Post-Op Healing and The Magic of a Stretch

Lessons from The 4th international Fascial Research Congress:

It was another amazing opportunity to hang out with the greatest minds of our time as far as understanding treatment potentials in the realm of complementary therapies. It is very exciting to have science validate what we "thought" we were doing post surgery. Below is a bit about what I learned.

Hypothesis: Mechanical forces play an important role in connective tissue remodeling, scarring and fibrosis. We tested the hypothesis that brief (10 minutes) static tissue stretch and brief manual tissue stretch (3 cycles of 10 seconds) attenuates the new collagen deposition in response to injury.

Observation:

The method used 3 different models:

1. Manual stretching

2. Sretching by a machine

3. No stretching

The results were that micro injury resulted in a significant increase on collagen deposition in the absence of stretch, but not in the presence of stretch in both groups of manual and mechanical elongated tissue.

Another study was done on post-caesarian section abdominal pain treated with manual fascial release techniques. Again the results showed that manual fascial release techniques may help reduce chronic pain in women who have had C-section surgery.

Conclusion:

Manual and/or active stretching helps reduce the accumulation of excess scar tissue. Mechanical force during wound repair, regulates cell-matrix interactions therefore, blocking or inhibiting the ability of tissues to cross link. It is also important because of secretions that are happening during the stretch that lubricate the gliding surface of these tissues and act to inhibit them from binding to one another.

So after surgery, drink plenty of water and stretch from 20% to 30% of range during the initial healing process.