Fenix Self Care Kit for Releasing Trigger Points

April 5th, 2009

fenix trigger point

The FENIX Deluxe Self-Care Kit is a godsend for releasing trigger points, the knots that cause muscle pain in our body. Before the Fenix trigger point releaser, I tried the TheraCane, Jacknobber, Bongers Massage Tool, and The Happy Company Happy Massager. These tools are good for surface massage but I needed a massage tool that could give me a deeper massage.

The Fenix Self-Care Kit can be used for back of the neck pain, side of the neck pain, shoulder blade pain, shoulder pain, arm pain, glute pain, thigh pain, leg pain, calf pain, and pectoral pain. If you have ever lived with chronic muscle pain, you know what it’s like to feel a loss of control over your body and your life. This massage tool gives you back control over your life.

What surprised me about the Fenix Self-Care Kit is that the board is made of a heavy duty, durable material. I’m guessing it’s a type of plastic. The pegs are made of wood and have rubber tips for comfort. The Fenix Self-Care Kit comes with an assortment of different sized pegs for different parts of the body and an instructional DVD.

For example, the longer pegs can be used for massaging neck pain, glute pain, top of the shoulder pain, and pectoral muscle pain (chest muscles). I also use the longer pegs for arm muscle pain. The shorter pegs can be used to massage the muscles along the spine.

The board consists of slots that you put the pegs in. The slots are at different angles such as 90 degrees and 60 degrees to allow for different leverages of pressure. This product is soooo smart! And the slots are placed on the board in different combinations. Watch the DVD and read the instruction booklet and you will get the hang of it.

For low back pain, place the short pegs in the 4 middle slots. This will allow the pegs to go in a V shape so you can stretch out your lower back. Place a mid sized peg in the top slot and it will give you a 60 degree angle so you can apply pressure on the top of your shoulder for shoulder pain.

This is how it works. You press the peg against the trigger point or knot to be massaged. Hold the pressure for 1 minute while you breathe deeply. The trigger point will release and and the pain goes away. For some tough trigger points that have been contracted for a long time, months or even years, they may take longer to release. But daily trigger point releasing treatments by using the Fenix will help the trigger point release little by little. You will notice that each time you use the Fenix Self Care Kit that the trigger point will be less and less intense, until one day it goes away!

I used to have trigger points in my neck and shoulder that prevented me from turning my neck in its full range of motion, without feeling a muscle pull. Now, after using the Fenix to release the trigger points in my neck, upper back, and shoulder, I am now able to turn my neck without a muscle pull.

They have recently lowered the price on the Fenix Self-Care Kit. I bought it for $119.95. The price has dropped to under $100! It took me months to get over the price of the Fenix and actually buy it. But I use it almost every day so it has paid off! Think of it this way, the Fenix Self-Care Kit is like the price of a massage. If you could massage yourself every day, wouldn’t it be worth it?

Posted in Pain Relief, Self Massage | No Comments »

Gout Treatment

February 7th, 2009

Gout is a painful, debilitating form of arthritis which attacks the joints, commonly in the knee, ankle, or foot. Uric acid builds up in those joints from eating excess amounts of high purine foods, like beef , pork, asparagus, and spinach. The best thing you can do is prevent it by educating yourself with information on which foods have high levels of purines. Then limit those foods to one serving a week. Most foods have purines but consuming foods with higher levels of purines a few days in a row will definitely put you at risk for gout.

What can you do if you have gout now? Here are some natural remedies:

Cherry Juice, Strawberries or Blueberries. Helps cleanse your blood of uric acid.

Water. If you have nothing else, drink lots of water to help flush out the uric acid and toxins.

Burdock Root Soup. This soup can be made as a preventative measure as burdock root cleanses the liver.

Magnet therapy. This actually worked for someone I know. The acupuncturist was out of town so he was desperate. He had gout on his foot so he taped 2 card sized bio-magnets on the top and bottom of his foot, to increase circulation in that area and kept it on overnight. And it worked! In the morning, the gout symptoms went down. He used the magnets again the next night. Over 2 -3 days the gout went away.

Acupuncture. Acupuncture is a great remedy for gout as it enhances your body’s natural healing abilities, to increase circulation in the area of the gout attack.

Posted in Gout | 2 Comments »

Quitting Sugar - Anti-Inflammatory Diet

December 8th, 2008

PhotobucketIf your muscles are constantly stiff and you have chronic pain in your muscles, then most likely you have chronic inflammation in your body. Lately, I have been reading about anti-inflammatory foods from The Perricone Promise and Lick the Sugar Habit. And I have slowly incorporated some of the advice into my life. One of the habits to break is sugar.

Sugar. This commonly used, seemingly innocent additive is available in many of our packaged foods. Sugar has many names including raw sugar, turbinado sugar, sucrose, glucose, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose,  maltodextrin, brown sugar, and maltose.

What sugar does is give you a quick burst of energy then gives you a low. Look at kids when they eat sugar, like my nephew. Right after having sugar, he will bounce off the walls, then soon after become angry, defiant, and difficult to deal with.

According to the book, Lick the Sugar Habit, a little known fact about sugar is that it prevents your body from fully absorbing the vitamins and minerals in your foods. So basically, eating a meal with sugar present means that you are negating some of the benefits of eating healthy foods!

Sugar also promotes inflammation in the body and weakens the immune system. Sugar is so easy to ingest because it can be found in seemingly healthy packaged foods like cereal, sodas, juices, marinades, salad dressing, vitamins, fruit yogurt, oatmeal packets, bread, granola, canned fruit, and more. It is such a challenge to find foods that don’t have sugar, but it’s not impossible.

Try eating more natural, whole foods and limiting packaged foods. I have avoided sugar for the past 2 weeks, except in one of my vitamins. I cannot avoid it totally but I feel a lot better. I find that the more sugar I eat, the more I sneeze and have allergies. In my former work place, every person in our small office would sneeze every day except for one person. Looking back at it, she was the only of of us who avoided sugar like the plague.

I have been listening to my body more over the past several years. And it has been telling me over and over that it does not want to eat sugar but me, having a sweet tooth, could not bring myself to quit it. I have cut down on sugar significantly but never completely avoided it. Slowly my taste buds have adjusted to feeling repulsed by foods that are too sweet.

Now I have quit having desserts, sweet espresso drinks, ice cream, chocolate, cookies, etc. I only let myself have those things during the holidays. And I don’t really crave them like I used to. Honestly, I have been feeling sooooo much better. My body feels really good for the first time in a very long time.

Sugar Substitute. If you miss sugar, try stevia, which is a calorie free herb and natural sweetener. Try liquid stevia instead of the powder form because it dissolves better. A little goes a long way with stevia so you only need a few drops to sweeten your foods.

Posted in Detox, Health Blog | No Comments »

« Older Entries