Mind Body Physical Therapy
“I have been treated by Rachel Katz for back pains with next to miraculous results.”
-J. Gunderson
“I began to work with Rachel Katz. She addressed my pain with a unique approach which gave me almost immediate relief, and I have been virtually pain-free for six months now. Rachel uses techniques which are painless and powerful.”
- Elaine Calenda, Academic Dean, Boulder College of Massage Therapy, Boulder, Colorado
Pain Management and Pain Relief
You may be looking for Physical Therapy in the Boulder, CO area for pain relief or to provide pain management. Your pain may be from an injury, a surgery, an illness, or an accident that needs comprehensive healing.
Your situation may be fairly straightforward or you may know that you are dealing with a complex and chronic (longstanding) pain. Have you waited for your pain to go away on its own and it hasn’t? You may have tried other ways to resolve or rehabilitate your problem with partial or intermittent success.
It can be difficult to figure out whom to go to for help. What kinds of Physical Therapy or specific treatments might this Physical Therapist offer, and what should you, the person in pain be seeking? What results and hope is there for long lasting, effective pain relief in a reasonable time frame?
Training
I am a licensed Physical Therapist with over 28 years experience treating patients with chronic pain and complex pain situations. I am one of a handful of Physical Therapists in the United States to have graduated from the Somatic Experiencing® training which is an intensive 3 year program for treating traumatic stress impacts on the body, the emotions, and the mind. I am a listed Somatic Experiencing Practitioner in the Foundation for Human Enrichment directory. I teach other Physical Therapists, Occupational, and Massage Therapists how to address difficult and complex pain conditions with Mind Body methods.
Kinds of Pain
I work with muscle spasm and muscle pain, neck and back pain, headaches, migraines, foot pain like plantar fasciitis, swelling and stiffness after surgeries, knee and leg pain, sciatica, hip pain, injuries from car accidents, whiplash, carpal tunnel and repetitive strain injuries, shoulder pain and loss of movement, dizziness, and balance problems, arthritis, neck and back disk pain, traumatic injuries, current or past traumatic stress, crush injuries, and RSD also known as complex regional pain syndrome, and abdominal pain.
Having over 1500 hours of post-graduate study in a variety of treatment methods for therapeutic exercise, and hands on treatments gives you effective options based on your specific needs.
Your story, relevant medical reports and my evaluation of your body’s muscles, joints and function gives the needed information to develop the right Physical Therapy treatment or pain management for your condition.
Mind Body Treatments
Additionally, my unique educational framework provides you an opportunity to benefit from mind and body therapies that may be relevant for you. Some of the Mind Body treatments I use relate to traumatic circumstances and some simply re-acquaint your “offline” deep brain communication back to conscious control.
Is accessibility of insurance coverage and/or ability to pay of primary importance to you? I am an in network provider with a number of insurances, and Medicare. I will work with you to help you access Physical Therapy treatment whether you have insurance or not. See this site’s page Services and Fees for more details.
Insurance
Most medical insurance plans cover Physical Therapy. Plan details vary and may change. Deductibles can be large, not cross accumulate between in and out of network providers, and they may keep you from accessing your insurance for Physical Therapy.
Because there are quirks to getting the details right, I will take the time to call your insurance company for you, verify your Physical Therapy benefits, call you back and let you know what your coverage is prior to meeting. You can discuss payment issues with me prior to therapy.
Your concerns are important, and I am available to speak with you and answer your treatment or insurance questions. (303) 875-7878.
My Story
In 1996 I faced significant challenges from a car accident, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), grief, joint and leg pain, and loss of recreational activities while being a mom to 2 young boys. I was confronted with a condition known as complex regional pain syndrome or RSD which can fully disable a person. I was living with chronic pain daily. I desperately wanted comprehensive healing and relief of my complex pain. My situation threatened to fully ruin my family and professional life and that knowledge further added to my stress. I began to study traumatic stress and its impacts on the body, the emotions, and the mind under Dr. Peter Levine hoping I could save myself.
In the process of managing and overcoming these major life and health conditions, I gained new insights and answers to the question, “What limits healing?”
I took the learning and principles from the Somatic Experiencing training (which is predominantly used in the psychotherapy field) and adapted it into my hands on Physical Therapy practice. This brought me and my patients considerably better complex and chronic pain relief results. See detailed stories my clients have shared about their chronic pain relief on the “What Clients Are Saying” page of this site.
