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More pills?

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I’ve heard many people complain over the years that doctors tell them they have a condition then begin prescribing a long list of medications. They’ll tell me they’re tired of taking pills and when discussing their pain I’ve seen a full gamut in my 11 or so years. TMJ, thoracic outlet syndrome, carpal tunnel syndrome and back pain are just the beginning.

I use to ask clients where they felt back pain but honestly, I don’t need to ask many anymore. I can look at you and tell you where you’re likely to feel pain. How? I look at your posture. One day I saw a woman and looked deeply at her posture then asked, “Do you feel tingling or numbness in the ring and pinkie finger of your right hand?” Having no idea who I was she looked at me puzzled and said, “Yes, how do you know that?” I wandered off as if busy to avoid answering the question. It was a guess but I’ve noticed my ability to help people with chronic pain issues has grown over the years.

Doctors and medication are great. I’m happy to live in the 21st century and to be in a country where if I get hit by a bus the doctors will do everything within their power to keep me going. After they’re done however, I’ll be heading right back into what I already do, yoga and bodywork.

I’ll never speak ill of those in the healing professions but doctors have done next to nothing for me. I’m really good at what I do because I had a choice, I could figure out and heal what a doctor could not or I could become a junkie and make sure opiates eased what I could not control. I think you can tell which path I chose.

Always consult your doctor but healing comes in many forms. My mantra to new clients is this, “Every time I work on you I’ll give you 110% but if you want to grow old gracefully, start practicing yoga.”

Cranialsacral Therapy pt.5

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A client for massage told me they had TMJ problems. Speaking with them I recommended they come in for cranialsacral therapy. She seemed to be a balanced person, hard working, intelligent but this one issue plagued her for years.

She’d seen dentists, orthodontists and various medical professionals but no one seemed to be able to help. I worked with her then put on gloves to do work on her lateral pterygoids. She found it so tender I tried several times to sink in but with little luck. It takes finesse, a deeply relaxed client and frankly, time. You need time to settle and sink in and thirty minutes makes for a poor session.

I asked about her TMJ dysfunction and she said, “Well it’s more headaches.” I asked more questions to clarify and she said that the TMJ stuff didn’t hurt but the headaches kept her from really excelling at life. The pain, frequency and duration meant that she just got lost in life. Friends can’t help her, nor doctors and with no one to help, the pain just agonizes some days. I asked where they hurt and she made a motion with her finger, right through her eyes temple to temple.

Her lateral pterygoids which I’d been unable to relax are faulting her sphenoid. The muscles connect to the sphenoid, which is the keystone bone in the center of the head. It exits on either side of the cranium at the temples. As any boxer knows, the knockout punch is to the temples or the jaw, both put significant pressure on the sphenoid via its articulations and in response your bodies protection is to pass out.

I know what I think is right but clients are at times a hard sell on cranial bones moving, sphenoid what? Explaining all of this comes out of left field. What medical school did you go to? Life and love, the same that Jesus went to. Cranialsacral therapy is as much energetic as it is sound structure and function. One without the other is incomplete.

I never saw the client again. It’s sad to feel I can help but when they’re unwilling to do more than one session in a world where they want a single pill to fix things, my hands are tied. Healing is cooperative. I provide what I can in bodywork and education but the clients have to meet me with self care.

For this reason regular sessions are best with something like cranialsacral therapy. For most conditions I recommend a minimum of three treatments just to see if you have any benefit. At the most it may rid you of your health issue, at the least you’ll feel relaxed and calm.

Hopefully I can head to Big Sur, CA and take a class with Milne in the future. It’d be an honor to work and study with him.

Cranialsacral therapy pt.2

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My feelings about bodywork changed after studying cranialsacral therapy. I took two Upledger courses as they were more easily available than those of Hugh Milne but I knew now, there was more out there. Healing came in many forms and most cultures have their own healing practices that we as westerners can preserve.

I read Milne’s book and knew that this would be a life long practice. There was no end to the depth that you could deal with in helping heal yourself and others. Without being over the top or seeming abstract Milne laid all of the work out in front of me. The therapist who worked on me did most of what was needed in that single session. I had a few more but nothing ever happened like that again. My body rebalanced itself.

