Cranio-sacral Therapy

[Homeoskeptic]

My wife also uses this and swears by it. Again, I do not really know anything about it, but wonder if it really works?

 

[CFLarsen]

Skeptic's Dictionary: Craniosacral therapy

SkepDic is a goldmine of information.

 

[Mercutio]

Also see quackwatch.org for their take.

Our local news channel ran a health segment on the benefits of craniosacral therapy just over a year ago. I e-mailed to complain, citing several studies and pointing to websites...telling the reporter that her job should be investigative journalism, not selling quackery...and I got an e-mail back with the message line "Must have alot [sic] of time on your hands" and the claim from the reporter that she had herself been in a double-blind study with the doctor. (I composed the email back several times but did not send it. I am trying to wrap my brain around the idea that a journalist interviewing a proponent could possibly think anything about that was double blind...)

If they do it again, I'm alerting any of the NH forumites...maybe she can't ignore it if several people make the same point.

 

[Hazelip]

My wife also uses this and swears by it. Again, I do not really know anything about it, but wonder if it really works?

Your wife uses this and homeopathy?

Tell me, how many alternative therapies does your wife use? How many more threads pertaining to alternative therapies can we expect to contain references to your wife's practice of them, followed by questions about the practices?

 

[rockoon]

Tell your wife about this new drug called Placebo. Dozens of prescription drug manufacturers have been making this stuff for years - it has been involved in literally hundreds of thousands of clinical trials where it has outperformed other powerful prescription drugs.

Also, Placebo has only minor side effects.

 

[Homeoskeptic]

My wife uses homeopathy and cranio-sacral therapy and no more.

That is all I wanted to know about and feel better informed now.

 

[Rolfe]

I've had this done to me, by an osteopath - she called it "cranial osteopathy".

It was obvious BS. All she did was gently move the skin of my scalp and forehead gently over the bones of my skull, a few millimetres back and forward. Accompanied by a stream of total BS about how she was aligning the sutures of the skull - you know, these things that fuse solid and immobile well before the age I was then. It was also clear from other stuff she said that (in spite of a BSc degree in this garbage from a so-called "university") she had a pretty feeble grasp of the anatomy of the head.

She had earlier done a decent job on my stiff neck by some nifty manipulation, but when she started with the looney micro-movements I quickly made my excuses and left.



Rolfe.

 

[Homeoskeptic]

Ok. Just one thing though. I have no scientific training whatsoever and do not claim to be a scientist. My degree was in languages that included Italian.

On one of my trips to Italy a few years ago now, I was looking around a bookshop and found this beautiful Italian anatomy book. I purchased it, more at the time for the artwork rather than the anatomy, however, I was looking at this recently and it seems to suggest that the sutures of the skull do not totally fuse during life and there is in fact still some room for manoevre.

It says that this is the difference between living anatomy and cadaveric anatomy.

 

[Suezoled]

Ok. Just one thing though. I have no scientific training whatsoever and do not claim to be a scientist. My degree was in languages that included Italian.

On one of my trips to Italy a few years ago now, I was looking around a bookshop and found this beautiful Italian anatomy book. I purchased it, more at the time for the artwork rather than the anatomy, however, I was looking at this recently and it seems to suggest that the sutures of the skull do not totally fuse during life and there is in fact still some room for manoevre.

It says that this is the difference between living anatomy and cadaveric anatomy.

totally untrue. Skull sutures are certainly settled and hardened/fused by the time one reaches adulthood.

 

[Rolfe]

totally untrue. Skull sutures are certainly settled and hardened/fused by the time one reaches adulthood.

There's certainly no possibility of making any movement happen in a skull with the featherweight pressures used - even a child's skull wouldn't do anything significant with such a touch. You'd do more putting on a hairband or a hat, or more so, a swimming cap!

Rolfe.

 

[Homeoskeptic]

I thought that was what William Sutherland did in the first place?

 

[Suezoled]

who's William Sutherland?

 

[roger]

I was looking at this recently and it seems to suggest that the sutures of the skull do not totally fuse during life and there is in fact still some room for manoevre.

Think so? Slap your head in a vise, crank it down, and let us know how much you moved those plates.

 

[geni]

who's William Sutherland?

This guy

Dr. William Sutherland dedicated his life to advance the art of osteopathy.

Since enrolling in medical school in 1898, Dr. Sutherland began to investigate the body's mechanical function and identify the body's living anatomy (i.e. flow of cranial fluid, texture of tissues, compression of bones, etc.). He did more to advance the concepts of "self-healing"" than any other osteopath of his generation.

http://www.osteohome.com/MainPages/ocf.html

or in english someone who got things wrong

 

[geni]

On one of my trips to Italy a few years ago now, I was looking around a bookshop and found this beautiful Italian anatomy book. I purchased it, more at the time for the artwork rather than the anatomy, however, I was looking at this recently and it seems to suggest that the sutures of the skull do not totally fuse during life and there is in fact still some room for manoevre.

A couple of things. First I've handled human skulsl thoes things are solid. I've disected rat skulls and they were solid as far as I could tell (is there an easy way to cut thorugh a rat skull? I was praticly trying to saw through it).

 

[TruthSeeker]

My Registered Massage Therapist once asked if I'd like her to do Cranio-Sacral in combination with the massage. I agreed mostly to find out what it felt like. She did something different than what I've read here. She held her hands over my "chakras" from the base of my spine to the top of my head in order to "release" any old emotions I was "storing" in each spot

It just felt sort of stupid.

She hasn't done it since but did tell me that other clients burst into tears when she holds certain chakras. Aaa...the power of suggestion. I explained to her that I'm pretty sure my emotions (both old and new) are in my brain. Oh well. She does help with my shoulder pain when she sticks to massage...

 

[Suezoled]

Oh Geni that's a great article. All the mention of the "whole body system," it took him 4 decades to find people gullible enough to believe him, mention of "allopathic medicine," and yet it's an "accepted medical fact." In fact, some of these things seem down right chiropractic!

 

[Suezoled]

A couple of things. First I've handled human skulsl thoes things are solid. I've disected rat skulls and they were solid as far as I could tell (is there an easy way to cut thorugh a rat skull? I was praticly trying to saw through it).

I find it fascinating that someone would argue that skull sutures fuse post-cadaver status. So, that argument would be mildly refuted, Geni. Except.... I've assisted in cases of animals who needed their skulls cut open (I was a vet assist), while they were still alive; actually, that's not quite true. Some had their skulls already busted open (car accident, etc), some just had lost their scalps and needed them sewn on (dog fights, car accidents, fell, etc). But in all those cases (okay okay, only 5 of them), there wasn't any flexibility of skull at all).

 

[Rolfe]

I'm a veterinary pathologist, and some of the skulls I've had to crack were very recently dead. I wish there was a nice easy way to avoid getting out the drill and making a mess, if you could just incise these flexible sutures, how easy it would be....

Come to that, brain surgeons mess with non-dead skulls all the time. No reports there of any undue flexibility, methinks.

Rolfe.

 

[Homeoskeptic]

What about John Upledger then?