INSPIRATION & EDUCATION

In my practice, I treat women with headaches, migraines, ear pain, eye pain, jaw pain, throat tension, dizziness, and a variety of pain patterns in the face, neck, and head. For some women, even at that very first appointment, when they learn about trigger points, the mystery of the anatomy, how the breath affects their necks, and what else creates the symptoms that they have, they find relief. Most of these women have undergone many types of appointments, tests, and even MRI

In my practice, I have seen this manifest in many ways. For instance, I treated a woman who was diagnosed with trigeminal neuralgia. She had intense face and ear pain (see ear below) and had been to the emergency room many times. She could not drive because of the medication. She was working with her naturopath, chiropractor, ENT, and others. She had taken rounds of antibiotics. What was missing was soft tissue manipulation of the neck muscles—so simple!

If you have had an acute respiratory illness, such as COVID, pneumonia, or just a cold with a bad cough, or a chronic respiratory illness, asthma, allergies, or throat irritating GERD, do a self-check-in with the muscles mentioned in this post.

To heal, you are thinking of reshaping your tissues, stretching and building strength, creating muscle balance in the jaw and neck. But you are also tapping into your nervous system; you are diving into the most important aspect of healing; allowing your nervous system to come to a place of rest. From a place of rest, the nervous system turns down pain signals. I know for sure: women who do these postures, and allow themselves to come to a place of healing rest, report chr

Scalene muscle dysfunction causes neck pain, headaches, migraines, head pain, TMJ pain, whole jaw pain, rib pain, and shoulder pain. The shape of the cervical spine is in-part determined by the health of the scalene muscles. Know this: it is only with gentle and consistent self-love—in the form of neck therapy, stretches, and breathing—that these muscles will take on a new shape, holding onto less tone and tension.

Understanding the function of the scalene muscles is vital to understanding your neck and jaw pain. It can also be vital in understanding your upper thoracic spine pain, rib pain, and shoulder pain.

By working with the top and bottom of the spine, the jaw joint, the upper cervical spine, and the pelvic floor, we are hitting places that mirror each other in tension. We’re observing which muscles are hypertonic and overworking, and which muscles are underactive, even if they’re also tight and sore. Direct physical touch therapy to the top and bottom of the spine is very healing.

In this post, I will quickly name some of the TMJ muscles that we work on in a therapy session. In an hour-long session, we are working the head, neck, and TMJ muscles but we won't be able to get to everything. This therapy is slow and detailed, so we may get to different muscles during different sessions. As treatment progresses, more areas will "open up" and treatment can become "deeper."As we work together, we also address muscles such as the psoas, the QL, and the diaphr