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Muscle tightness
Hello! For over 2 years now, I have had muscle tightness in the left side of my body (no pain or tingling and movement is fine). I recall addressing it to my trainer and it seems that my left is likely the normal side while the right seems more loose / weakened due to my herniated disc that causes pain from the shoulder blade up to the base of my skull (like pain at level 8-9/10 that lasts for up to two days). Anyways, luckily, I don’t experience this pain as much anymore (& never had tingling). However, I wonder if I can find some balance – I mean even my left foot feels tighter in my shoes than the right! I am right handed and haven’t done strength training recently, lots of cardio and some yoga. I think the tightness on the left became more pronounced when I fell on my left wrist a few weeks ago. I do take magnesium & potassium at night, and started taking B’s famous sole with my water every day.I really think this happened after I had my first baby in 2019. During pregnancy, I went to a podiatrist in Dubai and got insoles which I use to this day sporadically – I had left foot plantar fasciitis that healed in 2 weeks w moth tape treatment to align my toe back.
In 2020, My osteopathy physician cracked my left leg, said I have a slight posterior tilt… maybe that’s the culprit? At the time, I did Dorn therapy – a spine alignment for 3 sessions. I’m thinking I’d doing that again as the lady sent me the videos.
I thought about writing this post in hopes that someone has experienced or heard of this before & can suggest some sort of a solution – best type of therapy perhaps. Sorry for the long post, I literally keep a diary of my medical events & try to analyze them
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3 Replies
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Hey ,
Fortunately, we love long posts here! I hope I can provide you with some new ideas on how to approach your problems..
Usually, with injuries, I will help the body with the healing process by adding inflammation-resolving supplements. For example, I would recommend high dosages of omega 3’s (between 2 and 4 grams of EPA +DHA). Omega 3s are also important for nerve health.
If you want to learn more about inflammation, I would recommend you to watch the ‘fatty acid balance’ course. Or at least watch this video about how fats control inflammation, this video about what inflammation is and this video about prostaglandins.
Curcumin can help with inflammation as well. When you are going to use curcumin, choose a supplement that is absorbed well. Thorne has a great product (Curcumin Phytosome – click here to find the product in the supplement shop fullscript) because the curcumin is capsuled in lipids which makes the curcumin much much more absorbed.
Plantar fasciitis
You mentioned you suffered from foot plantar fasciitisWhat I often see happening with injuries is that the muscles around the injury stiffen. This is the body’s way to splint the bones, to provide a form of stability. The trade-off is that blood vessels are pressed together and that the nerves get pressure as well. This stiffening can cause pain or in your case contribute to an altered feeling in the calf/foot as a result of your plantar fasciitis. Once the healing of the tissue is done, this type of stiffening could still be left, often for years causing ‘chronic complaints’.
A therapist who uses a massage technique called ‘active release’ can help remove this type of stiffening really effectively. A skilled therapist who uses the technique of dry needling can be really effective as well.
Finding muscle balance
You are already doing really great with the choices you made! Here is a tip that I often used with my clients. Bones, like vertebrae, on itself don’t move. It is the pulling forces of the muscles that can cause imbalances in the position of the vertebrae. If one side is weak and the other side is stronger or stiffer, this can cause these types of imbalances in vertebrae. A chiropractor could work on that, but if the stiffness on one side remains, the vertebrae will be pulled back out of alignment.If the weakness is in one side of the body, the problem is often located in the neck, since all nerves from and to the brain have to go through the neck.
With my clients I would recommend this type of order:
• See a therapist who uses ‘active release’ or ‘dry needling’ to correct the muscle balance. • I would also let them evaluate your posture. A posterior tilt can often be caused by tense muscles that run from the upper leg to the lower back called the musculus iliopsoas and this can influence your spine. Walking on high heels can cause such an imbalance, but many other things as well
• Let them take a look at your neck muscles
• Let them release the tension on the left side of your body.
• With help of a skilled chiropractor focus on realigning the vertebrae in the spine.
• Use exercise to strengthen the muscles and work on posture imbalances.I hope this helps!
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thank you for your thorough response! I’ll review this wealth of knowledge and create a plan. Really appreciate it!
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you’re welcome! Let us know how things go!
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