Sandy Baird DC of Riverstone Chiropractic providing queer inclusive LGBT chiropractic care for trans patients
Prism Blog, Self Care for Trans Health, Surgical Recovery & Scars

Six Steps to More Comfortable Binding: Part Four

Guest blog from Sandy Baird DC of Riverstone Chiropractic

According to a Health Impact Study published in the Culture, Health, and Sexuality Journal, 97% of people who wear a binder experience uncomfortable side effects such as neck pain, shoulder pain, back pain, and trouble breathing.

Other than limiting the time you spend in a binder, changing/washing your binder often, and avoiding unsafe compression methods such as duct tape and ACE bandages, there are several steps you an take to decrease the discomforts associated with binding.

This collection of tips comes both from my personal experience wearing binders as well as my clinical experience in treating the musculoskeletal complaints that my clients experience from binding.

4. Self-muscle work

  • Stress, tension, and anxiety can all manifest in muscular tightness.
    • There isn’t anything you can do to un-compress tissues that have been compressed all day, but there are some home-care exercises you can do to boost your resilience so you will best be able to handle the compression from a binder.
  • Foam roll your back muscles.
    • Sit on the floor with your legs in front of you, bend your knees and place your feet on the floor.
    • Place a foam roller horizontally across your mid-back and lean back against it.
    • Either cross your arms like you are hugging yourself, or clasp your hands behind your neck, and then use your heels to push into the floor to raise your hips.
    • Your head and torso will naturally lower as the foam roller moves upwards along your spine.
    • Find a rocking motion where your hips go up as your head and torso lower.
    • You can shift your weight to the muscles on one side of your spine at a time, or just keep things centered and get pressure on both sides at once.
    • After you have rolled out some of the tension in your back muscles, return your hips to the ground.
    • Reset the roller approximately at the level of your shoulder blades, and then inhale as you slowly extend your upper back over it.
    • Your head can drop back and down.
    • Exhale as you come back to the starting position.
    • This will create more general mobility through your thoracic spine (upper and mid-back).
  • Find a softball or tennis-ball-sized massage ball and some wall space.
    • Facing the wall, place the ball into the outer corner of your pec muscles (near the outside of your collarbone but before you get to your arm.
    • Roll through these chronically tight tissues until you find the tightest spot.
    • Hold pressure on that spot for about thirty seconds, remembering to breathe.
    • If you need more space for your face or your chest, you can move this exercise near a doorway and poke your head through the doorway.
    • If there is no doorway available, just place a yoga block between the ball and the wall to allow you some more space.

Look out for next week’s post for tip #5!

The stretches, self-muscle work, and strengthening exercises are from my full core and glutes strengthening program available for purchase at www.engineeringyourbody.com. And if you are interested in exploring muscle-work or joint adjusting to alleviate your muscle and joint pain, you can find out more about my practice at www.riverstonechiropractic.com.

In happiness and health,

Dr. Sandy Baird, DC

Oakland Chiropractor Sandy Baird

 

Bio:
I’m Dr. Sandy Baird, DC. I’ve been providing bodywork in the Bay Area for over ten years now. First as a massage therapist, and now as a doctor who combines soft tissue work with joint adjusting. I feel that it’s important for queers to have a safe space to have their bodies worked on. Many of us already shoulder a lot of extra stress and tension from being constantly judged, worrying about what bathrooms we should use, and having to actively resist and fight back for our rights as our new state of “normal”.

References:
Health impact of chest binding among transgender adults: a community-engaged, cross-sectional study: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13691058.2016.1191675

 

All information in this blog is for educational uses only. Always consult your doctor before taking any herbs or supplements, or changing or discontinuing your medications.

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