for the love of skulls
My naturopath said he could perform a procedure called Neuro Cranial Restructuring on me to try and relieve the pressure I was feeling in my cranium. The idea is that if we can equalize the head, since all comes out of the skull, the body will follow… It is accessible so deep within the health care system that it might as well be inaccessible. But he could do it for me. I was in. I was going to get out of pain no matter what. Take care of myself. Overcome.
I showed up at my naturopaths office and him and his assistant had a chart of what looked like dermatome/myotome separations but blank (without words) so they could take notes. I never asked, I just watched closely. I was wobbled around while standing with my eyes open, wobbled standing with my eyes closed, sat down, prodded, and laid down at an angle so I was still a little upright. Notes were made at every prod. No stone was left unturned.
When I laid flat they were surprised my whole left side of my ribs and shoulder was raised by a few inches compared to my right side which nicely laid flat. They also took note that my tongue sort of had a tendency to curl up into the left back corner of my mouth. My naturopath also had gone to chiropractic school, and learned osteopathy under the original 3 osteopaths, so I very much trusted him.
And so, a finger sized balloon was quickly inserted into a nostril, inflated and deflated. Very concise, quick motion. Then I’d be sent home instructed to ‘open up’ a particular area of my cranium with my attention, basically -Kill Bill style, you know. Send my mental thoughts there to open it up physically.
Anyway, It was a 4 day affair with alternated nostrils being inflated once a day with a finger sized balloon, for 4 days in a row. I was instructed to open up a different area of my head each day. I was not to partake in any therapy for at least 30 days. No chiro, physio, massage, hot yoga, none of that. I’d be too sensitive. I was warned.
I tried to go to hot yoga. I was deeply remorseful of that decision. It was so so uncomfortable to feel my cranium opening up without anything else intense going on, the hot yoga made the discomfort almost unbearable. I immediately understood how it was just too much…
It felt like and sounded like rubbing leather, is my best description. I could feel and hear my cranium opening and releasing the soft tissues. I dont think I mentioned this but by this time my injury was so sticky that it was rubbing against hard tissue and making these insane farting or zipper like noises. My physiotherapist, Chiropractor, and Massage therapist have all said that is a very rare thing they do not see often, and it usually affects old men :p So I was VERY used to making crazy insane noises with my face. I’ve searched high and low for a name. It’s not crepitus… it has no name!
Once a security guard hunted me down in a parking lot because he was convinced my face noises was the sound of me opening a box – but I didn’t touch anything in the store at all, and poured out my purse inside before taking off beside myself crying that someone who heard a noise come out of my face assumed I was shop lifting instead of farting. What the hell.
After I had NCR I experienced extraordinary relief over time. The leather sounds and sensations lasted a month or two and slowly tapered off… I really felt like I had more space inside my cranium for soft tissue to exist in… Most importantly, my trigeminal really stopped throbbing eventually… I wasn’t going to stay in hell forever!