Canadian RMT Magazine Spring 2016 Apr. 2016 | Page 10

Ligament Pain Referral Patterns An often overlooked source of pain BY ROBERT LIBBEY Over my 22 year career I’ve recognized a distinct, immediate and ongoing problem: My clients were complaining of pain referral patterns that didn’t seem to match up with the standard trigger points, dermatome or sclerotome patterns. For years I researched scientific journals and resources, while continually charting the referral patterns described to me by my clients. What I discovered was that the ligamentous articular system was the source of their pain. In the 1950’s George Hackett, MD and Gustav Hemwal, MD researched ligamentous injuries and their pain referral patterns. Their almost 40+ years of combined research and treatments involved almost 20,000 clients worldwide and culminated in the publication of the book Ligament and Tendon Relaxation Treatment by Prolotherapy in which ligament pain referral patterns were documented for the first time. Current research is confirming that ligamentous articular structures/tissues do in fact refer pain in these characteristic patterns. It’s one of the most unrecognized and overlooked sources of pain. Research from the Bone and Joint Journal documents that within the femoral acetabular labrum, “painassociated free nerve ending expression was located showing characteristic distribution profiles of nociceptive and pain-related nerve fibres, 10 Canadian rmt Robert_Feature2.indd 10 2016-03-02 9:14 PM