Spiritual Things Matter

Life is like a bicycle – you don’t fall off until you stop pedaling. It is better to wear out than to rust out, so keep pedaling. ~ Janet G. Travell, M.D.

For years, I have suffered from low back-pain, sacroiliac joint dysfunction, and a sharp shooting pain radiating downward. I injured my back when I was just in my early twenties working at a church print shop.

Many years ago, a friend of mine told me of a doctor in Houston that he thought might be able to help me. I responded to physical therapy only for a time, and then I would be right back dealing with the same pains often with my legs giving out on me. I listened to my friend and took his advice because he was a Physical Therapist and I trusted his judgement. I had no idea what I was in for when I scheduled my first appointment.

Dr. Tinh Van Tran is a Vietnamese American US Special Force doctor who has been in practice in Houston since 1976. He specializes in Neuromuscular-Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction and applying Dr. Janet Travell techniques. For more than 18 years, he studied under Janet Travell, who was the White House physician for President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Dr. Travell taught medical doctors, dentists, and chiropractors the very methods that she herself had developed. She was a remarkable woman, full of energy and vitality. She left a remarkable legacy and a pioneering body of work related to the treatment of myofascial pain.

As Dr. Tran gave me a thorough check-up some fifteen years ago, he explained to me about muscle pain. His accent made it hard for me to understand him, but when he began to pull out a very long needle, I understood quickly what was coming next. My friend failed to tell me this small detail . . . perhaps it was best that way. As I lay on his table, two ladies held me down while Dr. Tran gave me these long needle injections. The pain was unreal, and I found myself grunting, holding my breath, grabbing his coat, hitting my fist on the table, and trying so very hard not to scream. After all, I wanted to be able to keep some of my dignity. He inserted the needle into at least 7 or 8 different places, and I simply was worn out afterwards.

I had to go back to him about three more times repeating the same series of injections. After each one of those series, though, I began to notice a considerable difference in my pain level. Once we were completely finished, I was pain free and remained pain free for over 10 years.

For the past five plus years, I began to notice my pain coming back. My sacroiliac joints were becoming unstable again. For the past 3-4 years, I have suffered almost constant pain in my back with sharp shooting pain down my buttock and legs.

After my bladder surgery a couple of months ago, I noticed a sharp pain going down my left side to the front of my upper knee. My knee was hurting constantly, and the only position that alleviated some of that pain was by simply standing upright. After some acupuncture and chiropractic treatments which were unsuccessful in treating this, I finally gave in and set up an appointment with Dr. Tran last week.

As I entered the waiting room area, I noticed many more photographs hanging on the walls of well known athletes. I am glad these people have a place to go. When Dr. Tran came into the patient room, he remembered me from all those years ago. We chuckled together when I told him how I remembered him telling me that I was braver than boxer Evander Holyfield, whom he saw on a regular basis. Perhaps he tells all his patients that in order to help them with their fear level for the next visits, or perhaps he really was giving me a complement since I was trying to be so brave!  His accent, though still heavy,  had become clearer, and I had a much easier time understanding him this time around.

We did not waist any time since we both knew what had to be done. He refreshed my memory again as to what the formula of the shots were. Basically, they consist of 99% water and B12 Vitamins for healing the tissues, and lidocaine to help with the pain.

He started from the side of my spinal cord, going down to my lower back and to my lower extremities. I held on to his coat again, not realizing that I was doing so at the time, until I let go. I was grunting through my teeth again trying hard not to scream. The pain was intense. It was just as intense as I had remembered it 15 years ago. I still wanted to preserve my dignity, and therefore I did not scream.

I will be going back to him again this week, and probably one or two more times. Each of those visits cost a whopping $250 dollars and his front desk provided me the paperwork for me to file the insurance myself. The cost is well worth it to me, especially since I can already tell a difference just from last week. If you have suffered from this kind of pain, or any kind of chronic muscular pain, you might want to contact him for a consultation. Here is his information:

Houston Neuromuscular Medical Pain Clinic
Tinh Van Tran, M.D.
2420 Dunlavy
Houston Texas 77006
713-529-5611
drtinhtran@yahoo.com

* I invited Dr. Tran to write a little about Janet Travell below. I am encouraging him strongly to get a website and/or a blog set up. He has so much to share. I think we are going to make that happen very soon!

