INTERVIEW WITH MELVIN MAPP
The following interview with body pain solution expert Melvin Mapp was conducted in 2007 by Gregory Butler of Holistic-Personal-Development.com. It serves as a good introduction to the work Melvin does..
Recently I introduced myself to a man who specializes in body pain solutions. His name is Melvin Mapp and he lives in Myrtle Beach, SC. His mission, he says, is to help people eliminate joint pain from their bodies. And he does it very quickly. And differently. His success speaks for itself. For example, there was one man, a real estate business man, who suffered severe leg pain for 17 years. No one could help. When one of his associates told him of Melvin, he figured he had nothing to lose. The pain was so severe he could no longer drive. He was driven to Melvin’s office in a limousine. The driver assisted him up the sidewalk. An hour later, 17 years of knee and hip pain were gone. That is a typical story that have people knocking on his door. I was so fascinated by Melvin’s story that I asked him if I could interview him, to share his story on my website. He agreed. Here it is:
Melvin, you achieve results in bodywork faster than anyone I have ever known. What do you do differently than the other professionals in your field?
My basic idea is that I explore the ability of the body to repair itself. If you give the body positioning, certain positions, certain muscle positions, this allows the body to quickly regenerate tissue. Certain muscle positions cause a muscle to experience a great increase in blood and lymphatic fluid flow to that tissue. The lymphatic fluids flush away damaged tissue and the blood supplies oxygen and nutrients to allow the muscle to quickly repair itself. It can happen very fast. In many instances, you can effect a change in a muscle that’s been damaged in 20 minutes.
You must take the muscle and maximally contract the muscle. The maximally-contracted muscle is a muscle that is in its work position–its maximum work position.
Let’s take a good example, the bicep muscle. When most muscles give you a problem, it’s because of a spasm–a shortening of the muscle, a contracting of the muscle. That’s all spasm is. The muscle is resisting movement. It is resisting work. If you take that muscle and maximally contract it (in this case, with the bicep muscle he bends his arm), the blood and lymphatic flow to the muscle is maximized.
In the shortened position?
Yes, in the shortened position. Even though the muscle isn’t working, that is, there isn’t any weight, there is no force against it, it’s acting as though it is working.
When a muscle is working, in order for it to retain its strength, it has to be constantly in repair. (He folds his arm tightly) This muscle is repairing.
What about the back?
There are many different types of back pain because there are many different muscles in the back. The key to stopping problems with different types of back pain is in understanding of what muscle is involved.
Let’s take muscles in the lower back as an example, the muscles in the lumbar region. These often give a lot of trouble because they are prone to go into spasm. When a muscle goes into spasm, it is expressing that it is fatigued. The muscle wants a chance to repair itself. So it is resisting movement. When you try to force a muscle that doesn’t want to work, or doesn’t want to stretch, or move forward, it will complain.
With the muscles in the lower back, in the lumbar region, if you determine which muscle is involved and you contract that muscle, then hold that muscle in the contracted position for a period of time, in most instances the back pain will be eliminated.
How do you contract a muscle in the back?
To contract any muscle you have to understand what the muscle does. You’ve got to understand the origin of the muscle, where the muscle begins. You’ve got to understand where the muscle inserts, its insertion point. If you know what the action of that muscle is, then you will know how to contract it.
For example, these lower back muscles of mine have a job to keep me from falling over. (He leans over.) Now in this position the muscles are stretched. The muscle is doing its job when it holds me up. To maximally contract the muscle at the base of my spine, I would go back into the arched position.
What about a lumbar pillow?
It’s a good preventive measure, but not recommended when you’re in pain. When you use a lumbar pillow, this is going to create some type of pressure on the arteries and veins. It’s going to counteract your attempts to increase the blood and lymphatic fluids flowing into that region. Any pressure there is going to restrict that action. As a therapist, if I’m working on someone, I don’t want the person doing anything. I’m going to hold them in the correct position. I just want them to be passive and to let go so I can hold them in the position.
Again, there are different types of muscles. There are muscles on the posterior spine. There are muscles on the anterior spine. There are muscles up on the shoulder along the spine. There are muscles in the lower back on the spine. Each muscle displays a particular pain pattern. You’ve got to recognize the muscle. By understanding what a muscle does, I will recognize the body pain that the person is talking about.
