The Therapist:
Open your mouth…..WIDE
When Michael Louis asks a TMJ patient to do just that, they often have very limited jaw movement. Pain and joint tightness in the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) restricts eating habits or even alters how they speak.
For TMJ patients in the South Bay, Michael is the best possible person they could see. Using a combination of techniques including manual therapy, myofascial release, modalities, and exercises, he employs these methods homing in on the individual’s specific problem to achieve the best possible result. The list of satisfied patients treated by Michael runs into the thousands. Praise from Lynn typifies those reactions.
“Being treated by Michael is like having a tune-up,” she says. “It helps with relief and gets me back in order. I’m just thrilled because I can open my mouth and have a sandwich.”
Michael has a gift for healing patients. For many patients, he has long been the only practitioner able to calm the symptoms of chronic pain suffers. They would often have had surgery, gone to pain clinics, visited psychologists, and been prescribed a variety of medications with less than satisfying results. With Michael’s care, their pain becomes controllable and they can resume activities that have been abandoned for years.
Fibromyalgia is another specialty for Michael. These individuals suffer from diffuse pain symptoms, fatigue, sleeplessness, and depression. Working with these patients using cranial-sacral release, myofascial release, and exercise, a giant step toward normal living is achieved.
The Cyclist:
Cycling defines who Michael Louis is, when he’s not helping patients.
He rides his bike several days a week and performs at least one hundred-mile bike ride every month as he has for the past several decades. He has also competed in track bike racing on a velodrome surface as well as finish a double century bike ride in under 10 hours. In 2013, he rode across America dipping his wheels in the Pacific Ocean in Astoria, Oregon at the start and again in Portsmouth, New Hampshire at the finish, a distance of over 3800 miles. Michael also worked at the cycling venue for the 1984 Olympics providing massage and rehabilitation to the athletes from all over the globe.
For over 30 years, Atlantis Physical Therapy has celebrated an employee appreciation holiday at Glen Ivy Spa in Corona. Most of the staff car-pool from our office, for this day of pampered leisure. But Michael makes the 60-mile journey on his bike every year, getting started at daybreak to reach the facility before the pools, mud baths, and massage tables open up at 9:00 a.m.
Despite the time and energy requirements of his work as a therapist and hours on the bicycle, he still finds quality time for wife, Machiko, and his two sons, Bryant and Matthew, both of whom have had their own adventures in cycling.
Next time you’re driving around town, look for the guy on a bike in the red and blue LeGrange cycling jersey, it may be Michael. Feel free to honk, just don’t hit him.
Got a problem with your body that no one seems to help you with? Make an appointment with Michael. We think you’ll be pleased.
