Scar Tissue & Embodied Autonomy

SCARS ARE A FACT OF LIFE

Scars are a fact of life lived in the body. Healthy scars close wounds, and that’s the end of it. But some scars don’t stop there – they spread three-dimensional web-like structures emerging from a wound site or surgical incision. These fibrotic shells are pathological scars and constrict muscles and organs. They create rough raised tissue that tightens over time as it spreads away from the original site of trauma. The effects of scars often go much further – their pull can be felt at quite a distance from old injuries or surgeries. Scars are often at the root of postural distortions.

To understand scars and their relationship to embodied autonomy, you have to know something about fascia. In its loosest definition, fascia is described as the ubiquitous connective tissue surrounding and connecting everything in the body to everything else. In conventional medical science, its function is limited to one of structural support. New research reveals it as both an organizational and informational tissue. Fascia is the scaffolding for the progressive growth of scar tissue and communicates with everything it touches. Fascia connects one organ to another; one bundle of muscle fibers to another, and in its minute microtubular form, penetrates inside the cell to tug on strands of DNA, affecting their output.

PHYSICAL INJURIES FROM PHYSICAL TRAUMAS

Our overall health history is married to our history of physical injuries from physical traumas. These events create scars that proliferate, driven by chronic inflammation and emotional holding patterns. As a process of gradual stiffening is established, our range of motion is reduced, as well as our physiologic potential. Embodied autonomy is a use-it-or-lose-it proposition. When overall stiffening due to scar tissue occurs within the fascial web, every cell of every tissue is affected. At that point, blood flow, lymphatic drainage, neural messaging, sensory integration, actually everything dims down, including body autonomy.

“Aging” happens in fascia: when your body’s entire fascia network dehydrates due to systemic inflammation and oxidative stress, fascial fibers stiffen and get and sticky. As stiff fascia fibers adhere to each other, the ease of slide and glide between muscles with their neighbors, of connective tissue over bone, of organs and their surrounding tissues diminishes. Joints lose their flexibility, and healthy muscles begin to atrophy as a result of thickening scar tissue reducing nerve and blood supply. Lymphatic drainage is diminished, and your flesh becomes boggy and stagnant. Scars bind toxic chemistry to sensitive areas, causing pain, and potentially dissociation.

DISSOCIATION

Scars interfere with a surprising number of physiologic functions. They not only interfere with blood delivery and lymphatic drainage but also nerve delivery. When areas go numb due to scar tissue, it creates dissociation from our mental body map. Scars also cause pain by impinging nerves. This constant nerve compression creates inflammatory responses in pain-sensitive tissues. The frustrating irony is that when nerve compression causes inflammation, it also causes scar tissue to proliferate. This downward spiral is at the heart of many pathologies in the body, including sexual pain.

SCARS & SEXUAL PAIN

Sexual pain after childbirth is common. The role of scars in long-term sexual pain is examined in exhaustive detail in my doctoral dissertation (link coming soon!). I have worked intensively with women with sexual pain for the last decade. Sometimes giving birth happened twenty years or more in the past, but the pain remained. Once scar tissue is remediated, sexual pain initially resolves. To maintain the effects of pain resolution, often clients must comply with ongoing self-help.

The good news is, in order to break the cycle of inflammatory pain or loss of sensation from self-propagating scars, remediation is attainable. Remediation means physical manipulation of scars and their surrounding tissue, which creates changes in scar texture and tension. Sometimes you need help to reach tricky areas or get deep enough to address the places where places muscle meets bone. Physical manipulation has to get into the affected tissue, and to fully remediate it, renew fluid flow. It’s like fixing a clogged sink – you have to find and dissolve the hairball of tangled fascia to get nerve impulses and life-giving fluids like blood and lymph to move again. Health follows fluid delivery, naturally!

SCARS CAN BE REMEDIATED

Scar tissue remediation dissolves and softens scars under the right conditions, and there are many techniques to change their stiffness and density. With the help of special oils, tools, and techniques, you can do remediation work on your own. I can help you become more informed about the details of self-care options, so you can continue to encourage positive change. If you need additional help, see a knowledgeable practitioner. I’ve developed scar remediation techniques for pelvic floor injuries and taught them to professionals working in dozens of countries. Working with scar tissue has been my passion ever since I learned about its far-reaching effects. I am exceptionally skilled in remediation for birth-related injuries or surgeries. If you have scar-related problems resulting from childbirth, I make myself available to work with these issues without my usual assessment requirements. For non-birth-related scars, it’s a longer conversation and prior assessment is recommended to get effective results.

ASSESSMENT

If you have birth-related scars or sexual pain, you can book a session here. If you have long-standing scar issues from prior injuries or surgeries that are not birth-related, learn more about the assessment process here. When you demonstrate commitment and a genuine desire to make necessary changes, there is the possibility to continue our scar remediation journey together by coaching with me. During coaching, we partner to develop and refine your scar remediation practices, applying the insights gleaned during assessment. The result is more freedom in your body and pain relief as you rediscover embodied autonomy, one step at a time.

If you’re not sure you’re ready for a full assessment, but would like to explore some basic questions about your scars in an introductory session, learn more here. To read about what others have said about their assessments and coaching with me, see the testimonials.