For instance, an individual yesterday, a 27 year-old man, who was having excruciating back pain was scheduled to see a doctor who had suggested surgery. When I looked at his back and talked to him to understand what was wrong–you have to ask questions–you have to watch their movements and ask them questions. You look at the back, you look at the way they’re moving, the way they walk. This individual said that his primary pain came whenever he attempted to straighten his back up. His problem came from when he attempted to obtain good posture. His problem became excruciating when he attempted to do what I just showed you with my lower back. That type of pain pattern is telling me something about what muscles are involved. In this case, he was suffering spasms of muscles along the anterior spine, the front of the spine, the muscles that kept him from going too far back. Once I determined that, then I knew what position to put him in, where those muscles would immediately have fluids rush in to repair them.
Body pain and muscle pain are attempts by your body to repair itself. The muscles are saying, “We are damaged, and we need an opportunity to reset ourselves. And until you give us that opportunity, we are going to give you pain. We’re going to resist your attempts to use us.”
Going back to this fellow I worked with yesterday, I didn’t just shorten one muscle. I suspected more than one muscle was involved–a set of muscles. And it turned out I was right–there was one set of muscles involved. What I did is this–I actually treated a series of muscles that might produce the same symptoms. Sometimes a muscle pain pattern can be produced by a different set of muscles. What you’re doing in this type of situation is that you initially take one set of muscles. You shorten and hold that position, hold the person in that particular position-that position which causes that muscle to be shortened and to repair. Then you move to another position that addresses another possible culprit. Another muscle. There might be five different positions you put the person in. At the end of this session, you are expecting an 80 percent loss of body pain.
So where did you learn all of this?
My first understanding of muscle pain and body pain came from the women of the West Indies. The Obeah Women (healers who use herbs and oils)–in particular, two powerful healers, Etheline Wharton and Mother Welcome played–a big part in my training. I’ve been practicing this art now for 30 years.
Is that where you grew up?
Yes, although I was born in Brooklyn.
When did you move to the West Indies?
When I was about a year old. And the poor people in the West Indies don’t have doctors. You go to women or men who are herbalists. Most of them were women. In the West Indies I learned about the use of oils to treat sprains. Especially the use of oils like castor oil. In the West Indies, we have something called black castor oil. Any castor oil you can find is extremely beneficial when used externally. Black castor oil simply has more natural ingredients to it. It’s really unrefined castor oil.
And when you use this castor oil, and when you use it heated as much as possible, it absorbs into the skin. And it seeks a level. In other words, it will apply to any situation that is bad in the body. Generally speaking, every night, I’ll use castor oil packs on my body for seven days, then take three days off. That will address areas of my body that are not good.
If there is something that needs dissolving, like any foreign body, or a tumor, that will address it. Gallstones or kidney stones will dissolve with this treatment. Edgar Cayce is the man!
So, if somebody is reading this interview on the Internet, let’s say from Istanbul, Turkey, and they have severe muscle pain, severe body pain, but they can’t come to you, what should they do?
(Laughter) That’s a very big problem. But they could call me. I could walk them through what to do. But if someone is able to get to me here in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, they should come to me because I can save them incredible amounts of grief and suffering. I can save them from possibly unnecessary surgery. Muscle pain is the source of a great deal of surgery. But surgery is often not necessary.
I treated a woman here from Southern California. A man had attacked her, and beaten her. He kicked her in the spine, in the base of her spine. She had suffered from this for years. I had to treat the muscles at the base of her spine, which were in spasm. A spasm will stay forever unless the muscle is reset. I positioned her on a table and I had her stay there and told her to remember the position I was putting her in, because she could use it once she was back in California. She called me three days later when she got back to California. Her body pain was gone.
Are there other people doing what you do, or are you unique in what you do?
I’m unique. I suppose you might find others like me who are able to help. But you know what, there is nobody I am aware of doing what I do. I show people techniques. I show people how to unlock the wisdom of the body. I show people the position to do, sometimes very strange looking positions, that they might not want to do in front of other people because of how crazy they might appear. But they are simple techniques. They help you avoid being a victim. Essentially, your muscle has wisdom, and it is telling you it wants a chance to repair.
