Fibromyalgia is a chronic (long-lasting) disorder that causes widespread pain, tenderness, and generally affects women more often than men. Fibromyalgia is recognized as a syndrome which means it is a collection of symptoms as opposed to a single disease. This distinction is important because treating and alleviating fibromyalgia often requires responding to a spectrum of seemingly unrelated symptoms that can differ for each person including:
- Severe fatigue & sleep problems
- Problems thinking clearly & brain fog
- Migraines or tension headaches
- Digestion problems like IBS or heartburn
- Irritable or overactive bladder
- Pelvic pain
- Muscle stiffness, joint pain & body temperature issues
- Poor balance & coordination, arm & leg weakness
- Tingling, prickling, burning, or numbness sensations in your feet & hands
- Tinnitus (ringing in the ear)
- Painful menstruation
- Anxiety or depression or mood problems
- Neck and back pain
- Insomnia
But what seems like a collection of unrelated symptoms actually all root back to the central nervous system (brian & spinal cord). For this reason craniosacral therapy (CST) is uniquely distinguished as the best fitting therapeutic response to treat and relieve those suffering from fibromyalgia.
Craniosacral therapy (CST) is a gentle hands-on technique that uses a light touch to manipulate the bones of the skull, spine and examine membranes and movement of cerebrospinal fluid in and around the central nervous system. Important physiological functions such as the regrowth or repair of nervous system tissues and cells during sleep depends on robust cerebrospinal fluid circulation. Through delicate well targeted manual manipulations the flow of cerebrospinal fluid can be normalized, any blockages removed, thereby enabling the body to self-heal.
The American Society of Anesthesiologist has stated “The general consensus is that fibromyalgia is the result of a hypersensitive and hyperactive central nervous system, with the brain and spinal cord having developed heightened pain activity”.
In sum with fibromyalgia, the central nervous system’s ascending and descending pain pathways operate abnormally, resulting in central amplification of pain signals, similar to the “volume control setting” being turned up too high. In fact the world-renowned Mayo Clinic has published findings that pain in patients with fibromyalgia is the result from neurochemical imbalances in the central nervous system that lead to a “central amplification” of pain perception.
Simply put, fibromyalgia sufferers have elevated levels of neurotransmitters in their cerebrospinal fluid that increase central nervous system pain processing; and diminished levels of neurotransmitters in their cerebrospinal fluid known to reduce pain transmission. One of the core benefits in receiving craniosacral therapy to treat fibromyalgia is how it directly improves the integrity and circulation of cerebrospinal fluid, the watery fluid surrounding your brain and spinal cord with 3 critical functions:
- Protect spinal cord and brain from trauma;
- Deliver nutrients to nervous system tissue; and
- Transport waste products from cerebral metabolism.
Cerebrospinal fluid that lubricates the brain and spinal cord is central in maintaining the healthy functioning of all of the major organ systems of the body, and is the hydraulic, energetic function of the body. Craniosacral therapy eliminates disturbances to cerebrospinal fluid circulation and how the central nervous system processes pain and other sensory information. Hence in treating fibromyalgia patients with craniosacral therapy, the focus becomes on correcting the pain mechanisms of the central nervous system.
Craniosacral therapy also gently lessens the body’s connective tissue strain and decreases any meningeal (brain) swelling and tension that’s decreasing nerve conduction and choking nerve roots. Optimizing the brain’s environment enables its cells to exhibit “neuroplasticity” or the ability to form new neural connections, reorganize and heal itself.
The benefit of enabling the brain to self heal is supported by leading medical academic centers such as the Cleveland Clinic which determined brain inflammation may trigger fibromyalgia and more specifically, cause brain fog, sleep problems, widespread aches and pains, anxiety, headaches and more. Thus treatment and reduction of fibromyalgia symptoms is optimized by applying craniosacral therapy to:
- reduce brain stress existing in response to connective tissue strain and thereby reduce brain inflammation
- improve interstitial fluid drainage and thereby improve cerebrospinal fluid flow throughout the brain; and
- Optimize the brain’s ability to flush itself of irritating toxins thereby enabling the brain to calm and self-organize free of neurochemical disruptions.
Craniosacral therapy is also effective in treating the stress and trapped trauma that often triggers or accompanies fibromyalgia patients. Though the body is designed to repair itself, it can’t if the trauma is too overwhelming. In fact trapped trauma can leave patterns of restriction which can lead to several of the symptoms of fibromyalgia. Craniosacral therapy can help the body to release the emotional blockages, tension and restrictions locked up in the body’s tissue on a cellular level.
Somato Emotional Release or S.E.R. is a dimension of craniosacral therapy centered on the understanding that trauma in all its forms can become trapped within the body – with enduring detrimental effects on our muscles and joints – exacerbating fibromyalgia.
Also, trapped trauma in the form of stress can cause a person to live in a hypervigilant state of awareness, vulnerable to being triggered by unexpected stimuli and launching an episode of fibromyalgia. Stress to the body is a state of disharmony and a state of threatened homeostasis. Homeostasis is critical for healthy body functioning and with fibromyalgia, the central nervous system is not properly adapting and responding to stressors threatening homeostasis.
For example, those with hypersensitivity to certain sounds (horns or sirens), once triggered may become irritable, exhausted, and that now unleashed stress may spread to cranial nerves and surface as tense jaw clenching or shallow breathing. This is how fibromyalgia works, all stemming from neurochemical imbalances (lack of homeostasis) in the central nervous system that lead to a “central amplification” of pain perception.
Since treating trapped trauma in our limbic system (the complex system of nerves managing emotional and behavioral responses) can’t be accessed through cognitive talk therapy, the gentle non-invasive, hands-on craniosacral therapy accompanied with somato emotional release invigorates and empowers the body’s own ability to resolve fibromyalgia.
Craniosacral therapy directly treats the central nervous system’s ascending and descending pain pathways, rewires the brain to calm and enable the body to heal itself and return to homeostasis.
