Treating Adhesions Naturally
As you may know, I talk about how to treat adhesions naturally in the other articles on this site.
To recap:
- Adhesions are sticky or stuck spots in the tissues of the body, in our case, in the abdomen.
- This stickiness can affect skin, fascia, muscles, tendons, ligaments, and organs. It can cause pain, dysfunction, and seriously restricted range of motion.
- Adhesions can be effectively and safely released through correct massage or manual therapy.
- This correct form of hands-on work can be easily learned by individuals to provide themselves with at-home, natural, and non-invasive treatments. It can also be provided by a knowledgeable practitioner.
- At-home treatments can be very effective when done consistently and following a safe program, such as the ones I offer here.
But I also want to go a little deeper into why it is so important to use natural treatment for adhesions.
Least Invasive First
For a long time when I first started this work, I had confusion inside me about why something (adhesions) that could legitimately be healed, or at least drastically reduced, by natural means would be immediately subject to surgical treatment.
Please don’t mistake me here. I am not in any way suggesting that every case of adhesions can be resolved by non-surgical means. I think there are cases where the adhesions and scar tissue are so advanced that surgery might very well be the best initial treatment. But I am still genuinely bewildered by why that is the only treatment offered, when it is offered. Even in the case of surgery being necessary, it seems only logical that it would be followed up by a treatment that would maintain the ground that had been gained by the procedure.
But that almost never happens. When it does happen, it is because of doctors like Andrew Cook (Stop Endometriosis and Pelvic Pain). In his book and in his practice he advocates for the treatment of the whole person and for holistic post-operative care, which includes massage for adhesions and scar tissue. Yes, he practices surgery for adhesions. He also believes his work should be followed up with competent natural care.
It was one of my teachers, Marty Ryan (Love Your Guts Seminars), who finally calmed the confusion in my mind about why and how things get so messy when he simply said, “Least invasive first.” He is certainly not the first person to say it, but when he said it to me all of my defensiveness about manual work for adhesions, all of my agitation about why adhesions are so misunderstood and are often mis-treated, just melted away. I suddenly had my bearings in the chaos.
Least invasive first. What it means is not that the least-invasive treatment will necessarily be the most effective. It does not mean that I or Marty or Dr. Cook or anyone has all of the answers. What it means is that when you begin at the beginning – with the least invasive treatment first – then you have a greater chance of not doing more harm to yourself, of not traumatizing yourself more in an already traumatic situation, of finding respect and understanding for your situation which is, I guarantee you, a process.
Individuality
There are very few cure-all treatments in life, including for adhesions, which seems contradictory since this whole website is about one particular form of treatment. What I mean when I say this is that even if this type of manual treatment resolves your adhesions, it won’t be only because of this type of treatment. It will be because you managed to resolve a part of your fear, a part of your resistance, a part of your stress, a part of your diet, a part of whatever else is happening in your life that is impacting your health – which is on some level, and very inconveniently, everything.
This ambiguity is hard to hear, I know. We want to be done with the mess, done with the pain, done with the dysfunction. We want to be able to stop working at this because it is exhausting. But if we really want the most natural treatment possible, then we have to admit that nature has a way of taking its time. We have to admit that there are growing and dying and stagnation processes in nature, each of which is necessary to and feeds the others. We have to admit that each of the seasons of the world we live in has their own flavor, their own joys, and their own hardships. Our internal healing is no different.
Yes, the work I talk about on this site can help you, of that I have no doubt. But if it works it won’t be just because you learned to rub your belly. It will be because you learned to rub your belly while you worked on the other factors influencing your health (sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously).
For many of us this is not a process that will ever be “done.” We will get better, yes, certainly. But probably we will never entirely be done with it. These days I find myself grateful for that – but, like the seasons, that comes and goes.