Where I come in is that I understand what the muscle is saying, and I know how to deal with that particular muscle.
Do you think that shoulder replacement surgery is unnecessary?
Shoulder replacements, unless there is something broken, I think are unnecessary. I think an understanding of the muscles of the shoulder and how to relieve them and how to reset them will relieve many of the problems of the shoulder.
If you can understand that muscle pain and body pain is a call to tell you that there is something that needs to be addressed and not by taking an anti-inflammatory to mask the pain, you can grasp my method. Because when you mask the pain, you act as though the pain is not there. And you will do things that will further damage that muscle.
What I do does not involve putting people though any type of pain.
That’s refreshing. When I broke my shoulder, the physical therapist kept pulling it back, stretching it, and causing me all kinds of pain. You’re saying that’s not the thing to do.
Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Here’s what happens in physical therapy. The physician writes a prescription. That prescription directs the physical therapist to perform certain movements with your body. What the physician tells the physical therapist sounds good. It will sound good to you. It says, “Stretch and Strengthen.” But in fact it’s “Damage and Damage.” Once a muscle or a part of your body has been traumatized, it constricts. The muscles constrict. You have to coach those muscles to release. The last thing you want to do is force those muscles into stretch positions, or pull them apart, or attempt to strengthen them, which is also pulling them apart. They don’t want that. They want to be reset first.
That’s why after you go to a physical therapist you are in a lot more pain than when you went in. Am I right?
I was sore. I had a lot of physical therapy and it was painful. But I got most of my motion back.
You got most of your motion back probably more from resting your arm than from the therapy. With resting your arm you can get a little bit of contraction.
So what you do in some sense is the opposite of what a physical therapist would do, Right?
That’s right. I will suggest at times that someone stretch, but only after I do my work with them.
Melvin, how can people who suffer from body pain, or who might need more information, reach you?
People can call me here in Myrtle Beach at (843) 267-2639 or they can reach me by e-mail at [email protected]. My mailing address is PO Box 476, North Myrtle Beach, SC 29597.
Recently I introduced myself to a man who specializes in body pain solutions. His name is Melvin Mapp and he lives in Myrtle Beach, SC. His mission, he says, is to help people eliminate joint pain from their bodies. And he does it very quickly. And differently. His success speaks for itself. For example, there was one man, a real estate business man, who suffered severe leg pain for 17 years. No one could help. When one of his associates told him of Melvin, he figured he had nothing to lose. The pain was so severe he could no longer drive. He was driven to Melvin’s office in a limousine. The driver assisted him up the sidewalk. An hour later, 17 years of knee and hip pain were gone. That is a typical story that have people knocking on his door. I was so fascinated by Melvin’s story that I asked him if I could interview him, to share his story on my website. He agreed. Here it is:
Melvin, you achieve results in bodywork faster than anyone I have ever known. What do you do differently than the other professionals in your field?
My basic idea is that I explore the ability of the body to repair itself. If you give the body positioning, certain positions, certain muscle positions, this allows the body to quickly regenerate tissue. Certain muscle positions cause a muscle to experience a great increase in blood and lymphatic fluid flow to that tissue. The lymphatic fluids flush away damaged tissue and the blood supplies oxygen and nutrients to allow the muscle to quickly repair itself. It can happen very fast. In many instances, you can effect a change in a muscle that’s been damaged in 20 minutes.
You must take the muscle and maximally contract the muscle. The maximally-contracted muscle is a muscle that is in its work position–its maximum work position.
Let’s take a good example, the bicep muscle. When most muscles give you a problem, it’s because of a spasm–a shortening of the muscle, a contracting of the muscle. That’s all spasm is. The muscle is resisting movement. It is resisting work. If you take that muscle and maximally contract it (in this case, with the bicep muscle he bends his arm), the blood and lymphatic flow to the muscle is maximized.
In the shortened position?
Yes, in the shortened position. Even though the muscle isn’t working, that is, there isn’t any weight, there is no force against it, it’s acting as though it is working.
