There are many services and treatments offered at Fyzical Therapy and Balance Center that can help various injuries and pains from acute and chronic injuries. Chronic pain and injuries are difficult on people as the pain is present on a consistent basis and has been ingrained into compensations due to how you are moving. This blog is about Cranial Sacral Treatment/Therapy and it is a great way to help decrease pain and inflammation from acute ,but also chronic injuries.
What is Cranial Sacral Therapy...? Well, it is quite complicated explanation, but the basis is Cranial Sacral Therapy is a treatment technique based on light touch. First when you have had pain for a long time, it does not feel good to have firm hands digging into tender muscles. This is where cranial sacral is great because of how light the touch is during treatment. But how can such light touch affect changes in pain and in the tissue...? The goal of cranial sacral therapy is to improve the cranial sacral rhythm and decrease fascial tension. Cranial sacral rhythm is a movement of spinal fluid. The spinal fluid surrounds structures like the brain and spinal cord. This fluid has a pulse of rhythm, much like your blood has a rhythm/pulse. This rhythm is very soft but when trained to feel it, one can assess different areas of the body, compare each side and assess for differences. The rhythm may be too fast or not there at all, it may move more in one direction than the other direction both would indicate dysfunction.
Fascial tension is tightness in tissue called fascia. Fascia is a type of connective tissue that is under the skin, and runs in planes all around the body attaching to different structures including the skin, bone, muscles, nerves, ect. Think of it like a 3-D spider web. If the fascia gets tight or restricted it creates an issue locally, but can also have a global affect on the body. A local restriction in the fascia is like a kink in a chain, or a wrinkle in clothes, and it can cause kinks or wrinkles else where because of how it is connected.
Cranial sacral uses light touch, because too much pressure pushes past the fascia and into deeper tissue; the light touch releases and "unwinds" the fascia. This can help make local and global changes to a person's pain or symptoms. The treatment is very relaxing and therefor, can decrease the patient's sympathetic, "Fight or Flight " response system that is contributing to their pain and tightness. Cranial sacral has been using to treat headaches, chronic neck and back pain, and pain from motor vehicle accidents. If you are in chronic pain come and see one of our cranial sacral trained physical therapists at Fyzical Therapy and Balance centers and let us help get you out of the cycle of pain!
Danna Smith, PT, DPT, COMT