Chuck Lubeck LMT

12/08/2025

12/05/2025

Are MRI Findings Really the Cause of Back Pain? Maybe… but often it’s inflammation.

A recent study reported that the more cumulative findings you have on MRI, the more likely you are to experience back pain.
Useful information — but here’s our take:

The study looked at associations, and association does not equal causation.

MRI shows structure, not symptoms. We see disc bulges, degeneration, and “changes” in plenty of people who have zero pain. So a structural finding alone rarely tells us why someone hurts.

What often matters more?

👉 Inflammation.
Inflammatory activity—macrophages, cytokines, congestion, and nerve sensitivity—can turn a totally harmless MRI finding into a painful one. Pain tends to correlate more with inflammation and tissue sensitivity than with how dramatic the MRI looks.

Bottom line:
An MRI can tell you what something looks like.
Pain tells you what something feels like.
And the gap between those two is usually filled by inflammation—not the image.

12/01/2025

THIS. IS. RAPID!!

Great work and share by RAPID Specialist Brenna Fox.

“I wanted to share a cool experience I had in a treatment today!

Client (31 F) was in a car accident at 17 years old. She got thrown around quite a bit and hit the back and left side of her head multiple times. She's done tons of physical therapy to get as well as she is, but she still has constant pain and her left side "seizes up" 2-3 times per year. She also says talking and chewing are super fatiguing to the point that she's battling an eating disorder. She mentioned this in passing and that she's going to a mental health therapist to work through it because a doctor after her car accident told her it was permanent nerve damage and she was going to have to live with it. I asked if I could feel around in her neck and jaw and found the left side of her neck lacking completely in tone. I asked her if she could flex the muscle and she could not (before picture).

I addressed the neck and shoulder pain that she came in for and then spent the last 5 minutes or so on the platysma, SCM, sternocostal joints, hyoid, and longus colli on both sides. Cue the after picture and big fat tears because she could, in her words, "swallow normally" for the first time since she was 17. Shared with her permission.

Have I mentioned how much I love Rapid NeuroFascial Reset lately? Pretty cool for 40 minutes ✨”

10/23/2025

Did you know? A study presented at the Third International Fascia Research Congress found that targeting areas of mechanoreceptor densities improved therapeutic outcomes. Where are these densities-the periosteum, ligaments, tendons and retinaculi. 💡

10/03/2025

Substance P -a neuropeptide that is released when we stimulate nociceptors, signals macrophages to shift from inflammation (M1) to repair (M2), a key step in the healing process. 🔄

08/15/2025

I can relate

The impact of old injuries!

All too often it is something from the top of the list that is causing something on the bottom of the list.

At RAPID we look at our patient’s first known injury and everything in between to try to figure out when their brain took a few dysfunctional memory snapshots which now can distort their body into an angry mess if they sleep or sit wrong.

Recently a student told me that a lot of her clients were waking up with painful necks-her comment was “people aren’t getting injured sleeping are they?”

Of course they are not but their brain has a good memory and if they stay just a hair too long in an awkward position their brain will take them right back to that kink in their neck from when they fell out of that tree at an early age.

Our job as therapists is to simply reassure the brain of its safety and reset the system to quickly undue those nasty memory snapshots.

07/23/2025

You clients pain has little to do with degeneration and damage but lots to do with the sensitization of their nervous system. Knowing how to desensitize, diffuse, and reset the system is the fastest way to reduce pain. This is RAPID!

07/14/2025

06/11/2025

Pain decreases when the brain senses less danger and more safety.