We had a dramatic experience with Chapman’s reflexes (named after the founder Frank Chapman DO) but first some background history.
A therapist had a female client who fell off a garden wall nearly 5 years ago, she fell 1 ½ metres to the ground, landed heavily on her right foot. She broke both the tibia and fibula, fractured her pelvis from ischium to ilium and also the clavicle in 3 places these were all very extensive injuries. The female client endured a long stay in hospital with traction as an initial course of treatment. This was then followed up post acutely with surgery to the ankle to remove some bone fragments and general surgical clean up with the intent to lengthen the Achilles Tendon. The tendon restructure was scheduled but this was impossible to achieve at the time of surgery.
Late in 2014 she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. The predisposing possibilities were that she had 37 x-rays after the fall, which we can link to harmful outcomes. The broken clavicle caused enormous bruising to the right breast, and that could have been a factor.
She had previously had a root canal and had another tooth that was in a bad state. The dentist wanted to perform another root canal procedure, but there was some evidence to purport that root canal procedures may be linked to breast cancer. In the light of that anecdotal evidence she elected to have the dentist remove the tooth in question. The procedure was possibly incompetent as the family stated that the dentist had “damaged the adjacent tooth that had the root canal”. The client had acknowledged there is a possible link between root canal procedures and breast cancer. One research papers findings stated “that in every case of breast cancer the doctor had seen, the patient had either had root canal or gum disease and the cancer was always on the same side as the root canal”. This was confirmed with this woman regarding which side was the root canal, i.e. the right jaw and nodes present in the right breast tissue.
She had her right breast excised and approximately 37 lymph nodes removed, 35 of which had breast cancer in them. They found that the cancer had spread to her left hip, originally suspected to be in the neck of the femur though this was assessed to be in the acetabulum which then allowed for a left hip replacement.
She had to have 10 fractions of radiation to the femur/hip area, and is currently receiving chemotherapy probably for a period of 12 weekly sessions.
Naturally all this has been very stressful, and had clouded the thinking of her initial clinical therapist who had been working on the right chest, back, right leg and not focused the treatment on the left side of the clients body.
She had been reviewed by the orthopaedic surgeon very recently and this client commented that her left leg was weak. The physician tested it and it proved to be markedly weak. The doctor purposed it was due to the radiation and the chemotherapy, but would improve in a few months. Still the utilisation of Chapman’s reflexes (otherwise known as neurolymphatic points) didn’t occur to the therapist, until he was getting her up on the table one afternoon to concentrate on the right leg. It was at that stage the testing the neurolymphatic points was adopted by the clinician. There was no expectation for it to work in view of her history. She objected to the assessment very strongly due to the alteration of treatment protocol, the testing strength and the tenderness of the weakened points. But the effect was dramatic – the left quadriceps muscle tested as strong as the right one.
The practitioner didn’t think it would maintain this strength, but during the treatment time of approximately ½ hour she could walk much better, and was walking much more easily late in the afternoon. The intend is to keep working using the stimulation of the reflex points to alter the neural reflex activation to the lower limbs and core. The client was very happy and satisfied both physically and emotionally of her outcomes, she has daily homework of stimulation of the Chapman’s reflex points to aid in the neural efficiency of the muscles on the affected limb.