An Introduction to (Rapid) Reflexive De-Afferentation

An Introduction to (Rapid) Reflexive De-Afferentation

Session Description
I. Ignored Anatomy: What the Medical Community usually fails to check?

Introduction:
Chronic mental stress, fatigue or burnout has been linked to - among other things - gastritis, severe headaches, and heart attack risk.

What if I were to tell you that I could tell how stressed you were by touching just a few spots on your body that most would not have even checked? What if those spots were linked to most headaches and nape pain? What if you could be pain-free without medications? What if the solutions were so simple that they have been strangely overlooked for decades?

Content:
Missed Anatomy: RDT Checkpoints
The Nociceptive Reflex
The Ignored Anatomic Landmarks
RCPM
Myodural Bridge
Nuchal Ligament
Cervico-thoracic junction
Diaphragmatic Insertion
Partially Ignored Anatomy
The Notion of 1) We don't treat what we don't know is there and 2) We don't check what we don't know how to treat

II. The Relaxation Response: Parallel Pathways

This session will explore general mechanisms of entry into the much-coveted state of relaxation. This Parasympathetic (Rest and Recovery) Response has profound mental, emotional, and physiologic effects. The usual ways to reach this state include:

1. Mind to Body = meditation techniques, prayer,
2. Body to Mind = Bodywork of all sorts (Bowen work, certain massage techniques and protocols, post-exercise, etc.)

Integration is proposed, so that both approaches / gateways are used. A powerful synergy is the hoped-for endpoint. Our work in this direction includes the application of Biofeedback techniques, Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) Techniques, and the Revolutionary new field opened up by Rapid De-Afferentation Techniques. Since a few good breathing techniques will be covered by other speakers, I will not delve deeply into breath-work. Focus will instead be given on starting with calming the body as a rapid means of calming the mind. A Reboot Demonstration will follow.

III. An Introduction to R.D.T.s: Mind-Body Reboot in Seconds

Introduction:
What if you could be Pain-free in Seconds? What if you could reach Mental Clarity in seconds? How would that change the rest of your life?

Precursor Work:
NLP Semantics
Biofeedback without machines

An Introduction to the RDT PROTOCOL
(a synthesis of: Rapid De-Afferentation Techniques + NLP Semantics / Language + Biofeedback)

IV. Missed Assessments and Unavailable Treatments
(What once didn't know how to treat, and therefore hardly checked)

Summary of the theories behind RDT work
Reflexive Inhibition
the Nociceptive Reflex
The Path of Ease
Harmonic Response

On Reflexive Techniques and RDTs
My cat knows how to ask for food. It's simple and it makes sense. She's figured it out, and so have I. Just signals, feedback, and recalibration. If time eventually proves us both wrong, it will not stop me in the meantime from doing what we know from experience to consistently work.
My cat knows that, too. She meows. I get her snacks.

In testament to the soundness of the initial thought behind (let's generalize) reflexive techniques (or attempts at development of such), if you toss the idea around, people will say they've heard about it somewhere. I'm no genius. I'm certain someone else must have figured these things out. Perhaps a tribe somewhere has done just that. Perhaps in the same place JPB first heard of VM from. Perhaps it's just the RCTs that lag.

We have all known about reflexive inhibition and have used it as a tool in clinics for the longest time now.
Has not everyone on these forums used indirect muscle energy techniques, positional releases and lymphatic drainage and vascular restarts? If the monosynaptic reflex is so well described that no one questions its validity, how hard it to imagine that people have tried to utilize it as a treatment mechanism? Isn't that initial notion behind METs?
Do you now think it might be possible to use reflexes as a treatment mechanism?
Let's stretch that notion, then. How often do see a purely monosynaptic reflex in practice?

Programmed reactions occur in response to noxious stimuli. They are never just monosynaptic in the living organism, are they? Stick your finger in fire and watch several muscles fire off automatically. Pull off a great prank to startle someone and a well choreographed set of muscles set off a startle and guard reflex. Several muscles activate in response to one stimulus. Think about it.

Now, what if you could do specific stimuli on purpose, with the intent of reversing or stimulating established reflexes? Could you not then stimulate muscles that reflexively antagonize targeted muscle groups? Could that be a way to reverse guarding and relax even groups of muscles along synergistic patterns?

Most curiously something I say at every sharing session we've ever had is echoed in your boards: "If I have been able to see farther, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants."
(Sir Isaac Newton)

I'm trying to remember who said it first, but there is "nothing ever new under the sun - just a new understanding, or a rediscovery of what was lost." (My paraphrasing.)

Has anyone here ever tried to meet with the best minds they could, with the intent of solving something, of doing something better?

What happens when you do that with every single good technique you come across?

"Take what is useful, discard what is not." (Paraphrased from Mas Omaya)

Have you ever had an "a-ha" or "eureka!" moment when it all just suddenly made sense? Could not something new emerge from that moment, from that idea?


This, if anything else, is an invitation to test everything vigorously. Test what you know. Test what you don't know. The blind faith of acceptance is not much different from the blind faith of rejection. These things are so well primed and fueled by fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of what is unfamiliar. Fear of what could destroy acceptance or the status quo. For us, it has just been a choice:
Do we keep doing what does not work, or what does not work so well? Do we keep doing something for which the evidence is so well stacked against? Do we succumb to fear, or do we choose to see what works?

Do we test everything, or are we fine with the rut we're stuck in?

