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 are pathological scars and can form fibrotic shells around muscles and organs, creating rough, raised tissue that tightens over time as it spreads away from original sites of tissue trauma. The effects of scars can 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.
Tag Archives: postpartum
Accurate proprioception (knowing where you are in space) is a use-it-or-lose-it proposition. Due to scar tissue and inflammatory factors, essential functions of pelvic floor organs and genital tissues can be affected. Scar tissue causes thickening of the extracellular matrix or ECM (the goop between your cells), which reduces blood flow, neural messaging, and sensory integration, eventually interfering with your pelvic proprioceptive literacy. This is a kind of dissociation, an inability to feel parts of your body. The mental representation of pelvic floor muscles, encoded in the sensory motor cortex of the brain, goes dark.