This year I have been lucky enough to be introduced to a phenomenal method of diagnosis and treatment called Proprioceptive Deep Tendon Reflex (P-DTR). The best way to describe P-DTR is functional neurology - it looks at how the brain is receiving information and it's response to the information in what it tells the body to do.
The brain is receiving information 24hrs a day from nerve cells called receptors. We have receptors for every type of stimulus that we can perceive e.g. pain, heat, scratch, stretch, vibration. When we injure ourselves we affect specific receptor cells, which in turn give information of the injury to the brain which creates a response e.g. move away from a painful stimulus. Often once the receptor has been switched on it doesn't switch back off, therefore the brain still thinks there is an injury that it needs to protect, even after many many years the brain will still protect an injury!
The human body will create compensations to deal with injury, for example if you pull a muscle on the inside of your leg the muscles on the outside, above, below, other leg or even seemingly unrelated muscles will contract more or less to avoid moving through the injury. Over time these compensations and adaptations can lead to problems and pain in areas close or far from the original injury.
P-DTR enables a practitioner to find these receptor problems and fix them. This is why it is so powerful; if you can treat the exact nerve cell that has caused an issue to develop then the problem will not come back. The most difficult thing, however, is finding the exact receptor cell(s) at the heart of the issue. And having only just scratched the surface in my training of P-DTR I am beginning to realise that anything can cause anything!
Here is an example of a lady that I saw recently:
She came in with left sided neck/shoulder pain that had started for no particular reason a few weeks previously. She had a history of recurrent neck pain but it was usually on the other side. Using P-DTR testing I found that her left Levator Scapulae (muscle attaching from the shoulder blade to neck) was hypertonic, meaning that it didn't weaken normally (all muscles should be able to be strong and weak on certain stimuli). Further testing showed that it didn't weaken by using stimuli to the muscle itself; the cause of hypertonicity was coming from elsewhere.
After going through her medical history again, she mentioned some previous dental work, this lead me to test her jaw in relation to the Levator Scapulae... sure enough providing the right stimulus to her jaw enabled the Levator Scapulae to relax. Using P-DTR protocol I fixed the receptor dysfunction in the jaw and her neck pain decreased!
Cases like this make me marvel at the ability of the nervous system. I am only at the beginning of my P-DTR training but am already getting some brilliant results - I can't wait to possess more tools to help more people quickly, efficiently and for good!
If you want to experience or know more about the endless possibilities of P-DTR contact me on Facebook or call 07977367222.
