How I Became So Captivated by the MyoKinesthetic System

Before I became a massage therapist, I worked as a physical therapist assistant in an outpatient physical therapy clinic working with patients who had pain and physical limitations. In 2015 I went to a weekend course and learned a new technique called the MyoKinesthetic System. At first, I was very skeptical of the technique. How could just putting stimulation into muscles make much of a difference in people's pain? But a couple weeks after attending the class I had a lady in her eighties with extreme sciatica on my schedule. Her pain had become so bad that her family had taken her to the ER. She was given a pain medication that she had such an allergic reaction to that she had to be admitted to the hospital for 3 days! When she was released from the hospital she still had the sciatic pain and that's when she came to my clinic.

This lady was not very mobile and needed a 4 wheeled walker to get around. I knew I didn't have many options for helping her. She was in a lot of pain and would not be able to tolerate much movement. I thought to myself, "What the heck, I have nothing to lose by trying out this new technique." I put the training video on so I could watch and follow along with Dr. Mike (the inventor of the technique) as he performed the treatment. I did the treatment in a single position with the patient lying on her back on the treatment table. I used gentle pressure and minimal movement. Afterwards, I had her stand up and asked if she noticed anything. "No, no difference" she said. I was a little disheartened but I knew that usually people don't notice a difference until a few hours later or the next morning. For some people, it takes a few treatments to start noticing improvements.

She returned a couple days later. I asked if there was any difference in her sciatica symptoms. "Maybe a little better," she replied. I did the MyoKinesthetic treatment again. At the next visit she told me that her pain had greatly improved after the second treatment. I noticed that she had an easier time transferring onto the treatment table. Excited about the progression, I did the treatment a 3rd time. When she returned for her 4th visit, she said the pain was gone! She came back for a couple more visits just to work on strengthening a bit. When her family asked her what I'd done, she said that she told them that I worked "with her body" not "on her body". I felt like this explanation was profound because the MyoKinesthetic technique works with the body's nervous system. The magic lies in placing input into a specific group of muscles and using the nervous system "aka the brain" to make changes to the muscles and realign the posture.

After working on this challenging case and getting such impressive results, I was hooked. I know that I would not have been able to get her pain level down and her activity level up as quickly as I did with any other treatment as my disposal. Since then, I have worked on hundreds of clients and have many other incredible success stories to tell but this one will always be one of my favorites.