21 Century Medicine: Killing Pain (12 of 25)

Sheila guessed he might be undoing the effects of the treatment by reinjuring himself in between visits.
So she sent him across the hall, to her office mate, Hope Gellerman, a certified Alexander Technique teacher.
What happens when people are in pain is there's a whole kind of cycle that happens.
The pain will trigger muscle tension.
The muscle tension then feeds back into more pain.
I think acupuncture works very well with Alexander Technique, particularly in cases where there's pain that has to do with postural misuse.
Sheila believed that Alexander training would teach Ken ways to prevent the repeated small injuries caused by the scoliosis, bad posture, and tension.

Kenny needed something to do to stop worrying about the fact that he was going to be hurting his back all the time.
Okay, so I'm going to take your head, not your neck, okay? Hope begins each Alexander session with gentle manipulations focusing on head and neck alignment and breathing.
Then, she moves on to exercises that complement the normal activities of each student.
Okay, phone.
You see, if your phone is farther away than that, do you see, you're going to lose your back support.
Right.
She was strengthening my back.
She was putting the Alexander Technique into my daily life, so I could sit properly at the computer, so I could walk better.
I think, you know, Hope definitely changed my life.
There's no doubt about it.
More changes were coming.
When Ken and his wife Lisa discovered they were having a baby, Sheila and Hope helped the couple prepare for new life.
I knew I was going to have a large weight that was going to shift my center of gravity and I saw a lot of women in pain, holding their backs, walking around, and I just did not want to feel like that.
Okay, so you can kind of see what's going on with your back, when you look in the mirror.