SCARS - Gut & neurological speed bumps

This is a bit of a passion piece here at Unna MVMT. Often over looked & with potential to create significant improvement in movement, injury risk & recovery & discomfort.

Scars effect the neuromuscular system - limbic system and the organisation of motor systems & organs. In the motor system (movement programs in the brain & coordination of ideal movement patterns) this means your emotional system & your scar tissue can get together & shut down movement patterns. This adjustment to synergistic (well balanced) patterns is a pathway to injury & pain. Often when seeking help with pain in one area, people won’t look to the global impact a scar will have = chasing pain around with out good outcomes.

Scars from more Female specific surgeries
- cesarean section
- episiotomy / tearing in birth
- endometrial ablation 
- hysterectomy 

- breast argumentation/removal /cancer scars
- anterior cruciate ligament surgery*

* females at higher risk/incidence of ACL injury Devana et al 2022

Then when we consider the gut we have a some other interesting considerations. Like SIBO - small intestinal bacterial overgrowth can be abdominal surgeries (see above), adhesions, abdominal or pelvic injuries & abdominal cancers (including surgeries & scar tissue from radiation).

So how do we care for our scars?

First it is most important to scars affect our highest order brain function - the limbic system “the emotional operating system”. Particularly fear, rage, anxiety. One part called the amygdala is thought to control motivation & reward, learning, memory, the fight or flight response, hunger, thirst, & production of hormones.

So what has this got to do with scars?

When your scar is healing, there is pain & swelling & threat. Threat that you could burst it open…. this is important to your emotional system for survival (you could get an infection), emotionally - you don’t want to feel the pain or negatively impact this big surgery that his happened on your body.

SO! right back at our initial thought, changes in body mechanics - you will hold a shape & move in a way that secures the scar - because this very reasonably helps you feel safe & secure.

But the scar will then start to heal into those shapes & pulls, like a kink in a stocking. So the protective pattern that you hold, or off-centre movement patterns you already have will shape the way the scar heals.

Now add the two together…

As we return to exercise or more confident movement, scars act like “nervous system speed bumps”. Slowing down the signal for coordination & “stealing” the signal to other muscle groups. Eg: glutes aka hip muscles not firing check that knee scar. Struggling to get a full breath, check the vaginal or abdominal scar etc!

OK so what can you do when your scar has healed:

• touch the scar - initially this will feel weird but it’s really important;

• laying down check if the skin scar & the muscle level scar, are they in the same spot - you may have two areas to assess.

• massage your scar (using a massage ball or hands, moving & pulling in multiple direction - observing ways & sections that don’t like stretching - then tap into your “safety” system with breathing exercises like box breathing.

• incorporate your scar into movements & stretches - pulling, closing & lifting it with your direction of movement or against too create stretch.

• massage the scar & then activate “lazy” muscles - often scars slow the signal down enough that they steal ideal positions & messages to other muscles & they get BLAMED. “lazy glutes”….

• work in with a body therapist that will help “breakdown” the scar tissue - massage therapist, myotherapist, physiotherapist, exercise physiologist or traditional chinese medicine.

There has NEVER been a time when assessing & helping peoples bodies that scars haven’t been a powerful way to move forward with movement plans.

I can’t encourage you enough.

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