injured or simply has imbalances, can get into a pain/spasm/pain cycle. Bowen Therapy is perfect for breaking that cycle and down-regulating the autonomic nervous system. In other words, it takes you from a fight or flight stage into a rest and relaxation response.

Once you are in this alpha state, your body can respond more readily to the subtle signals so brilliantly delivered through Bowenwork. In this state, migraines disappear, ankle sprains resolve, carpal tunnel symptoms are relieved, back pain is removed, and stress and anxiety are reduced.

One of the most common responses from Bowen therapy clients is that during the session they feel more relaxed than ever, and once the session is over, they feel rejuvenated.

LED Light Therapy for Concussion

Bowen Therapy, LED Light Therapy / By admin

Concussions are very prevalent these days with so many children, as well as teens, engaging in full contact sports. The medical community offers very little in the form of treatment. They tell the parents to go home and watch their child and look for changes in mood, behavior, headaches, nausea, dizziness, neck pain, interruption of sleep cycles, and cognitive functioning (memory, concentration, etc.).

What if there were treatment outside of traditional medicine? Would it be worth it to go ahead and be proactive so that your child does not have to go through all these difficult symptoms and get behind in their school work and school attendance?

Have you ever heard of LED Light Therapy, also known as low level light therapy (LLLT)? Sometimes referred to as photobiomodulation, phototherapy, or photon therapy, LED stands for light emitting diodes. These are not your typical Christmas tree LED lights. They are superluminous therapeutic diodes, which are embedded in pads for placing on the skin. The most therapeutic LEDs are the red (about 630 nanometers) and near infrared diodes (890 nm). There are plenty of current clinical trial studies documenting the positive benefits of LED light therapy for symptoms of concussion and other traumatic brain injuries.

The good news is that the FDA has actually cleared LED light therapy for:

reducing pain, swelling, and inflammation
increasing lymphatic and blood circulation

There are two major physiological events that happen during a light session. The LEDs stimulate the release of:

Nitric oxide in the blood (dilates the blood vessels so more oxygen and nutrients are delivered to the cells)
Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in the mitrochondria of the cells (for better cellular repair and cleanup)

You can find LED light therapy in some physical therapy clinics but more often in the offices of chiropractors and sometimes massage therapists. As a Bowen Therapy practitioner, I use the Anodyne Therapy LED light system, which most of the current studies used in their clinical trials. I include LED phototherapy in almost all of my sessions to enhance the benefits of the Bowenwork. It has worked effectively for concussions, as well as other head injuries and headaches.

To pursue the possibility of using this forward thinking and effective treatment for you or your child, call 972-930-0260 to make an appointment with Brenda Briscoe at Living Well Health & Wellness or to ask more about the treatment.

What if there were a “Reset” button for pain?

Bowen Therapy, Fibromyalgia, Migraine Headaches / By admin

Would you sometimes like to have a “reset” button you could push to get rid of pain in your body? Well, there is, sort of. Ever heard of Bowen Technique, Bowenwork, or Bowen Therapy? There are different versions, but each one gives brand new signals for your brain and nervous system feedback loop to respond to. It “deletes” bad signals, or actually breaks the pain/spasm/pain cycle, rendering the old improper signals ineffective. Now your body can respond in a more proper way to new signals and without pain!

This is like rebooting a computer when the page is frozen and won’t refresh. Rebooting gives you a fresh start. Similarly, when you are in pain, your body is in crisis. It keeps on remembering the signals it was receiving when an accident or injury happened, and it has gotten stuck. What it needs is a fresh start with new signals to the nervous system. Bowen Therapy, with its gentle plucking moves over muscles, tendons, fascia, and nerves, introduces just the right “input” to down-regulate the autonomic nervous system and take the body from a state of hypersensitivity (sympathetic overdrive) to a state of rest and relaxation (parasympathetic).

By doing this along the spine right at the beginning of a session, your body is now ready to respond quickly and with profound and lasting changes that address the core problem. The autonomic nervous system has just been “reset.” This process is just what the body needs, not only for acute injuries, but also for long-standing chronic conditions, like fibromyalgia, peripheral neuropathy, carpal tunnel syndrome, TMJ syndrome, repetitive migraine headaches, and even multiple schlerosis. How about telling someone you know in pain about Bowen Therapy. It may just give them the breakthrough they’ve needed!

Fibromyalgia and LED Light Therapy – FREE Event

Fibromyalgia, LED Light Therapy / By admin

Come discover the revitalizing power of light and how it can help with the pain of Fibromyalgia. You may be able to help yourself or someone who is near and dear to you by introducing them to LED light therapy. So invite people you think may benefit from this knowledge.

Some attendees will be able to have the light pads applied and experience them right there at the meeting, depending on the time that is left after the presentation. Others will receive a coupon for a FREE 20-min light session.

For more information, click here.

Best and Worst Foods for Migraines

Health News, Migraine Headaches, Nutrition Info / By admin

Did you know that food can play an important part in triggering or preventing a migraine headache? Even though there are far more foods on the triggering side, don’t give up hope. These foods can definitely help:

Ginger – a powerful anti-inflammatory that can ease chronic migraines, alleviate nerve pain and boost the immune system. It can be added to smoothies, juices, soups, salads, or used in baked dishes.

Water – essential to the proper functioning of the body. Dehydration is a common migraine trigger.

Riboflavin – also known as vitamin B2, this has been tied to the reduction in frequency of migraines. Can be found in lean beef, mushrooms, spinach, and broccoli.

Healthy fats – omega-3 fatty acids and monounsaturated fats can help reduce inflammation linked with migraine pain. One great source of Omega-3 is fatty fish, such as wild-caught salmon. Olive oil is a wonderful choice for monounsaturated fats. It has been shown in studies to decrease the duration, severity of pain, and frequency of migraine headaches.

Magnesium – linked by many studies with the natural prevention of migraines, particularly menstrual-related. Top food sources are quinoa, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, spinach, fresh amaranth, Swiss chard, brown rice, and whole grains.

Worst foods for migraineurs:

Tyramine or phenylethylamine – amino acids found in a variety of foods, like chocolate, aged cheeses, processed meats, fermented foods, citrus fruits, beans, avocados, vinegar, and soy foods.

Additives – MSG, nitrites, sulfites, artificial colors, and artificial flavors are all known to be possible migraine triggers. The reason is that they can increase the flow of blood to the head in many people.

Ice-cream/cold foods – cold foods can definitely cause headache pain. For migraine sufferers, the short-lived “brain freeze” can be just the start of a full-blown migraine. To be safe, avoid any extremely cold foods.

Alcohol – can cause dehydration, which is a trigger of headaches. If you choose to drink any kind of alcohol, it’s a good idea to alternate with glasses of water in order to replenish lost fluids. Also, keep in mind that fermented drinks like beer and wine contain tyramine.

Caffeine – can be a major migraine trigger especially if you drink more than one cup a day. Interestingly, once a migraine starts, caffeine can sometimes stop it in its tracks. Common sources: coffee, tea, soft drinks, and energy drinks.

(for the full article from The Alternative Daily, click here)