When a muscle is working, in order for it to retain its strength, it has to be constantly in repair. (He folds his arm tightly) This muscle is repairing.
What about the back?
There are many different types of back pain because there are many different muscles in the back. The key to stopping problems with different types of back pain is in understanding of what muscle is involved.
Let’s take muscles in the lower back as an example, the muscles in the lumbar region. These often give a lot of trouble because they are prone to go into spasm. When a muscle goes into spasm, it is expressing that it is fatigued. The muscle wants a chance to repair itself. So it is resisting movement. When you try to force a muscle that doesn’t want to work, or doesn’t want to stretch, or move forward, it will complain.
With the muscles in the lower back, in the lumbar region, if you determine which muscle is involved and you contract that muscle, then hold that muscle in the contracted position for a period of time, in most instances the back pain will be eliminated.
How do you contract a muscle in the back?
To contract any muscle you have to understand what the muscle does. You’ve got to understand the origin of the muscle, where the muscle begins. You’ve got to understand where the muscle inserts, its insertion point. If you know what the action of that muscle is, then you will know how to contract it.
For example, these lower back muscles of mine have a job to keep me from falling over. (He leans over.) Now in this position the muscles are stretched. The muscle is doing its job when it holds me up. To maximally contract the muscle at the base of my spine, I would go back into the arched position.
What about a lumbar pillow?
It’s a good preventive measure, but not recommended when you’re in pain. When you use a lumbar pillow, this is going to create some type of pressure on the arteries and veins. It’s going to counteract your attempts to increase the blood and lymphatic fluids flowing into that region. Any pressure there is going to restrict that action. As a therapist, if I’m working on someone, I don’t want the person doing anything. I’m going to hold them in the correct position. I just want them to be passive and to let go so I can hold them in the position.
Again, there are different types of muscles. There are muscles on the posterior spine. There are muscles on the anterior spine. There are muscles up on the shoulder along the spine. There are muscles in the lower back on the spine. Each muscle displays a particular pain pattern. You’ve got to recognize the muscle. By understanding what a muscle does, I will recognize the body pain that the person is talking about.
For instance, an individual yesterday, a 27 year-old man, who was having excruciating back pain was scheduled to see a doctor who had suggested surgery. When I looked at his back and talked to him to understand what was wrong–you have to ask questions–you have to watch their movements and ask them questions. You look at the back, you look at the way they’re moving, the way they walk. This individual said that his primary pain came whenever he attempted to straighten his back up. His problem came from when he attempted to obtain good posture. His problem became excruciating when he attempted to do what I just showed you with my lower back. That type of pain pattern is telling me something about what muscles are involved. In this case, he was suffering spasms of muscles along the anterior spine, the front of the spine, the muscles that kept him from going too far back. Once I determined that, then I knew what position to put him in, where those muscles would immediately have fluids rush in to repair them.
Body pain and muscle pain are attempts by your body to repair itself. The muscles are saying, “We are damaged, and we need an opportunity to reset ourselves. And until you give us that opportunity, we are going to give you pain. We’re going to resist your attempts to use us.”
Going back to this fellow I worked with yesterday, I didn’t just shorten one muscle. I suspected more than one muscle was involved–a set of muscles. And it turned out I was right–there was one set of muscles involved. What I did is this–I actually treated a series of muscles that might produce the same symptoms. Sometimes a muscle pain pattern can be produced by a different set of muscles. What you’re doing in this type of situation is that you initially take one set of muscles. You shorten and hold that position, hold the person in that particular position-that position which causes that muscle to be shortened and to repair. Then you move to another position that addresses another possible culprit. Another muscle. There might be five different positions you put the person in. At the end of this session, you are expecting an 80 percent loss of body pain.
So where did you learn all of this?
My first understanding of muscle pain and body pain came from the women of the West Indies. The Obeah Women (healers who use herbs and oils)–in particular, two powerful healers, Etheline Wharton and Mother Welcome played–a big part in my training. I’ve been practicing this art now for 30 years.
Is that where you grew up?
Yes, although I was born in Brooklyn.
When did you move to the West Indies?
