Why is it often necessary to work on scars?
Whether caused by injury, surgery, or burns, scars can often feel like a disfigurement and be uncomfortably tight, itchy or painful.
Scars can be more noticeable if they protrude or are depressed compared to the surrounding skin, they lack orientation, pull on other structures or differ in their colour, which can become bothersome for some.
Scars are the result of damage though trauma whether it be incident / accident or surgery.
And the effects on the sensorimotor system can be dramatic!
Why? Well, from a purely structural point of view, the fascia is altered and distorted during the trauma and because the fascia acts like a skeleton to the nervous system, this disrupts the proper flow of electrical energy, particularly if the scar is also traversing a meridian or acupuncture point. Adhesions also affect the nervous system directly and therefore motor control often suffers as a consequence.
The latest research I’ve seen suggests it’s not so much a breaking up of scar tissue that certain myofascial methods offer, but rather a reorganization of disordered collagen fibrils (Franchi) that can form from chronic soft-tissue stress (Gracovetsky, Franchi), there are also fluid dynamics issues to consider too.
You can see, just like an iceberg, only 10% is visible from the surface, and just because time has passed since the trauma, it doesn’t mean your nervous system has ‘reset’ itself back to ‘normal’ (optimal).
In clinic we use various techniques to investigate and unravel the resultant dysfunctions in the soft tissues to improve the neuro physical functionality, and feel of the scar and its surrounding tissue, creating an improved level of fluidity and integration throughout the body, so that you can get your life back on track.
Not every scar requires treatment, but if you, or anyone you know has a troublesome scar, and would like to discuss things to see if I could help, drop me a PM 😊❤️
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