Myofascial Pain and Myofascial Release Therapy

For the last 3 years, I've been living with chronic pain.  I am 43 years old and am still trying to maintain a job and care for my 2 children.  I was a competative gymnast through college and I was always an active person.  Life changed on Sept 1, 2005 with excruciating pain from a ruptured disc in my neck (caused from rolling over in my sleep!).  Within 3 weeks I was quickly losing the function of my arm, and thus underwent neck surgery.  Nine months after surgery and still having debilitating pain, I was finally diagnosed with chronic myofascial pain, which I continue to suffer from.  After 2 years of miserable pain, with some temporary relief from trigger point injections (yet having side effects from the steriods), I finally found John F. Barnes Myofascial Release (JFB-MFR) Therapy, which is showing the most promising signs of long-term relief (after trying everything else the doctors could think of).  It's a slow process, and I'm not pain-free, but I'm far more functional than I was for the first 2 years of this journey.  I still live with some level of daily pain, many limitations, and all the associated sadness and suffering that goes along with it, but I'm finally hopeful and relatively more funtional than I had been for 2 years. 

I wrote two acrostic poems from words that came to me about my moyofascial pain and my myofascial release therapy.  I chose to create these simple acrostic poems, not only to describe my pain and treatment, but because they represent the way life is reduced to the most simple and basic activities when pain is your constant companion. 

Myofascial Pain

By Maria Leet Sooclof ‘08

Misery

Years

Oppressive

Frustrating

Agonizing

Straight-jacket

Chronic

Invisible

Anger

Life-Changing

Prison

Aging

Insidious

Never-ending                                              

Myofascial Release Therapy        

by Maria Leet Sooclof ‘08

Mind-body

Yielding

Open-minded

Freedom

Alternative

Slow

Changing

Improving

Able

Letting go

Relief                                                                       Effort