When I was about a year old. And the poor people in the West Indies don’t have doctors. You go to women or men who are herbalists. Most of them were women. In the West Indies I learned about the use of oils to treat sprains. Especially the use of oils like castor oil. In the West Indies, we have something called black castor oil. Any castor oil you can find is extremely beneficial when used externally. Black castor oil simply has more natural ingredients to it. It’s really unrefined castor oil.
And when you use this castor oil, and when you use it heated as much as possible, it absorbs into the skin. And it seeks a level. In other words, it will apply to any situation that is bad in the body. Generally speaking, every night, I’ll use castor oil packs on my body for seven days, then take three days off. That will address areas of my body that are not good.
If there is something that needs dissolving, like any foreign body, or a tumor, that will address it. Gallstones or kidney stones will dissolve with this treatment. Edgar Cayce is the man!
So, if somebody is reading this interview on the Internet, let’s say from Istanbul, Turkey, and they have severe muscle pain, severe body pain, but they can’t come to you, what should they do?
(Laughter) That’s a very big problem. But they could call me. I could walk them through what to do. But if someone is able to get to me here in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, they should come to me because I can save them incredible amounts of grief and suffering. I can save them from possibly unnecessary surgery. Muscle pain is the source of a great deal of surgery. But surgery is often not necessary.
I treated a woman here from Southern California. A man had attacked her, and beaten her. He kicked her in the spine, in the base of her spine. She had suffered from this for years. I had to treat the muscles at the base of her spine, which were in spasm. A spasm will stay forever unless the muscle is reset. I positioned her on a table and I had her stay there and told her to remember the position I was putting her in, because she could use it once she was back in California. She called me three days later when she got back to California. Her body pain was gone.
Are there other people doing what you do, or are you unique in what you do?
I’m unique. I suppose you might find others like me who are able to help. But you know what, there is nobody I am aware of doing what I do. I show people techniques. I show people how to unlock the wisdom of the body. I show people the position to do, sometimes very strange looking positions, that they might not want to do in front of other people because of how crazy they might appear. But they are simple techniques. They help you avoid being a victim. Essentially, your muscle has wisdom, and it is telling you it wants a chance to repair.
Where I come in is that I understand what the muscle is saying, and I know how to deal with that particular muscle.
Do you think that shoulder replacement surgery is unnecessary?
Shoulder replacements, unless there is something broken, I think are unnecessary. I think an understanding of the muscles of the shoulder and how to relieve them and how to reset them will relieve many of the problems of the shoulder.
If you can understand that muscle pain and body pain is a call to tell you that there is something that needs to be addressed and not by taking an anti-inflammatory to mask the pain, you can grasp my method. Because when you mask the pain, you act as though the pain is not there. And you will do things that will further damage that muscle.
What I do does not involve putting people though any type of pain.
That’s refreshing. When I broke my shoulder, the physical therapist kept pulling it back, stretching it, and causing me all kinds of pain. You’re saying that’s not the thing to do.
Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Here’s what happens in physical therapy. The physician writes a prescription. That prescription directs the physical therapist to perform certain movements with your body. What the physician tells the physical therapist sounds good. It will sound good to you. It says, “Stretch and Strengthen.” But in fact it’s “Damage and Damage.” Once a muscle or a part of your body has been traumatized, it constricts. The muscles constrict. You have to coach those muscles to release. The last thing you want to do is force those muscles into stretch positions, or pull them apart, or attempt to strengthen them, which is also pulling them apart. They don’t want that. They want to be reset first.
That’s why after you go to a physical therapist you are in a lot more pain than when you went in. Am I right?
I was sore. I had a lot of physical therapy and it was painful. But I got most of my motion back.
You got most of your motion back probably more from resting your arm than from the therapy. With resting your arm you can get a little bit of contraction.
So what you do in some sense is the opposite of what a physical therapist would do, Right?
That’s right. I will suggest at times that someone stretch, but only after I do my work with them.
Melvin, how can people who suffer from body pain, or who might need more information, reach you?
People can call me here in Myrtle Beach at (843) 267-2639 or they can reach me by e-mail at [email protected]. My mailing address is PO Box 476, North Myrtle Beach, SC 29597.