Hi Martha,

No worries, you are not interrupting my thread.

First off I sure hope your recovery is going well. I was so sad to read about your scare.

Let me clarify, a TOS doc did not recommend this treatment. My own research led me to his therapist...mainly because I wanted to try pilates again and wanted a pilates instructor that had rehab training. So he has pilates rehab training as well as this muscle activiation therapy.

I wish I was better at describing the pain I feel. Alas I am not good at it but I will try.

I actually do not feel any pain the TOS area or down the arms or in the shoulder. Actually right now and I caveat right now that the typical TOS areas feel better.

The concept behind what we discussed was not new to me but it was certainly surprising how much pain I actually had in those areas.

So his theory is that the larger muscle that are the core and support the trunk are not receiving the right messages from the nerves and are dysfunctional and weak. Therefore the smaller muscles throughout the body compensates and become overstressed...ie the neck and shoulder for me (for others it may be different)

I wont be very good at describing this but here goes. He did something very similar to Superjoyce in that he would work the muscles and teach it to contract and then relax and then the muscle would have more strength.

There was certainly pain from working the muscles. Hmmm how to describe...defintely burning on the skin and the muscle and especially where the muscle attaches to something. Hurt like a massage when they hit a sore part. And I could tell the weakest part was the abs and the hips and pelvis. And it would burn after, could not tell the burn from the muscle from the burn from the skin. He claimed that is was a neuromuscular response from the nerves that have not seen much activity. Which is true because I know that He really worked all the way around the abs like the obliques and some tranverse one that one was ouch! They hurt the most and I was surprised but it makes sense that they are not getting used and are weak and it felt like they when muscles are so super sore from lactic acid.

Johanna, it might be like how sore you are after te hellerwork.

I just hope the muscle remember the activation and continue on. My theory is that maybe I can take some pressure off neck and shoulder if back and core is strong. And get them used to nerve conduction again.

But the first step is to see how long the pain lasts to see if I want to continue.

Thanks for your concern. I'll let you guys know how it works.