As I read Milne’s book I became aware of the fact that cranial bones are not fused. There is a slight give to the sutures and a pulsation of the cerebrospinal fluid inside the dura, a tissue that surrounds the brain and spinal cord. If one develops skill and practices you use it as a sort of diagnostic. You place hands on someone, feel what’s moving and where and knowing anatomy in depth start to discern what may be imbalanced.

It all seems complex but in the end, you’re just listening to someone. When people say, “but cranial bones don’t move, there is no pulsation of cerebrospinal fluid that can be felt” I simply ask if they’ve ever tried, while smiling. This bodywork feels to me much like meditating while your hands are on someone. Over the years I believe my bodywork has gained more depth as I practice. Predominantly it’s due to an active yoga practice which allows me to quiet my own nervous system, from this calm place it’s easier to listen.

The first time I put my hands on someones sacrum and became still, I just sat. I’d never felt this before but I’d never looked either. All of the sudden my hand swayed toward the tailbone. It was such a solid, deep, long swing that I took my hand off in near shock. Is it true? Since then everyone I do it to, feels completely different. One sacrum is full of swing, dance and sway another is creaky like an old door on hinges. Each gives you a little information about people, their bodies and their being.

Predominantly the work seems good for TMJ dysfunction, migraines, chronic headaches, trauma, PTSD, lingering sexual trauma and children with austism. Most people who search for it are at the end of their rope. They’ve tried everything and then boom, it’s the thing that helps. I was in that category.

Cranialsacral therapy pt.1

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Cranialsacral therapy was the first outside of the box bodywork I ever received. Towards the end of my schooling in massage I knew I’d never get my teachers help releasing whatever was going on with my jaw related to TMJ dysfunction. My basic knowledge base had me know that there were muscles chronically contracting, I was having low level bruxism when I slept and for whatever reason my body couldn’t just let the muscles relax completely.

I pleaded with my dentist and my teachers and both said, “we’ve heard of something called cranialsacral therapy.” A woman came to our student clinic and one of my friends in school introduced her as she said she practiced this healing art. I got a card, made an appointment and showed up for my session.

After a brief conversation I remember being distraught, explaining to her near my wits and emotional end that I don’t know why my body is fighting. She had me slide off my shoes and I lay on a massage table completely clothed. My first thought was, how are you going to massage me with my clothes on? Her being the expert I just let her do her thing. She placed her hands on me and didn’t move. First my feet, then my legs and hips then my head. She’d sit for long periods of time and I just remember feeling calm and relaxed to have someone make contact.

She slid on gloves and told me she was going to do some work on muscles inside my mouth. I was instructed to breathe through my mouth gently and try to relax into what she was doing. Using her pinky she performed what’s basically a deep tissue stripping of a muscle connected to my jaw. She did one side and I remember feeling, “Oh boy! This is doing something…it hurts down in there.” She did the other side and my jaw felt like it was a mile wide. My head felt expansive in a way that it was previously in a vice grip.

She placed both hands on my mandible and unwound it. With a skill and grace I’ve never found again she gently allowed me to let go for the first time in forever. There was what felt like a tissue release and near popping of the muscles in my jaw. The fibers slid past each other for the first time. I had a small amount of drool on either side of my mouth which I wiped and she placed her hands on my head again.

As she finished she said, “I think we got it, it was your sphenoid.” I was elsewhere mentally. I’d been entranced in what she’d done. The work was gentle but it felt SO deep. It wasn’t like massage at all. This was other. I sat up, got my bearings and felt completely different. All this emotion flooded forward as I noticed that I felt clear, in my head. I was stunned and looked at her and said, “It feels like you straightened out my head.” My focus, intensity and then near anger had me stand up and almost corner the therapist. “What did you do?” I was stern, I wasn’t leaving her office until she explained what she’d done. It was as close to miracle as I’ve ever personally experienced.

She wrote down a name and a book. Hugh Milne: The Heart of Listening.

I haven’t had TMJ problems since.