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Bowen Technique for Sciatica and Restless Leg

10/31/2016

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One of my Pilates colleagues, Sandra, came to me with a number of related issues: sciatic pain, numbness in her lower leg and foot, a pulling from her hip flexor into her back which would make it hard to get to sleep at night, restless leg syndrome and right ankle pain which was stopping her doing tango.

She responded surprisingly quickly to the first treatment and for four days afterwards her ankle pain, restless leg and the pain causing the sleep problem disappeared. She had a massage booked which she went to as it was more “relaxation” than therapy and she forgot the “don´t have any other treatments during your course of Bowen” warning. The day after this massage all her symptoms returned as bad as they had been. After the second treatment the numbness and hip/back pain got worse for 4 days and then on the 5th day the pain went.

After three treatments the numbness was significantly less, though she could still feel it, but the ankle pain, restless leg and hip-flexor/back pain had gone.

A year later, with perhaps one treatment in between, the ankle pain is a distant memory, and her restless leg and sciatic pain only bother her occasionally. There is still some residual pain in her back after exercise, but she doesn´t have any problem getting to sleep due to it. 

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“The symptoms I came to James with seemed so disconnected, yet all equally annoying and uncomfortable. The restless leg was something I had learned to accept and almost didn't mention it to James as it runs in my family. One of my sisters, my mother and grandmother all suffer from it. And I thought it would never be solved.
 
I had tried other soft tissue therapies in the past, which seemed to help, but only for short periods. James started working on my back first and I was initially unsure as to how much this was going to help me, as it was so simple, soft and light.
 
Bowen provided me with an immediate sense of relaxation and pain relief: one day my back went into spasm at work and James did a move on my sacrum between clients, which to my great surprise released the pain instantly. Sometimes I would feel pain after the session, sometimes it would take a day to set in and other times there was no pain at all. In each case however after day 2-3 I would feel a real improvement or the pain was gone completely.
 
Definitely something I will seek to get done again if I needed it.”
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How Might Bowen Work? Two Theories

10/31/2016

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There is so much we don´t know about how the human body works: how is it that the immune system doesn´t see a fertilized egg as an alien intruder which needs to be killed off, but allows it to develop for 9 months? Why do we yawn? Why do we dream or sleep so much? (Giraffes sleep less than 4 hours a day and wild elephants only 2) Why do we blush? We have theories, but we don´t know the answers to any of these questions with any degree of certainty.
 
Likewise, when we get down to detail, we don´t know how many medical interventions work. We also don´t really know how Bowen works. Here are two of the best current theories we have.
The Structural Theory: Bowen Influences Myofascial Tensegrity

The first theory about how Bowen works is to do with the terrifyingly named “(myo)fascial tensegrity”.

Fascia is your connective tissue, which wraps everything from the outer layer of bone (the periosteum), the organs, muscles (the “myo” part of myofascia), blood vessels, nerves, spinal cord and is most readily accessible as part of the skin (superficial fascia). Tensegrity structures get the tensional integrity of their structure from the cables that join the solid parts, rather than a “wall” structure where one brick is layed on top of another.

When applied to bodies we talk about “bio tensegrity” and the idea is that, like a tent, it is the relationship of tension in different parts of the structure which holds it together. The theory would be (in simple terms) that by altering tension in one area of the fascia we can change the tensegrity relationships and therefore create relief from pain and better posture.

Fascia is incredibly strong and tough and in Bowen we only touch the body for a very short time and in a very gentle way. How can the minimal work that Bowen uses make any difference to the fascia?

Certainly not in a crudely mechanical sense, both because there is simply nowhere near enough pressure on the fascia (not enough weight and not enough time) to create any change, and because in tensegrity another part has to take up the slack when one part is released, and a purely mechanical understanding of Bowen offers no explanation of how that would work.

​Understanding Bowen as a structural therapy is helpful and probably true, but it´s not enough.
The Information Theory: Bowen Influences the Nervous System

​We need a supplementary theory, and we have one: Bowen hacks into the information technology of our body (the nervous system) and gets the body to restore “factory settings”. If Bowen accesses the nervous system, specifically the interaction between the central and autonomic nervous systems, that could explain how so little work can change things – the changes don´t happen from the Bowen, but as a result of the body´s reaction to the Bowen.

If the body reboots its understanding of its relationship to the outside world (exteroception) and its own internal landscape (proprioception) this would account too for changes in the overall tensegrity – it is not a mechanical “release”, but the nervous system instructing your muscles to behave differently (would explain how such soft moves can make such a big change).

There are other things which may suggest that the nervous system is involved: it is quite normal to get responses in parts of the body that have not been directly worked on and the changes in the body often take 3-4 days to start to register in the body. A nervous system involvement would also explain why the “no other treatments” rule is there: any other input within a week or so of the Bowen would muddy the signal that the nervous system was responding to.
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The structure of a suspension bridge holds together through tensegrity
Theory Should Not Get in the Way of Practice

It is helpful to have some sort of story about what is happening as a result of a treatment. Both these theories make sense, and both have a good chance of being (at least partially) correct.

Of course they are not the only perspectives on what is going on: a number of the bowen techniques work directly to encourage lymphatic movement, and most of the standard locations where we make moves are on acupuncture points and meridians, so it might also be possible to explain what´s happening on the basis of Chinese medical theory.

Most people come to Bowen (often as a last resort) as they are in pain and want the pain to stop. Ultimately, regardless of all the theory, if you don´t try Bowen it won´t work for you. ​
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Bowen for Back and Neck Pain and Numbness in the Hip

10/5/2016

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Celina is a professional dancer and French tutor and so she has a lifestyle which mixes athleticism with being stuck in London traffic as she drives to clients. She came to me with three main issues: it was painful for her to turn her head more than about 45 degrees to the left, and driving for more than about 30 minutes made her mid back hurt and her right hip go numb.

After the first treatment there was a little improvement, with the time it took to start hurting increasing to about 40 mins. This was enough to get her to most of her clients without the pain kicking off. By the third week she was up above an hour before the pain started and she could also turn her head without pain (though it was still restricted).

A few months later, after a few more treatments, all of the problems she came with had completely stopped bothering her.
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​“For years I´ve had a recurring inflammation of the facet joints in my spine, and the problem travelled up into my shoulders and neck, and down to affect my hip alignment, which both restricted me in my professional life and caused me a lot of discomfort.

I´ve tried treatment from a number of different techniques and practices, and I must say I was bewildered by the change that such a minimalistic and non-invasive technique could bring about in my body. The fact that the manipulations were there to invite my own body to correct itself and not to force any parts to move involuntarily was a welcome change.
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Since Bowen, not only have I been able to work without discomfort or pain, but it has also given me a deeper sense of understanding and connection to my own physical body. What more can you ask for?!”
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    Body Kinetics Therapy currently offers Sharon Wheeler's Fascial Work for physical trauma and Bowen Technique for neuromuscular pain in Shepherd's Bush, W6, Primrose Hill NW1 and Finsbury Park, London N4.  

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