A little nostalgia about Dr. Janet Travell by Tinh V. Tran, M.D.:

Dr. Travell was born on Jan, 19, 1901 and deceased on Aug. 1. 1997. She was entombed in her family cemetery in Albany, NY.

Her interest in Myofascial Pain & Dysfunction showed up in her winning of the Third Prize in the 1948 Mississippi Valley Medical Society Essay Contest and printed in Mississippi Valley Medical Journal, vol. 71, Jan. 1949 pp. 13-21. The title is “BASIS FOR THE MULTIPLE USES OF LOCAL BLOC OF SOMATIC TRIGGER AREAS” (”Procaine infiltration and Ethyl Chloride Spray”)

In May 1952, a long overdue publication came in the journal Post Graduate Medicine, Vol. 11, No. 5 titled “THE MYOFASCIAL GENESIS OF THE PAIN describes the Trigger Area, The Pain-Spasm Cycle, the Referred Pain Areas with diagrams of almost all the major Myofascial and Visceral Pain of the body treatable by Injections in Trigger Points, Ethyl Chloride Spray & Stretch, Physical Therapies, Mobilization & Manipulation-Myofacial Release of the Muscle-Fasciae-Tendons-Ligaments-Aponerosis-Soft Tissues complex.

It is rare to find any book on Myopain or Musculo-skeletal Pain & Dysfunction that is not based on the above concept and diagrams.

In 1983, Williams & Wilkins of 428 E. Preston Street, Baltimore, MD 21202, USA published the first volume of Myofascial Pain & Dysfunction dealing with the Upper Half of the body and in 1992 came Vol. 2 containing information relating to the Lower Half.

In 1955, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts was on crutches after two back surgeries and it seemed that there were no option other than a third one which might not bring a favorable prognosis. The Kennedy’s family and the Medical Staff concurred on the decision for Dr. Ephraim Shor to bring the disabled Senator JFK to the Cornell University Medical College and Beth Israel Hospital, New York to see Dr. Janet Travell.

Happily, JKF responded favorably, some say, miraculously, to Dr. Janet Travell’s Myofascial Pain & Dysfunction treatment and the country had John F. Kennedy elected President of the USA in 1990.

Is it simply History Coincidence or Placebo Effect and Psychosomatic phenomenon, or sound Medical Sciences applied and performed by the Mother & Master of the Art of Myofascial Pain & Dysfunction management, Dr. Janet Travell?

Can you, sufferers of irritating, depressing, sometimes debilitating-disabling Aches & Pain benefit from the same treatment?

Your Family Doctor may write a Prescription and You go get it filled by the local Pharmacist and all the Pain & Dysfunction may disappeared. God blessed You. Please thanks God.

Or your Neurologist ran batteries of Diagnostic Tests and came to a very highly accurate Academic Report helping your successful care with a Multidisciplinary Medical approach?

Or your highly trained and highly skilled Orthopedic Doctor, after X-Ray, MRI, CAT scan, Blood Tests, put you in an operating room and solved your problems for good?

May be one of the above highly educated professionals use Dr. Travell’s techniques coupled with Physical Therapy-Occupational Therapy together with your Physical Exercises & Therapeutic Exercises at home, your life style modifications, your posture improvement, your healthier nutrition-diet & sleep, your positive & optimistic behavior and, by Apollo!, you had a first lucky approach before any other advanced High Tech.

Remember: JFK was not mentally ill. His medical conditions were real. He benefited from a Multidisciplinary Approach by a scientifically sound medical team from the best Hospital of Massachusetts PLUS the gentle and loving care of the great Master & Mother of the Art of Myofascial Pain & Dysfunction management, Dr. Janet Travell, M.D.

And Kennedy is one of our greatest President… without crutches around the White House (some people dared accuse JFK of chasing Marilyn Monroe at high speed around the Rose Garden: may I abstain to believe it even though I knew that JFK recovered the strength of his legs and sent our astronauts to the moon) and Janet Travell, M.D. is the first and, so far, the only Lady White House Physician. I hope our next President will have the second “Lady White House Physician”.

May I claim that my great mentor & teacher is the most beautiful White House Physician. All men, please step back. Women First, please. Of course, NO gentleman can compete against ladies on beauty contest. We can cooperate by increasing the family and national cosmetic budget. Thanks Y’all.

Who, being loved, is poor? ~Oscar Wilde

Kal, one of my blogger friends focused his attention today on Blog Action Day and their theme for this year is Poverty. Thanks for posting on this, Kal!

