Even before stepping foot into Dr. Ryan's office, I was inspired to fuel my health and wellness journey after I interviewed him for a recent blog post, "Journey Well with Chiropractic Care: Meet Dr. Ryan Means."
The passion and the energy he exudes for chiropractic care infused yesterday's treatment.
Dr. Ryan has a "green practice" where he uses a tablet for intake information and scanned the records I brought with me into my electronic record.
From his website, "Treating you with a whole-person approach. You'll receive more than just an adjustment."
Since it was my first treatment, Dr. Ryan began with a complete assessment including a blood pressure check, reflexes, range of motion, flexibility and palpation of my spine. We talked about my treatment goal to rehab my left knee and get back to running. He asked about onset of symptoms, quality and duration of pain and what activities exacerbate pain. He explained to me that there is only so much you can do with a knee joint and that it is important to address hips, feet and spine when treating a knee injury. We also addressed the importance of core strength. He had me stand on with a theraband stability trainer under either foot:
He explained that I can incorporate using these into my home rehab plan and that he would be happy to help me order them. We talked about my difficulty in being able to squat on land and he introduced me to the proper mechanics of a squat suggesting I practice the basic tilt of the hips against a wall. "Most people think a squat is down and you use your quads but in fact, you are engaging the hips and the gluteus muscles and moving back."
Dr. Ryan highlighted my strengths while getting very excited about what he can do to help diminish the stress on my left knee and help me to have access to more energy and use of my muscles. Elevate Health Cambridge is a judgment free zone where I felt in every fiber of my being that Dr. Ryan wants to partner with me to maximize my health and wellness.
He explains everything both in terms of his findings and recommendations and what he is going to do before he does it. I was told that I have osteoarthritis in my spine and that I was at risk for a whole host of issues as I aged. Dr. Ryan did not know that I had been told that so when he said to me, "You have a healthy spine. The fact that we were able to hear the popping sound tells me you have a lot of mobility and no indication of arthritis," I was ecstatic. I believed I have a healthy spine but after countless spinals and epidural anesthesia and as a survivor of paralytic polio it was wonderful to have it confirmed by a trained, knowledgeable physician. As he did an adjustment on my hips he made sure that it didn't cause knee pain and said he has alternative ways to approach the adjustment if it did.
A recent focus of my meditation has been to unclench and finding ways to experience greater ease and grace in my movements. I like to think the work I am doing now is to restore my body to its factory settings before paralytic polio and violence.
With Dr. Ryan, I was able to experience my body letting go of previously held patterns. During one adjustment we heard a particularly loud pop. He explained to me that was my rib that moved. I felt such relief and release and took a deep breath. I explained to him that I tended to hold my left side as that was the side more affected by polio and was exposed to more violence. I felt that what I had held there for decades was released out into the Universe. Dr. Ryan reminded me to drink plenty of water over the next two days to flush out what was released. He also said that we want to keep that out in the Universe now.
After the adjustments, Dr. Ryan went on to work on my knee. He used this little gizmo that was painless whose "bark is louder than its bite" as Dr. Ryan explained it to work around the entire knee joint. He taped my knee:
and went onto work on my left foot with the Graston technique to begin to remove adhesions in my foot that cause me to tourque my knee.
I am delighted that my referral for physical therapy did not work out because I was able to find my way to Dr. Ryan Means. I'm excited to add Dr. Ryan to my village of healers and supporters as I continue to journey well!
Be sure to visit Dr. Ryan's website and schedule your free consultation today so you too can journey well with the help of chiropractic care.
"Journey Well" and all of my inspirational books are available on Amazon.
"Journey Well" is a book about resilience, strength, courage and how we are able to journey well no matter what conditions life hands to us. I profile the people who are Boston Stronger and share how 4/15/13 was a wake up call to me to return to my healing path from contracting paralytic polio at age 5 and 9 years of domestic violence as a child and adolescent.
50% of all book proceeds are donated to AccesSportAmerica where people of all ages and abilities achieve higher function and fitness through high challenge sports and training.
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