My Story
I have been my own guinea pig over the past 50 years as I have built the model of care that I now practice.
Bones, joints, muscles, chemistry, organs, vascular, lymph, emotions, energy. These are all components of the self.
We must ferret out seemingly confounding relationships in our body to whole.
I was the fourth of six children born into a natural health-focused family. My dad was a chiropractor naturopath in a small town in Eastern Oregon.
After college, I decided to go to chiropractic college to follow in my dad’s footsteps. At that time naturopathy was not licensed in most states, so it seemed a good plan to select chiropractic since it was licensed in all states, and many states had broad scopes of practice that replicated the practice of naturopathy. My love was always maternal/child health. And even in my first year of school, I started taking post-graduate classes in caring for moms and kids. I also enjoyed taking additional esoteric classes such as Applied Kinesiology (the functional neurology and functional medicine of its day), Total Body Modification (like Body Talk), Sacro Occipital Technique, Craniopathy, Cranio Sacral Therapy, Neuro Emotional Technique, and many others.
After practicing chiropractic in Eastern Oregon with my dad and brother, I went on to grad school at University of South Florida to receive a PhD in applied anthropology, and a MPH in epidemiology. While I waited a year for my committee to read my dissertation, I decided to make good use of my time and go to midwifery school. Midwifery had always niggled me, and the desire to be a midwife would not go away. So I enrolled in Maternidad la Luz on the Tex/Mx boarder. A year later I graduated from midwifery school and grad school! I was selected for a National Institutes of Health post-doctoral fellowship in research at Oregon Health & Science University in neurology and OB/Gyn (sitting with the urogynecologists) and immediately moved to Oregon to continue my training as a mixed-methodology (qualitative and quantitative) researcher and working as a chiropractor/midwife.
Sacroiliac Pain from a Tilted Uterus
Over time, I developed right sacroiliac pain. I was adjusted and treated with a myriad of techniques. I had massage, many brands of chiropractic, and acupuncture. I went to shamen and energy healers. I worked out and built muscle and flexibility. I practiced Ashtanga yoga. And still the pain persisted. Then I heard about Arvigo Maya Abdominal Therapy. I took the introductory class and the teacher gave each of us a free session so we could see what it felt like. She found that I had a retroverted uterus tilted back toward the right sacroiliac joint. She gave me a long and very painful treatment and peeled my adhesed uterus off the back wall of my pelvis. I had a recollection of being bucked off a horse when I was about ten, and taking a hard fall. (The body loves to tell its story). Now, I very rarely have any discomfort in my right SI. If I do, I know it means my uterus needs a bit of TLC, and I give it to her right away.
Right Dropped Kidney From A Broken Left Leg
When I was in grad school I had a terrible bike crash and broke my LEFT leg. I had surgery and a plate and seven screws were installed. Several weeks after the surgery, I noticed that my RIGHT inner leg was very flabby where it had been firm and muscular before. I was perplexed, but was focused on rehabbing my left broken leg, so did not pay it much mind. Over time I had extensive chiropractic, massage, and acupuncture with limited change to my right leg. A few years later, I developed very painful varicosities in my right lower leg. I was perplexed and took all the correct herbs for varicosities. They could eliminate the pain if I took enough, but they did not change the varicosities themselves.
I learned about the Barral Technique of visceral manipulation when I took a class in Holistic Pelvic Care. In the second Barral class, we practiced finding the kidneys and discovering if there were a nephroptosis (dropped kidney). My partner had never done the technique before, but diagnosed me with a grade three pelvic kidney. That means the kidney had slid down the fascial funnel it lives in all the way from its home by the diaphragm way down into my pelvis to nestle with my cecum and ovary (and iliac veins and arteries)! No wonder I had a flaccid inner thigh and later varicosities. The kidney was blocking my lymphatic and venous return. After my kidney was returned home in a treatment that took about five minutes by a novice, I had about 75% improvement in my presentation, and no pain in my lower leg. I thought that was pretty darn good!
Right Venous & Arterial Problems Develop Years After Left Injury
About ten years after my bike crash, I developed a sensation of warmth in my right lower quadrant where that dropped kidney had been. I went to a massage therapist friend who found that my external iliac artery was backing up and causing the sensation of warmth. She freed the artery from its constraints, and that symptom never came back. That artery had probably been squeezed by the kidney and that is what caused the fascial constraint that showed up over a decade later.
A number of years ago I began to notice a deep pain in my right calf. I was concerned that I had a deep vein thrombosis so began to take blood thinners like fish oil and anti-clot medicine like nattokinase. That took away the discomfort. But if I missed a dose, the pain was right back. I became concerned about flying and was obsessed with doing all the foot and ankle twists and lifts to prevent a blood clot on the plane. Soon after, I got a new patient with pelvic pain. She had the most tortuous iliac veins I had ever seen. That night I checked my own and found that she might not have won the prize after all. I drained my own internal, external, and common iliac veins on the right assiduously for a week and my right calf pain went away completely. Also, the remaining varicosities in the right leg and the flaccidity of my right inner thigh went away.
Chiron Is the Wounded Healer
Through my own injuries and ailments I have come to understand the body much better.
I want to share what I have learned with you.
May we all be whole.
Education
2011-2012 Postgraduate Midwifery Fellowship
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- Alma Birth Center
- Portland Oregon
2008-2011 T32 Postdoctoral NIH Research Fellow
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- Center for Complimentary & Alternative Medicine
- CAM Research Training in Neuroscience & Stress
- Oregon Health & Science University
- Departments of Neurology & OB/GYN sitting in urogynecology
- Portland, OR
2007 – 2008 Midwifery Training
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- Maternidad La Luz
- El Paso, TX
1996 – 2008 PhD Applied Medical & Biological Anthropology
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- University of South Florida
- Tampa, FL
1996- 2008 MPH Epidemiology
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- University of South Florida
- Tampa, FL
1991-1994 Doctor of Chiropractic
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- Los Angeles College of Chiropractic
- Whittier, CA
1986-1989 BA Anthropology
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- The College of William & Mary
- Williamsburg, VA
The origin of pain is not necessarily the location of pain
Caroline Peterson is an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church.
