I’m Laura Mildon, founder of TRACE | Body Rejuvenation, and I insists that my therapists and I take time to work on each other as body work is vital in maintaining joint health, strength, and range of motion. I had frozen shoulder ten years ago. I’m a former athlete who was a long distance runner and competitive boxer, and I suspect that my Hashimoto’s hypothyroiditis may have played a role in my ongoing shoulder impingement since other causes have been rules out such as injury or sedentary lifestyle.
I go through great periods of being pain free, with my strength restored, and can sleep at night without pain. Anyone with shoulder impingement issues knows that a good night’s sleep without pain is a rare thing indeed.
Today after filming our social media videos, I realized that I could not demonstrate the shoulder exercises I make everyone else do. It was clear I needed to get worked on, and following are pictures using a thermal heat camera to depict what’s going on below the skin that the eye can’t see.
Following heat maps show what is happening inside the body when coupling TECAR therapy with manual therapy to relieve tension within the rotator cuff.
Range of Motion
The first sign that shows one needs a visit to TRACE is loss of range of motion. This is a picture of my external rotation capabilities when lying down on the table. Ideally, when I bend my arms out to the side, I should be able to drop my arms all the way to the table.
That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. I’m proverbially miles away from the table. For therapists, we sometimes whip out a protractor-like devices called a goniometer to measure the angle of a particular range of motion. My starting is 110° which is very far from this arm resting on the table with ease.
Understanding the Thermal Camera
So often I hear from people, “The doctor says everything is normal. Nobody believes how much pain I’m in. Apparently the X-rays and CT scans say everything is okay. Nobody can see my pain.”
A theory I’m setting out to prove is that maybe we can see your pain. In these images, we use a setting where the more yellow-white an area is, the hotter it is physically. As we move down the spectrum, warm tissues will image as orange and red, while colder tissues image as pinkish-purple and blue.
TECAR therapy creates a deep internal diathermy – or, heat that is generated and built from within. With TECAR therapy, there is no heat that comes off our electrodes, the heat felt by the client and patient is created from within the body!
Blood’s job is to deliver oxygen and nutrients and remove waste and CO2. My theory is that overtight muscles, tendons and ligaments will not be sufficiently warm to bring blood and move out waste. What if we could see a problem?
Around the right shoulder, we see it’s all orangey-red moving to purple through the back of the arm around the triceps. The triceps acts as an extensor of the elbow but also a shoulder stabilizer.
Notice the orange bands across the pec minor that go into the top of the biceps tendon and deltoid. Those are some tight muscles restricting my ability to flop my arm comfortably flat against the table.
Using TECAR therapy, we are able to promote intense blood flow, calm angry nerves, and tease loose overtight tendons within minutes!
Notice the yellow-white heat being produced by my body from where the electrode is placed. Now my therapist can begin teasing loose these highly restricted muscles.
Now it’s time to remove the electrode from my arm and put it on my therapist’s arm. Now his whole body is an active electrode, and wherever he touches me, the current runs through his hands and into my targeted muscles.
Within twenty minutes, my pain levels are drastically reduced and my range of motion has been vastly improved. This prepares me for all the shoulder impingement exercises that I need to do to maintain strength, mobility and stability within that joint, which was impossible before treatment.
The shoulder is a cranky joint. It’s a big, audacious necessary joint that we use for everything. With TECAR therapy, the treatment benefits continue to develop over the next several days as the body continues to work at that accelerated metabolic rate within those tissues. This means all my efforts in stretching and strengthening assures me months of being pain free.
Before and after in the span of 20 minutes
The combination of therapies, including manual intervention and thermal imaging, has significantly improved my shoulder's range of motion and reduced pain, allowing me to regain functionality. These advanced techniques at TRACE | Body Rejuvenation provide visible proof of improvement and help our clients achieve pain-free movement and a better quality of life. If you are struggling with similar issues, I encourage you to experience these therapeutic benefits for yourself. We are committed to using these innovative methods to support your health and well-being.
