Six years ago, after a decade of pain and extreme stiffness, i had a total hip replacement on my right side.

 The surgery went extremely well. There was, however, a disquieting leg length discrepancy which seemed greater than the norm, and a sense that my right pelvis, hip, and femur were somehow part of an unyielding, straight, hard rod.

 Physical therapy progressed well, however, and much of the functional leg length problem abated, though the rigid feeling remained. Then, one day, about six weeks later,  attempting to perform a so-called “swimmer’s pose,” I felt a horrible, nauseating shift somewhere in my gluteal area. The next day, as I lay down on a floor mat to do exercises,   i realized the there was a bony lump in my back that had not been there before.

 By that evening, I was in the worst pain I have ever felt (worse than labor pains, and unremitting), around that strange protrusion. I could not sit at all for the agony; standing was a nightmare; walking was awful; lying was only marginally better. I am not sure how I got through the night, even with some left-over post-surgical opiates. The surgeon saw me the next day. He told me the bone was my posterior, superior iliac crest. Somehow it was poking out not too far from my spine. “It is as if your whole pelvis has twisted,” he said.

 X-rays still showed that my new hip joint was perfect. but over the next weeks months, years, the pain continued with varying degrees of severity, including 9s on the famous scale, and never less than 4s or 5s. I tried a whole gamut of therapies, from acupuncture through Zen yoga, and including chiropractic, massage of all kinds, physical therapy (ditto), traction. I saw doctors, surgeons, physiatrists, osteopaths. I had injections  (spinal, and SI joint) to no avail.

 Meanwhile, with a speed slower than a glacier, my  pelvis seemed to try to unwind. There were periods where the pain would plateau, but each tiny shift would be agony.  Sitting would be hard for weeks, and driving intolerable. Then walking would take over as the worst thing. Then standing, then lying, and so on.

 When I could, I tried various forms of exercise, including yoga and Pilates. And, afraid to lose my mobility,  I walked as best and as much as I could, even when the pain was almost to much to bear. But the emotional toll was hard to take; at times,  I felt desperate.

 One day, a Pilates instructor told me about a therapy called Fascial Counterstrain that some of her students had used successfully for various issues. She mentioned  a local doctor/practitioner called Inge, at a practice called Body Unbound.To my 80 year old mind, raised on Western medicine, it sounded simply weird. But my instructor kept mentioning it, and I was hurting a lot. So I booked a session, and expected nothing.

 That first 75 minute encounter was…strange. I expected stretching and pummeling. Instead, I simply lay still, while Inge palpated various areas of my skull and then (apparently) relevant parts of my body, which she then held quietly, perhaps moving her fingers a little, but so subtly I frequently couldn’t even tell. She explained that the technique was to release the problem body part by gently encouraging things to move where they wanted to go (“things” being bones, muscles, veins, nerves, lymphatic systems…everything anatomical), rather than fighting against them. “It’s like when you have a tense child sitting in a corner,” she said. “You can pull the child out, but everyone will be sore and hurt. Or you can sit with the child, until the child relaxes, and comes out of its own accord.” I loved the image. But I did not see how it could possibly work.

 Gradually, I began to feel what I now know as “release.” It is hard to describe. It is nothing like the release of a muscle that has cramped, or even of a limb that has been held tight and let go. There is a certain flow to it, a kind of small, subtle wave, an almost sensuous undulation,  within the area being treated. It is neither painful nor uncomfortable (after a few sessions I have come to love it), but it is so different from anything else I have ever felt that I knew I was not imagining it…I wouldn’t have known how.

 Still, this feeling was so slight, that I was sure nothing had happened. When Inge asked me to stand, I was preparing polite phrases in my brain. “Thank you so much. I am sure this must have helped. I will get back to you if I need more,” believing, of course, that I would feel exactly the same as when I first lay down.

 And so I stood.

 If someone else had told me this story, I would not have believed them. For the first time in 16 years, the pain had gone. I still have no adequate words to describe that moment, though gratitude is a big part of it. I wept.

 There was still discomfort and a sense of awkwardness, of course. And Inge explained that, given the length of time I had been dealing with this problem, things might unravel a bit again. But she emphasized that we had every reason to believe that we could reach this painfree state…and better…again. I made a follow up appointment.

 I  have now had five treatments, over a mere four weeks. Amazing Inge has worked on veins, bones, muscles, surgery scars, lymph systems, ligaments, and more. Each time, the release has grown stronger; I now have such minimal discomfort I am hardly aware of it. I am absolutely confident that, after  another session or two, I will be totally free, and back to my old (younger) self. My blood pressure has lessened, and my mood has lightened. For the first time in years, I feel absolute joy. I still do not understand how this works, but I can attest that it does. And that it feels like magic, under Inge’s marvelous, wondrous, healing hands.

 Cate Garrison

18 December, 2024