Nerve Damage, Concussion and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy (BCST)
Below is a client case study of the effects BCST had on recovery after multiple sports injuries (some recent, some decades old). The case study leads in nicely to an explanation of how the body protects itself after injury and how BCST works to restore the body to its original health.
Baseball Injury to Knee, Lower Leg and Peroneal Nerve
“While pitching, my leg slipped forward on the wet grass and overextended with my body weight over it. It was too much pressure on the ligaments holding the tibia and fibula together and the head of the fibula shattered. It damaged the peroneal nerve and tore two ligaments in my knee.
It required three surgeries to repair the damage. Because of my age, the severity of the injury and the force required to bolt the fibula back to the tibia, the surgeon (as well as subsequent nerve specialists) did not think the peroneal nerve would ever reconnect and repair, meaning that I would have drop foot and that the lower leg would not work very well.
With the BCST Joshua has done, I’ve regained a lot of the feeling and sensations in my foot and lower leg. When I step down I can now feel the bottom of my foot. My ankle and foot are moving a lot more freely. During the sessions things were being opened – so many things were taking place internally. I felt the energy moving, circulating and tremors up my legs. I’m overjoyed with what has taken place. It’s a small miracle.”
Concussion
“From the age of 8-19 I had six diagnosed concussions from American football, where I got carted off in ambulances and ended up in hospital. Beyond that, I know I had various other concussions based on the symptoms I experienced. The ones that were diagnosed were quite severe, including one which crushed a disc in my neck and knocked me out. I was in a coma for three days.
Three to four years ago I had a series of severe headaches, which were on-going. I had scans showing quite a few masses which could result in CTE, the long term effects from concussions.
The work that Joshua has done is tremendous. Not only am I a lot clearer in my thinking, but my headaches have disappeared – it just feels a lot better. My thought process is a lot quicker. I’m no longer sitting in this indecisive place where I can’t seem to get a grasp on whether I should go left or right. I’m a lot more relaxed in my body and relaxed in my thoughts.
The physiotherapists, trainers, coaches, surgeons and doctors I have had over the years – have pieced me back together and helped rehabilitate me, but none have produced results that are as good or noticeable as what I’m getting with Joshua.
The rehab and other treatments have been geared towards getting me back to playing condition, but I never felt I was able to get back to where I was, before I was injured. It was as if there was always something still there – like a scar tissue that never went away. BCST has been really helpful. My legs are working better, my shoulders are working better, my brain is working better.”
So how is BCST different? How was it able to help with these injuries?
Why do the effects of some injuries continue to last months or years after the event (such as the concussions Jeff sustained as a young man)? There are many different reasons for this but a common one is that rehabilitation and treatment plans after injury (as Jeff mentions) often only consider and target the physical effects of the injury, for example, damage to tissues, bones, muscles, organs, nerves, blood vessels, etc. The cause of the physical injury – the vector of force sustained at the moment of impact (e.g. a blow to the head) – is often ignored or assumed to be no longer present or having an effect on the body.
After an impact, the body dissipates and releases as much of the force of the impact as possible, based on the resources and energy available. That which cannot be immediately dissipated will be compensated for to minimise the disruption to the system as a whole.
BCST works to find and release these forces that do not fully dissipate at the time of injury.
“Potency [life force or qi] concentrates or condenses and becomes inertial in order to constrain and compensate for the presence of an added force. The intention is to contain the unresolved force in the smallest area possible.” Franklyn Sills (key contributor to the field of BCST)
This inertial state is often felt as a deadening of the area (to varying degrees) – a lack of feeling, energy and vitality. This is what I felt in Jeff’s case. The back of his head felt incredibly dense. This led me to question Jeff as whether he had had a blow to the head or concussion, as what I was feeling typically corresponds to a previous concussion. More than the density though was a feeling of lifelessness. I have felt this before in clients with more serious, life-threatening injuries. This made perfect sense to me after he mentioned that one of incidents led to a three day coma.
It is common for this compensatory density to remain in the body decades after the event – until there are the resources and energy available (such as is made possible during a BCST session) to dissipate the force and revitalise the affected tissues. The compensation is not a one off event but an on-going one that is energetically taxing to the system.