Bowen and Post Stroke Recovery

​Phil experienced two strokes on New Years´ Day 2006 and was in the stroke unit for several months, having lost speech, movement and a lot of sight in this left eye. He’d had a high achieving job in advertising and brought the same drive to his rehab, ignoring anyone who told him that he would never be able to do “X”. He’d completed a marathon a few years previously and felt that, physically speaking, things were as good as they were going to get. 

We decided to see what Bowen could do with the hope of trying to bring more evenness to the two sides of his body. There was still a definite difference and his movement had some ataxia which included a limp left arm (apart from a sudden movement of his finger at the end of when the swing would have happened) and other things like having having to go down stairs sideways. ​

The first treatment made him so hot that he sweated and felt “weird”, but when I saw him 5 days later his movement was dramatically smoother, faster, with no movement of his left hand and the arms hanging evenly. He could go down stairs normally and his walking speed had dropped from 14 ½ to 13 ½ minute miles.
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The next treatment produced a strong neurological reaction which he said felt like an “electrical storm in his legs”. When he came back the week after he´d noticed that his muscles had stopped cramping when he was static for longer periods (eg watching TV for an evening or afternoon). His shoulder no longer felt like it was dislocating and he had stopped getting pain in his upper back, which used to be extremely bad when he moved his hands behind his body. His left shoulder no longer causes him problems and he can put his socks on normally for the first time since 2005. 
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The fourth time I saw him I worked on his jaw and his sacrum, which led to an immediate shift in his perception of his body with his neck feeling longer and straighter and the whole body feeling more integrated. The day after it felt like he´d been punched in the face, but with a remaining sense of space and length in the body. 

“Having made a significant recovery from two strokes that left my left side weaker than the right, I thought that I had reached the plateau. I was happy with where I was at, having not only become a Pilates teacher, but also completing a marathon. 

It was a friend who mentioned the Bowen Technique and I started to work with James. I really did not know what to expect. After one session I felt very drained, tired and achy, but had not been what I would call manipulated. However, the next day my movement from gait, hips, shoulder, neck changed significantly. I was shocked and, to be honest, surprised as I´ve done a lot in the way of rehab. 
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I have continued working with James and the changes keep happening. I feel awkward because after having such a huge imbalance between my two sides for so long it feels weird with what is now my new normal. After my sessions my body goes through a metamorphosis, emerging better. Like rebooting a computer I suppose, if I had to sum it up.”
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We did sessions every 2 weeks for a few months and he is currently taking a break to allow him to adjust to the huge changes in his experience of his body. ​