Yesterday I met Mr. Tight.
A 17-year-old boy presented with fatigue, leg, back, neck, and head pain. He also had digestive issues, chronic constipation, and was a poor sleeper. He often asked his mother, “Why do I always feel so bad when my friends always feel good?”
His mother brought him to the office because she felt he was tight. During labor, he had a long head engagement, resulting in internally rotated parietal bones, where the top of his head looked like an inverted V. He had fascial strain everywhere in his body except his pain-free arms.
He cried day and night for a year and was four when he finally slept through the night. His parents felt helpless. He never “grew out of” his infant digestive issues and constipation. I felt compassion for him and the millions of people in his shoes will never feel comfortable in their bodies.
He presented with the expected zero-second brain cycle and widespread fascial restriction. I told him that he has never known what it feels like to be “normal”. Fortunately, his fascial web released readily, and his brain cycle reached 60 seconds after an hour of therapy.
He said he had a weird feeling in his body as his fascial web was opening. His head felt lighter as his brain started to expand and contract. He will need many visits of therapy to work through the layers of strain, but he will be much happier on the other side of his birth trauma.
Newborns are voiceless, powerless, and totally vulnerable to the soft tissue traumas of birth. They completely rely on adults making the best health choices.
How different his and his family’s life would have been if a provider had checked him at birth. He probably would have needed a lot of therapy, but, in the first few days of life, he would have been freed of this lifetime albatross. We are blessed.
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