Do we want better for our patients, or do we just stay in the boat we've always been stuck in?

Depends, doesn't it? Does your boat work?

The best description I’ve heard of insanity stems from the NLP community:
Insanity is when we "keep doing what we've always been doing, and then continually expect different results."


These are just thoughts.

Perhaps that is where evolution starts -- a thought.

My cat meows a certain way, motions to the shower, then to the faucet. I get her a bowl of water. She meows approvingly, assuring me I’ve got it right. I'm well trained. She trained me well. Faster than any teacher and master I’ve ever trained with.

Meow.

The science behind RDTs
You already have the science well studied.
The work of Eyal Lederman and Leon Chaitow is an excellent place to start.
Even in books you already have, there is already a wealth of material on PNFs, METs, reflexes, proprioception, mechanoception, reflexive inhibition, adaptation, facilitation, somatic dysfunctions, and higher center involvement in LMN function.
The science is out there. It’s the approach that is radically different.

There are unfortunately not yet any large-scale randomized controlled double-blinded Meta studies on Rapid De-Afferentation techniques. Mainly because there isn't anyone we've been able to compare results with. The techniques are different. The results are different. Strong multicenter protocols for dissecting this work have not been built.

Next reason is because we're clinicians. We just don't have the time yet to crunch numbers and do all the studies ourselves. If academicians want to come up and do the studies, we're open to that. Meantime, we're too busy to do paperwork explaining to the world the WHY of how we've getting the amazing results that we do get.

We can show you several gigs of info on the science of it all, but wouldn't you rather see results?

What are RDTs?
The entry I deleted From Wikipedia:

'Rapid De-Afferentation Techniques' (R.D.T.s, or RDTs) are a system of soft-tissue rapid-release techniques developed by Sandro Strix S. Toledo, M.D. These techniques have the commonality of being able to quickly break the nociceptive cycle for somatic dysfunctions. Some of the RDT methods bear resemblance to ease techniques of osteopathic manipulation. The reflexive techniques for soft tissue release appear to be unique versus references in the general medical and peer-reviewed manual medicine literature.”

What are RDTs (Rapid De-Afferentation Techniques)?

RDTs are manual medicine techniques and protocols that utilize reflexive pathways and the phenomenon of reciprocal inhibition as a means of switching off inflammation, pain, and protective spasm for entire synergistic muscle groups or singular muscles and soft tissue structures.

RDTs are a hands-on method for turning off pain and spasm and for turning on the recovery cycle and an autonomic "reboot." The reboot here is essentially a turning off of the sympathetic overload and a flooding with a good series of parasympathetic signals.

A Still point is often reached at "reboot," as is a theta brain state.

Physical therapists and Doctors

Just if you might be really interested in learning the fastest hands-on means we know to get rid of pain on the spot with long lasting functional gains, we're pre-offering the opportunity to sign up for a limited slot pilot class for Rapid Reflexive De-Afferentation Techniques (RDTs).

We're gearing to do this by August - September 2009.
Temp dates: August 15-16, August 29-30, and September 5-6, 19-20.
Location: Boracay Island
More than the certification, you go home with the chance to correct on the spot structural complaints and to resolve pain that no one else can - faster than NSAIDs, better than opiates.

We invite you to take up this challenge with us.
As soon as you get over arguing with yourself how useful this is for you, your patients, your practice, and your financial well-being, you may signify intent to join us at assist@tuecaremed.com with the subject line "sign me up for RDT training NOW, please!"

Sorry, slots will be limited to maintain heavily hands-on workshop environment.

Until more formal arrangements can be made with regard pre-requisites, we would greatly prefer that you have prior training on functional positional releases and Muscle Energy Techniques. We recommend you sign up for these with Sirs Leomil and Val (UST / SOMATIC).

See you then.

Suggested reading:
1. Fryer G 2000 Muscle Energy Concepts –A Need for a Change. Journal of Osteopathic Medicine. 3(2): 54 – 59
Fryer G 2006 MET: Efficacy & Research IN: Chaitow L (Ed) Muscle Energy Techniques (3rd edition) Elsevier, Edinburgh

Ruddy T 1961 Osteopathic rhythmic resistive duction therapy. Yearbook of Academy of Applied Osteopathy 1961, Indianapolis, p 58

Solomonow M 2009 Ligaments: A source of musculoskeletal disorders. J Bodywork & Movement Therapies 13(2): IN PRESS

Smith, M., Fryer, G. 2008 A comparison of two muscle energy techniques for increasing flexibility of the hamstring muscle group Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies 12 (4), pp. 312-317

McPartland, J.M. 2004 Travel trigger points - Molecular and osteopathic perspectives Journal of the American Osteopathic Association 104 (6), pp. 244-249

Hamilton, L., Boswell, C., Fryer, G. 2007 The effects of high-velocity, low-amplitude manipulation and muscle energy technique on sub occipital tenderness International Journal of Osteopathic Medicine 10 (2-3), pp. 42-49

McFarland, J.M. 2008 The endocannabinoid system: An osteopathic perspective Journal of the American Osteopathic Association 108 (10), pp. 586-600
Magnusson M Simonsen E Aagaard P et al 1996a Mechanical and physiological responses to stretching with and without pre-isometric contraction in human skeletal muscle Archives of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation 77:373-377

Magnusson M Simonsen E Aagaard P et al 1996b A mechanism for altered flexibility in human skeletal muscle. Journal of Physiology 497(Part 1):293-298