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Coco Warner ReportingMost everyone is familiar with the benefits of massage. But have you heard about cranial sacral therapy? It's a type of massage that focuses on chronic pain sufferers.
Coco Warner wants us to help us improve the quality of our lives this month, and this morning we're working on ourselves.
Do you have migraine headaches? Chronic neck and back pain? If you've gone through pills, doctors and nothing has helped, this may be what you're looking for. It's called cranial sacral therapy, and its practitioners say they specialize in hard to solve cases.
Massage therapist Joseph Tuttle says your body is a map.
"So I'm just placing my hands very gently at the base of the skull."
You just have to know how to read it.
"There's a lot of, it seems like thickness across the base of the skull toward the back."
Cranial sacral therapy, or CST, is a gentle, hands on method of evaluating and hopefully enhancing how your body functions.
Joseph Tuttle/Massage therapist: "Again, it's very mild and very slight. There's not much jerking around and so it's not very exciting to watch."
Coco Warner/Eyewitness News: "And Joseph describes the amount of pressure that he uses on people as the weight of a nickel."
Joseph Tuttle/Massage Therapist: "You use a touch about the weight of five grams or the weight of a nickel, in which you kind of feel and assess the movement of this membrane system that surrounds the brain and spinal cord to see where it's stuck or impaired."
The craniosacral system is made up of the membranes and cerebrospinal fluid that travel around the brain and spinal cord. By manipulating this fluid, therapists release restrictions to improve your central nervous system.
After recent dental work, Julie is having Joseph work on her mouth.
"Well, this side feels all relaxed and it's released it. I can feel it. It's nice."
Joseph says CST also releases emotions and memories you may associate with an injury. Which is why it can be effective against depression.
Cranial sacral therapists generally see people who are at the end of their rope, people who suffer from migraines and chronic pain, people who have not been able to find relief elsewhere.
Joseph Tuttle/Massage therapist: "It seems at the rate in which we run out of options and our physical ailments increase, the more interest and attention and credibility it gets because of the success rate that it has."
And coming up, next week, we're hoping to improve your life by improving your home. In support of this concept, we're giving away gift cards from The Home Depot, each worth $250.
Watch Eyewitness News Today to find out how to win. Again, it all starts next week.
