Acupuncture Training: Lucy Whyte Ferguson on Treating the Shoulder

Author and trigger point expert Lucy Whyte Ferguson D.C. shares her insights into treating frozen shoulder.

About the Guest

Dr. Ferguson has studied and collaborated with many of the icons of trigger point therapy. She refers to herself as the “Forest Gump” of chiropractic because of her luck in being in the right place at the right time. She was treated by Leroy Perry, a chiropractor who worked with Olympic athletes when she injured her back in 1975 and then went to work with him and John Thie, the chiropractor who wrote the Touch for Health book and helped lay people learn how to use acupressure for muscle balancing.  Later she was invited to a seminar with Janet Travell, M.D. Dr. Travell was President John Kennedy’s medical doctor and developed the entire field of Myofascial Pain and co-authored the seminal texts on the subject. Dr. Travell became Dr. Ferguson’s mentor and colleague until Dr. Travell’s death in 1997.

Of her various accomplishments, Dr. Ferguson is proudest of the text she co-edited with Robert Gerwin, a neurologist in Bethesda and at Johns Hopkins: Clinical Mastery in the Treatment of Myofascial Pain.  In that text, Dr. Ferguson authored the chapters on Frozen Shoulder and on Hip and Groin Pain and co-authored the chapters on Whiplash neck injuries and Lower back Pain and the chapter on Heel Pain.  For over 15 years she has been a course co-director of a series of  interdisciplinary continuing education courses that focus on teaching the diagnosis and treatment of myofascial pain to health professionals from all over the country including acupuncturists as well as MDs, PAs, NPs, PTs, DCs, Dos, and LMTs.  At this time, she is completing the third article in a series about treatment of Idiopathic Scoliosis.

Books or Articles Mentioned

Clinical Mastery in the Treatment of Myofascial Pain

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