Kinesiology Taping: A new way to decrease pain and enhance range of motion
One of the most common complaints heard in any medical practitioner’s office is that of pain. Pain often limits mobility of joints, connective tissue, and muscular structures in the body. Pain in one area can cause various downstream pains in other areas. Many patients seek pain relief through manual (hands on) therapies like massage, acupuncture, and chiropractic in addition to anti-inflammatory and other pain killing type medications.
Others seek to balance pain syndromes through movement based therapies such as yoga, stretching, weight lifting, and personal training. While all of these therapies are beneficial, for some patients, pain in chronic and returns once the treatment or movement is complete leading to more use of medications that can carry dangerous side effects.
One of the reasons this is true is that pain patterns are caused by nerve patterns that use a type of feedback loop to the muscle, connective tissue, and joint that is affected and back to the brain again which tells that particular area to compensate in some way. Often without re-education of these areas post-treatment leads to what is called “body memory”, and without corrective treatment in between therapies, the body will remember through the nervous system what it was doing before, and the pain returns.
Many patients experience this when they get a treatment and realize that it only relieves the pain for a few days, only to return again later. The key to successful pain relief is what we do after these therapies are enacted.
One way to change the pain patterns in the body and re-educate the muscle and connective tissue over time is kinesiotaping. Kinesiotaping is a way that we can enhance the current manual therapies after you leave the office. Kinesis is the Greek word for movement. Current athletic taping uses a nonelastic restrictive bandages to bind areas in order to limit motion and support tissues. It is inflexible, and restricts lymph and circulation to an area. Kinesiotaping on the other hand uses flexible tape and can facilitate or inhibit motion depending on muscles groups or joints needing re-education, and can increases and lymph and circulation to the area. By taping the skin with some stretch over an area of pain, limited range of motion, or imbalanced muscles groups, there is an enhancement and freedom of movement.
Kinesiotaping is often used after manual therapy to support movement, re-educate connective tissues and nerve fibers, and decrease pain over time. At Origin Holistic, we employ manual therapies after assessment and the diagnosis of the cause of the pain. We utilize therapies such as naturopathic adjustments (like chiropractic), soft tissue manipulation, therapeutic massage, active and passive range of motion, muscle energy techniques (stretch and counter-stretch) and craniosacral therapy. In addition, we offer prolotherapy and mesotherapy to alter pain patterns and heal ligaments and tendons. We employ nutritional medicine, herbal medicine, and physical medicine to work towards a pain-free existence for the patient.
We have added kinesiotaping, as this therapy has been shown to have better outcomes than any manual therapy alone including: decreasing pain and inflammation; increasing range of motion; increasing circulation and lymph flow; normalize muscle tone, and improve movement, endurance, and reduce fatigue by enhancing proprioception.
Whether you are in an older individual with chronic pain, or an athlete that seeks to enhance performance, kinesiotaping is for you.
If you have any further questions regarding kinesiotaping, or if you know someone that could benefit from utilizing this form of therapy, please contact Origin Holistic at 425-614-9319.
-Dr Kimberly Kalfas
