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August 12, 2004

CranioSacral Therapy For Heat Illness

I've written before about the symptoms and avoidance ofheat illness. Why would someone who has suffered a heat illness come in for a massage treatment?

Recently, a client came to me after suffering a serious bout of heat illness, complete with vomiting and an undetectable pulse. The illness resulted in a wild ambulance ride and a night in the hospital. They came to me reporting the following after-effects of heat illness: feeling out of sorts and achy all over, especially from the abdomen up to the muscles of the platysma just underneath the chin (probably due to vomiting).

The massage I delivered was designed to soothe. Deep gentle strokes from shoulders to hips were designed to move fluids. I spent a good deal of time doing craniosacral therapy to settle the central nervous system. At the end of the session, I used CV4 hold to put the client into "still point," a hold that temporarily halts the flow of cerebral spinal fluid to help clear transient tensions from the membrane system of the brain and spinal cord. The client's body responded by going into an extended still point (approx. 3 to 5 minutes), dropping deeper after about 30 seconds, which indicates intense processing by the body. I did this hold three times in a row with the body reacting the same way each time, the only difference being the length of still point was progressively shorter. Unfortunately, time constraints limited me from repeating induction of still point until it cycled down to one minute.

The client left the session saying they felt almost like themselves again.

Posted by linda at August 12, 2004 8:22 AM