I looked at their site, and I think it is truly a wonderful effort that so many have made in joining together to heighten awareness of the poverty that exists worldwide. If each one of us did our part, whatever that might mean for us, that effort will become part of the solution.

One could write volumes on poverty. It is a dilemma that is painful to come to terms with. It is a fact in our world. Yet, as painful as it is to look poverty in the eyes, it teaches us so much. If only we would not be afraid of it and understand that what we fear out there is that…which we really fear within ourselves.

Poverty can manifest itself in many different ways. The most visible, of course, is the poverty we see when men, women, and children sleep on our streets and under our bridges. When we see beggars holding their hands out for just a little something, we notice the lines on their faces, which only masks their true age. When the mentally ill are left to themselves endangering themselves as well as others, one cries out that humanity would be healed, forever rising above such deprivation. Juvenal, a Roman poet (55 AD-127 AD) once said, “It is not easy for men to rise whose qualities are thwarted by poverty.”

And so it is, when men are hunched over in poverty, they have little strength to stand to see all the possibilities. Benjamin Franklin said, “Poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue; it is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.”

There is another kind of poverty that concerns me just as much as the one that is so readily seen. It is the poverty of the soul. The poverty of the heart. The poverty of the mind. It is a poverty that I see so often and in so many different places. It is a poverty that I have seen within my own heart and soul. It has often deeply troubled me. I work hard to rise above it, each and every day of my life. Mother Teresa said it right when she said, “The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.”

Growing up in an orphanage from the time I was one and a half years of age until I was fourteen brought an underlying loneliness into my life. Coming to America without speaking a word of English and without being understood by anyone was a loneliness that to this day is difficult for me to explain. I was looking forward to having my own family, but was only met with disappointment because the people that I came to live with were deeply impoverished themselves. Therefore, it only served to drive my loneliness even deeper into my soul. When my brothers were adopted and I was not, it made me doubt my own worth again and again.

It was a feeling of being forgotten and left alone. It was a feeling of not belonging anywhere or to anyone. It was a feeling of being unloved and uncared for, and a feeling of total isolation and abandonment. These were feelings of impoverishment that I have often felt ashamed of in my life. It drove me into further isolation from a world that did not see me. It drove me to protect myself from as much pain as possible. Many times, because of that, I forgot to live life to its fullest. I simply shut life out.

As I have grown older and experienced some healing through the gentleness and graceful mercies of Love, I often notice an orphan mentality in many even though they grew up with parents. Feeling loved as a child is something that many miss out on. Such pain often brings many complexities into the heart and minds of hurting souls. The poverty of love is profoundly painful and drives many to suicides, drugs, alcohol, and criminality. I have experienced, though, that this same poverty of love can also open a window to experience the greatest Love of all. This process can take some time and often many tears are shed during the process.

Poverty! Oh may we find the courage to rise out of our own poverty’s that we may reach out and help heal another hurting heart. The poverty which we have experienced ourselves is the very poverty that has equipped us with compassion to help heal someone else.

This post is part of Blog Action Day 8 – Poverty

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~Teri~

May you find peace in the midst of turmoil today.
May you find comfort in your own tears.
May those tears flow freely with fond memories to pass on,
And may the presence of your beloved always be in your heart.

I pray for you today, that the joys of yesterday will never be forgotten,
That the pains you shared together have created a lasting bond,
That you embrace yourself gently as you tenderly say goodbye,
And that your goodbyes will only be in passing.

May you find comfort in the mysteries of life and death,
For life brings tears that flow with so much wisdom,
Proclaiming that nothing every really dies but only changes -
And in that change comes greater awareness of the Divine.

~Viola M. Jaynes

*Dedicated to Teri as she finds comfort in her loss.*

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Quietly life burns like a gentle sparkling fire
Mundane with tasks we know all too well.
Politely greeting and meeting
Attending to duties as citizen and friend.

All at once an arrow pierces our heart
It kindles alive this fire in our bellies.
Strange it seems – the energy that bursts forth
Vast powers from within rising to the surface.

Passion heightens the mind and our senses
Nothing at all becomes impossible to reach.
The heart courageously beats the rhythm of this fire
Going forth, hoping that reason is not forgotten.

Oh, the passions that consume our lives
In beauty that bursts forth in deep satisfaction.
Creativity is passion’s gift, bringing untold dreams to fruition
During rare and exquisite moments of raptured awareness.

~Viola M. Jaynes