I learned that the experience of helplessness in the face of overwhelming threat can occur in situations such as accidents, abuse, unsafe family dynamics, financial stress, falls, medical procedures, surgeries, and with pain. It can cause a traumatic response. I felt like the dog who’s been kicked by the car too many times. I learned that accumulated life experiences can stack up and minor things can combine with major memories in the unconscious mind.
Trauma and Helplessness
Overwhelming helplessness can produce a brain state known as a freeze response. It’s the deer in the headlights. Another name for freeze in the scientific literature is the immobility response. That means not mobile; can’t move.
A freeze response was happening to my foot and leg causing complex and chronic pain and it would not fully respond to what I had previously learned about healing a body. This is not to say my leg and foot couldn’t move at all just that it couldn’t stop being so tight and painful. When I walked down stairs it felt like I had a peg leg. The good news is I learned how to get myself and many of my clients out of the complex and chronic pain tailspin.
As a Physical Therapist I recognized that the freeze response can have some close cousins which might also show up in complex and chronic pain. The deep brain regulation of muscle and joint systems has a continuum of causes for altered unconscious muscle control. Some altered muscle control stems from traumatizing circumstances and some does not. For example: a limp may continue after the natural splinting action of muscle around an injury is no longer needed.
This is protective involuntary muscle bracing. My unique skills in recognizing and treating this problem are part of what enables me to help you realize complex and chronic pain relief.
Excess muscle tension can occur in injuries, post surgery, and with disease processes of the joints like disk bulges and arthritis. If the muscles need to tighten to protect an area for sustained amounts of time, a pattern of chronic spasm and holding can occur which may mirror nerve pain and feel similar. This is usually part of a complex and chronic pain condition.
The core muscles of the back often tighten from work positions, holding a steady position for long periods of time, from injury, living in current stress, and from old and deeply held reactions to stress even as far back as childhood. Aging and injury to the spinal bones, disks, and joints also sets up a pattern of abnormal tension in the core muscles contributing to chronic pain.
Long Lasting Chronic Pain Relief
Long lasting, enduring complex and chronic pain relief can be found when the deep muscle layers re-pattern to permit small movements of the muscles and joints. Getting this healing to happen in the toughest of situations where there is a traumatic response + direct injury + plus a history of old or childhood stresses is a maze where simplistic solutions fall short.
This is the realm where mind body approaches can make a big difference. This is especially so when hands on treatment is part of the picture.
The neck and shoulder region are vulnerable to altered muscle length, loss of well distributed joint motion, inflammation of the shoulder capsule itself, repetitive use breakdown, degenerative disease and nerve impingement. This region best functions with multiple moving pieces. If your muscles limit the bones and joints from sharing all 3-D motion components, you’ll be cemented like a mosaic.
Restoring Mobility
Restoring the best possible mobility to your spine, ribs, and shoulder region can provide excellent relief of pain or pain management sufficient to avoid surgery. Proper movement and position in this region is essential for complex and chronic pain relief, and long term health and comfort.
If your muscles are over-tense, you may tire easily, have pain, sleep less soundly, have trouble finding a way to relax, awaken from sleep to change positions, and have problems with activities that require staying in one place, such as sitting at a keyboard. Once you regain normal movement of all moving parts in the painful area, there is less stress on damaged cartilage, joints, and nerves because loads and motion are distributed.
Complex and chronic pain relief can often be achieved by addressing the behavior of the muscle system. If stretching only partially helps or doesn’t last, your muscles need a different way to regain their normal elasticity. Core muscle strength needs to team back up with core segmental motion so that neighboring bones move in relation to each other.
Here’s what I do to treat complex and chronic pain situations. I work with your body’s muscle and joint receptor systems, and their interplay with normal activity. I often work with the deep brain control of posture and positioning in your balance system while you are in a resting position. This way you can separately experience what you do consciously from what your body does on its own. I will teach you to
tune in to the background signals that link in to the motion centers in the brain. As your body permits greater motion choices, you’ll learn how to maintain pain relief.
Re-establish Supple Muscles and Joints
Let’s help your body to re-establish fluid, supple, adaptive and elastic qualities in your muscles and joints. Using gentle touch or sometimes deeper bodywork, movement, humor, curiosity, and creativity in the process of healing, we can work together to help you lower or eliminate your complex and chronic pain.
Home Visits
In some situations I will make home visits. This is somewhat dependent on where you are located in the areas near Longmont and Boulder, CO.
I see most of my Physical Therapy clients in my office at: 805 S. Broadway, Suite 103 Boulder, CO 80503.
Please feel free to talk with me,
Rachel Katz, PT at (303) 875-7878
