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Craniosacral Therapy

Messages
18
Hi all,
Has anyone here tried craniosacral therapy with any lasting results to help with headaches, cognitive functioning, fatigue relief? I tried it once a couple of years ago for headaches, and after about a month or so of sessions, the headaches were relieved. But not permanently. And so far, that's what I've read for anecdotal evidence about craniosacral therapy and CFS. But I will try anything, so just checking before I start investing time in this . . .

Thanks,
Anna
 

Nielk

Senior Member
Messages
6,970
Hi Anna,
I had similar experience. I tried it for a few months about 4 years ago. I did feel some improvement but, after a while it was getting too expensive and I stopped, like 100 other things. I wish I had a]unlimited funds to give these treatments more of a chance but if after a few months I don't see a change, I can't continue throwing out money.
 

moblet

Unknown Quantity
Messages
354
Location
Somewhere in Australia
I've never bothered with CST, but cranial osteopathy is my primary care and it's probably the most likely place you can get help with the cranial symptoms you've described. CST is a "product", one of the tools of cranial osteopathy, packaged by a cranial osteopath for teaching to therapists who practise it under licence. If you've never obtained a comprehensive structural diagnosis I would recommend starting with an expert cranial osteopath (in the US look here for someone doing 100% OCF), who is a university-trained professional able to make a full structural assessment, determine which tools to use, and gauge how your body responds to their intervention. The limitations of therapists are that they typically are only able to use a limited number of tools relatively blindly, and their limited diagnostic skills mean if the therapy doesn't work (or even if it does), you don't learn much about your health problems.

My strategy would be to get a full structural diagnosis from the osteopath. If they find nothing of significance then CST is probably not much use, and hopefully they could suggest other avenues to explore. It's pretty likely though, given your symptoms, that they'll find things to work on and you could start treatment with them. If all they are doing is what your CST therapist could do then if the CST is cheaper and more convenient you could consider doing that instead. I'd expect you'd be a complex case though and the osteo would be needing to give you more than just CST; I'd be surprised, even if you have what is fundamentally a structural problem, if CST alone could fix it. One thing you must not do, unless you like wasting time and money, is see both in parallel, as the CST will interfere with the osteopath's work and confuse the feedback your body gives them from the previous treatment.

Note that if you have a complex and deeply established structural problem it could take years to unwind, and they can't reliably predict how long it might take, so in deciding whether to persevere it's more a question of how significant your structural problems are to your health and whether your body is fundamentally improving, rather than setting a time limit on by what date you should be healed.
 
Messages
31
Location
Sedona AZ
I recently went to see a cranial osteopath and I was excited about getting help from her. She suggested seeing her twice a week for a while at $250 a visit!!!! No way I could do that. Does that sound high to you Moblet? I was thinking about cranial sacral therapy as well but I'm guessing it's temporary help.
 

moblet

Unknown Quantity
Messages
354
Location
Somewhere in Australia
I recently went to see a cranial osteopath and I was excited about getting help from her. She suggested seeing her twice a week for a while at $250 a visit!!!! No way I could do that. Does that sound high to you Moblet? I was thinking about cranial sacral therapy as well but I'm guessing it's temporary help.
Anyone who's any good would want to see you only once every 1-3 weeks on an ongoing basis as your body would need at least a week to integrate each treatment. I'm not too familiar with US prices but that does sound steep, and makes me think she'd be treating you for longer than 30-45 minutes each time. In short it sounds like over-treating, which would make me question her ability to both make an impact on your problems and recognise how your body was responding to her interventions. (If a cranial osteopath tells you anything to the effect that "the more often you come in the better", they either don't know what they're doing or are just after your money, and should be avoided.)