By Linda Chollar
Originally Published in Reflexology Across America, RAA News Magazine Winter Edition 2008

As I reflect on my personal path and career in reflexology, it’s been 17 years ago that I fell in love with the healing touch of reflexology. As I have heard so many say, ‘it changed my life!’ The feet led me into study of the whole body/mind anatomy.  I learned from many teachers and mentors in the reflexology field and they inspired me to research and pioneer reflexology education into new areas with a passion to touch and teach. It’s been a rewarding journey and today while I use a variety of body-based therapies and holistic approaches, reflexology is the foundation of my work.

My focus today is on pain management as people need natural, non-invasive and non-drug methods for pain relief. Complementary therapies are emerging as the new medicine. Billions are spent yearly out-of-pocket by Americans seeking alternatives approaches for wellness. In my practice, I have seen reflexology work when nothing else does for chronic pain and conditions like fibromyalgia (FM), a chronic muscular pain condition that affects millions of people. Years ago, when I began to research fibromyalgia, there was little information to be found.  Now, there is much research being done and FM is a controversial syndrome without a clear cause or treatment.  My experience with FM clients has been rewarding as I have used foot reflexology to alleviate pain, stress and balance the nervous system. I began teaching reflexology classes to FM individuals for self-care and to reflexologists to understand the fibromyalgia client. Reflexology continues to grow as a choice in caring for chronic pain.

Research at Michigan State University by Dr. Gwen Wyatt showed reflexology to be the first choice of several interventions and she was granted a $3 million grant to do a 5 year study on the benefits of reflexology for pain in breast cancer  

Musculoskeletal chronic pain is not the expertise of traditional medicine. The use of pharmaceuticals and side effects are rampant and so is chronic pain. The message is being heard from others like myself - reflexology works as a natural and non-invasive pain reliever. Professionals trained in reflexology are merging into integrative medicine and working as pain management practitioners in wellness centers, hospitals and private clinics.       

Recently, I wrote several articles about my success with using reflexology to help my fibromyalgia clients.  These articles were published by the American Holistic Health Assn., the National Fibromyalgia Assn., FM-related websites, and my personal blog that popped up on Google. Requests flooded in from everywhere asking about reflexology for fibromyalgia and how to find a trained reflexologist. The response validated public interest and the need for access to complementary and alternative medicine practices. The opportunity for reflexology to impact a society in pain has never been greater!

A search for a qualified practitioner should start with the industry's professional organizations, where certified reflexologists are listed by state.  Search for a state association of reflexogists or go to the website of the American Reflexology Certification Board.    

Reflexology's Impact on a Future Doctor
 
I recently met a young medical student named Sarah, as a result of a lecture I gave to a class at the Keck School of Medicine on the benefits of reflexology for fibromyalgia. Sarah was motivated to do research on FM and I invited her to participate in a small study of my FM clients to show the effects of reflexology on pain.  She recorded the effects on stress and pain levels as each person received a specific reflexology session for FM.  Each one experienced 100% relief from their pain and each reported feeling calmer and a sense of overall well-being. This was a new experience for Sarah to observe alternative medicine in action and she shared that it shifted her vision for her medical career.

She later prepared a paper for a clinical study review board and she gave me permission to print it. My thanks to Sarah for her contribution to this article. Sarah is a reflection of the new era of medicine.

My Motivation and Training for the Study of Reflexology for Fibromyalgia

by Sarah Gilman-Short

I am a unique medical student in that I have a degree in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley, and I came into medical school with very little experience in biological research. I love studying medicine, but most research seemed too esoteric and removed from actual patients to warrant expenditure of my precious free time.

After a conversation with Dr. T, however, my attitude about research dramatically changed. He had just given a lecture about catecholamines, and during the lecture he mentioned, in passing, a comment about fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). Intrigued, I asked him to expand on his comment after class.  

The conversation that transpired was certainly the beginning of a life-changing experience for me. My mother was diagnosed with FMS about seven years ago, and watching her and my father (who is a family practitioner) struggle with understanding her diagnosis and exploring treatment options was extremely difficult for me. Despite its widespread prevalence in the population, most people know very little about FMS. My conversation with Dr. T was the first time in my (admittedly short) medical career that I had spoken with someone who shared in my frustration and really understood how ineffective the current standard of care is for FMS patients.

During our conversation, Dr. T told me about Linda Chollar, a reflexologist who has had great success treating FMS sufferers. He told me about his understanding of the pathology of FMS, which was very different from what I later learned in my classes, but much more consistent with the symptoms I had observed in my mother. My conversation with Dr. T filled me with hope, and I was ready to help him and Linda in any way that I possibly could.

Since becoming involved with their research, I have gained a considerable amount of knowledge about FMS. I have performed literature searches and read countless articles about theories of the pathogenesis of FMS and imaging studies that have been performed on FMS patients. I’ve read most of a very thorough textbook by Daniel S. Clauw, entitled Fibromyalgia and Other Central Pain Syndromes, and I am now familiar with most of the research that has been done in the past on FMS.

I have also been extremely fortunate to shadow and learn from Linda Chollar. She is a healer in every sense of the word, and spending just a few hours with her introduced me to a holistic perspective of treatment that I will take with me in my own practice. Until that time with Linda, I was very unfamiliar with alternative health care, but watching her treat patients opened my eyes to the possibilities of noninvasive, holistic treatment that is much more effective than pharmaceuticals.

In addition to my own personal interest in helping my mother, I’ve become intensely interested in FMS from a public health and medical philosophical perspective. Most doctors don’t like to treat FMS patients because their disease is so holistic: they have symptoms in multiple organ systems, and they are often sufferers of physical or emotional trauma. FMS is a syndrome, not a disease, and there is no one pill or surgery that will fix all of the aspects of the syndrome. I think that this is very hard for most doctors to understand, and many of them feel powerless by their inability to “cure” FMS. I think that in order to effectively treat FMS, doctors have to change their perspective and really look at the whole of the patient’s dysfunction instead of trying to individually treat all of their symptoms. In my opinion, this paradigm is much better than the traditional approach of medicine for any disease, and my hope is that as more research is done on FMS, doctors will be given the tools to more effectively treat all of their patients.

As we move into another phase of our research, I look forward to being involved in and learning about the logistical processes necessary for performing an interventional study on human subjects, such as drafting an IRB proposal. Being a part of this study has been an unexpectedly rewarding experience for me both personally and professionally, and even at this early point Dr. T and Linda have made a small success by changing my attitude about FMS and medicine as a whole.
   

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© Copyright Linda Chollar (www.PainFreePath.com). 
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About the Author:
Linda Chollar is a Reflexology Instructor at Torrance Memorial Medical Center, Torrance, CA and serves as vice-president of ACARET, the national accreditation board for reflexology educators.