William of Occam (or Ockham) was a 14th century Franciscan friar and philosopher who is known for the principle of choosing amongst competing options the simplest explanation that best fits the observable facts. In medicine, for example, if someone presents with 15 different symptoms the physician is taught not to assume that 15 different exotic diseases have struck the hapless patient simultaneously each causing one symptom, but rather, to look for the one diagnosis which best explains as many of them as possible. Occasionally however, a person may have more than one problem.
A friend once asked me if I could fix her shoulder and neck which had been hurting her for several weeks, so much so that she could not turn her neck and the pain was interfering with her work. She had some trigger points in her neck and shoulder muscles which were released with the Pain Neutralization Technique and a few moments later full painless function was restored. On further questioning, however, she mentioned that she had morning stiffness and could not bend her fingers. This indicated the presence of inflammatory arthritis and she was encouraged to have some tests done which confirmed the diagnosis and she received from her family physician the appropriate treatment. She had two diagnoses, one simple and easily treated by manual medicine, the other more complicated and requiring a pharmaceutical approach.
We often see patients who have been told they have X or Y wrong with them based on X-ray findings but when we examine them find that the actual problem is something simpler, such as a myofascial trigger point or a referred pain pattern, that can be treated with a manual technique or by trigger point injections, perineural injections of prolotherapy. Sometimes the pain is the result of a dysfunctional movement pattern which needs to be unlearned and replaced using NKT.
A friend once asked me if I could fix her shoulder and neck which had been hurting her for several weeks, so much so that she could not turn her neck and the pain was interfering with her work. She had some trigger points in her neck and shoulder muscles which were released with the Pain Neutralization Technique and a few moments later full painless function was restored. On further questioning, however, she mentioned that she had morning stiffness and could not bend her fingers. This indicated the presence of inflammatory arthritis and she was encouraged to have some tests done which confirmed the diagnosis and she received from her family physician the appropriate treatment. She had two diagnoses, one simple and easily treated by manual medicine, the other more complicated and requiring a pharmaceutical approach.
We often see patients who have been told they have X or Y wrong with them based on X-ray findings but when we examine them find that the actual problem is something simpler, such as a myofascial trigger point or a referred pain pattern, that can be treated with a manual technique or by trigger point injections, perineural injections of prolotherapy. Sometimes the pain is the result of a dysfunctional movement pattern which needs to be unlearned and replaced using NKT.
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