What is Visceral Manipulation
And does it help….
Visceral Manipulation has been gaining a lot of traction lately! You don’t NEED to see a practitioner to get the benefits from this therapy. You can do it on your own using a Coregous Ball (affiliate link) or even a rolled up towel or pillow!
I teach most of my people how to do this on their own. It can be a missing link for so many people who have chronic pain and can’t seem to get better no matter how well they do their physical therapy exercises!
One of the things we don’t really learn about in Traditional Western Medicine Therapies is the importance of the viscera and how the movement of the organs on the inside can affect the movement of our outside muscles and joints!
Think about it this way, if the connective tissue of all the surrounding internal organs gets tight, it will pull (I actually just did an IG post explaining this, go watch it HERE) on the organs and the walls of your insides. Since everything is connected, this then creates tightness in the muscles and joints as well!
Using a Coregous Ball is a very gentle and non-invasive way to allow this internal tension to ease! You don’t want to go hard and deep with this type of thing….think equal and opposite forces law. If you go deep and hard into the abdomen, it will react the same, continuing to protect those organs and staying tight in a protective pattern. (I discussed the hierarchy of protection HERE) As my mentor says “It’s like the body is giving a hug to the organ to protect it”
Also you don’t really want someone poking their fingers deep into your abdomen. Visceral Manipulation techniques are gentle. This allows your body to feel safe, and release the tensions it is holding on to, then allowing the tissues to glide and move easily!
Again, if an organ in your abdomen isn’t moving well is NOT necessarily an indication that something is “wrong”. Though if it is not moving well, chances are it is not working as efficiently as it should be. And/or if an organ is not moving well in the abdominal cavity it is not working as efficiently as it should be, so doing some self manipulation can help support and keep everything working optimally!
Typically I have people with shoulder pain use the Coregous ball around their Liver (side lying on their Right side). After just a few minutes in this position with slow calm breathing their shoulder pain and range of motion has improved!
Another example of this, is that low back pain can be associated with the kidneys, colon, reproductive organs, liver, or pancreas. There is evidence that visceral manipulation and self abdominal massage can help improve symptoms of constipation and IBS.
When I worked at a children’s hospital numerous times did we see patients come in complaining of back pain. I found it unusual for such a young person to complain of back pain. And every time upon x-ray, we found that their intestines were VERY backed up! Once again associating the organs affects back pain!
These are just a few examples. Basically every organ has an associated area that it refers pain to so addressing the organ first is important in the treatment of pain. Many time the spot of pain is targeted with minimal results because the pain is actually coming from referred pain from the inside!
So when seeking a practitioner to alleviate your pain, ensure they possess the expertise to assess these patterns effectively, maximizing the effectiveness of your treatment! You can schedule HERE to see me!