"Secondary gains" is the term applied to the gains a person obtains through being ill or injured: through defining themselves by their diagnosis. These gains could be monetary, social, or personal. 

On the surface it seems illogical to think that a person could obtain any gain from any diagnosis, and no professional medical provider would automatically assume that any patient would have any gain from a diagnosis. How could someone possibly benefit from never being able to get out of pain after an auto accident, or never be able to heal completely from a surgical procedure?

   When you hear a clinic calling itself "integrative health" , you know this clinic has some combination of  traditional western medicine, holistic/naturopathic care, chiropractic, and/or therapy (PT, OT, ST, nutrition). The idea is to allow the consumer to integrate her/his health care choices in one location, with all the providers being aware of what all is going on in this patient's health-related life. There are many benefits to this, including the patient not being given conflicting information, not being over-treated, medicated, etc.

I have not written on this blog for a long time, and one of my resolutions is to make this more of a priority. One question I often get asked is why a patient has to have a referral from a doctor to receive therapy from OT/me.

 The first and easiest answer is that both your insurance and my governing rules require a referral/prescription for OT if I am going to touch your body or use exercise as therapy. Small differences between your insurance and my governing body (TBOTE) are as follows:

      There was a post on my blog page recently regarding the cost of myofascial release therapy. The person was not rude, but only stated that therapy is an "unnecessary expense". I considered ignoring this post, as it may be the truth for this person at this time. I decided, however, that it is a post that bears responding to, given the state of medicine and the economy currently. Myofascial Release is a therapy that works to relieve all manner of pain, and its effects are long lasting.

 I just wrote regarding "healing crisis" on the FAQ page. I think that it is a good idea to describe what a healing crisis might look like by describing my own.  My healing crisis seems to always come in two forms: migraine headache and re-visiting memories hard. Right now there are no other practicing MFR therapists in Lubbock that I can find. I am looking for one, though so....anyway, all my healing crises are attached to the seminars I attend, where I spend about 2 hours a day on another student's table.

     By the time I obtained my MOT, I was 40. All the lifting and moving patients, driving for home health and bending over to treat and such was taking its toll on my body, especially my lower back and both arms, which kept going numb, especially when I was driving. One of the first techniques we learned in the first class I took is a release at the tailbone, or the sacrum, called a lumbo-sacral release. I had driven 6 hours to get to this class, so that region of my body hurt.

Though I am good at what I do (OT and myofascial release), I am not at all good at computer stuff. Consequently, this is my first blog. I would like to begin by just saying that "blog" is an annoying sounding word to me, sounding much like a bodily function. Still,  I like the idea. I have decided that my first blog will be about how I came across JFB-MFR.

  I was working an internship in hand therapy during my final semester of MOT school. I had a patient with regional sympathetic dystrophy.