Conditions Often Treated By NeuroCranial Restructuring
What does NeuroCranial Restructuring treat?
Significant results are routinely expected for:
• Anxiety and nervousness
• Arthritis, bursitis, rheumatism
• Attention Deficit Disorder, dyslexia, hyperactivity
and other learning disabilities
• Concussion and other head injuries
• Depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder
• Down’s Syndrome
• Dystonia
• Ear infection and deafness
• Feeling grounded
• Glaucoma, double vision and other vision
problems
• Headaches, head pressure, migraines
• Improvement of your intuition
• Low energy, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue
• Muscle spasms, neck and shoulder pain
• Optimal functioning of the brain
• Orthodontic stress and bruxism
• Osteoporosis
• Phobias
• Psychic optimization
• Poor concentration and focus
• Relationship difficulties
• Sciatica, kyphosis (hunchback), lordosis
(sway-back), scoliosis (spiral spine), military spine
and other back problems
• Seizures
• Sinusitis, sleep apnea, snoring, other breathing
and sinus disorders
• Strokes
• Tinnitus
• TMD, TMJ (mouth, head and jaw pains)
• Vertigo and other balance problems
• Whiplash Syndrome
• Wrinkles (NCR replaces a face lift)
NCR helps these conditions (and others) because they all have a
structural causation or a significant structural component.
We should be aware of the following conditions. None of them would automatically prevent treatment but should be evaluated:
Anticoagulant Medication (blood thinners)
Anxiety/Panic Attacks
Aspirin/Excedrin - extended use or abuse
Asthma (have inhaler in rare case of triggered attack)
Bleeding Disorders
Care with Newborns (they are very small!)
Dental Appliances, permanent or removable retainers
Dentures, Plates or Bridges across central maxillary suture
Drug Addiction
Epistaxis (history of nosebleed)
Head Injuries with fresh fracture and/or cerebral hemorrhage
High Blood Pressure
Infection - Ear, Sinus, Respiratory, especially with fever or cough
Malformations (birth abnormalities, i.e., cleft palate, etc.)
Myringotomies
Nasal or Facial Bone Fractures within the last 3 months / Stitches in Nasal Passage
Nasal Polyps
Nasal Septum Damage
Nasal Spray – extended use/addiction
Post-traumatic Syndrome (PTSD)
Psychiatric or psychotropic medications
Skull Bone Plates across suture lines
Surgery - Prior History of any to the Face, Head, Special Senses, Spine
Tumor
Turbinate Damage or Modification (unpredictable structural integrity)
A 1995 History of NCR
Naturopathic medical students are required to take courses in physical medicine and manipulation. My personal experiences with spinal manipulation were negative. I saw few long-term results from spinal manipulation performed by the naturopathic physicians and chiropractors whom I observed clinically. I did not understand how chiropractors and naturopathic physicians could claim that they could optimize brain function by working on the spine. I knew that 85% of the nervous system was inside the skull, and I saw no evidence to indicate that spinal manipulation would change the function of the brain. So I began researching cranial manipulation techniques. I wasn’t impressed with what I found at first.
Then I heard about Bilateral Nasal Specific (BNS). The sphenoid, the central bone of the skull, could be moved with BNS. If you moved the sphenoid, then the brain would have a different shape, and so the hydraulic actions of blood flow and cerebrospinal fluid flow would be different. This would change the function of the nervous system. I was very excited when I found out that one of my classmates had a brother who claimed to be an expert in BNS.
I first experienced Bilateral Nasal Specific in the winter of 1982 while I was a fourth-year naturopathic medical student at Bastyr University. The treatment was very painful and ineffective. The treating chiropractor told me that my head was too tight for a treatment like BNS. Somehow I knew that he was wrong and that he performed the treatment badly. The next week I called J. Richard Stober, DC, ND of Milwaukie, OR and Seattle, WA and convinced him to lecture to my class. I was inspired by his statements about the need to move the sphenoid to improve the symmetry of the skull, allowing better mechanical function of the skull joints and better hydraulic functioning of the brain. By the end of the lecture, some of my classmates and I had talked our way into his part-time Seattle-area clinic as student observers.
I spent three years watching Dr. Stober, first as an observer, next as a young doctor who was treating himself, later as a clinician who was clumsily treating patients in his new practice and, finally, as a young doctor who shared patients with Dr. Stober. I usually spent one Sunday each month watching him treat patients for six hours or so. Then I went home and practiced what I observed until our shared patients reported to him that our work was nearly identical.
From the time I opened my family practice in Everett, Washington in 1982, BNS was an integral part of my practice. I remember looking at one woman with chronic head pain and remarking on her asymmetry despite her history of more than 100 BNS treatments. By 1984, I was generally dissatisfied with BNS treatment techniques and clinical results. It just didn’t work as well as Dr. Stober claimed, and some of his explanations of the nature of the anatomy/physiology of cranial manipulation didn’t seem sensible. I was upset at the inability of BNS to correct asymmetrical head shapes. His explanation of the release of the sphenoid by the balloon and the self-correcting mechanism of the meninges and the bones of the skull couldn’t be true. If it had worked as claimed, then all heads would become symmetrical as BNS treatments progressed. Instead, the symmetrical treatments of BNS did not address the lack of symmetry at all.
I was convinced that a symmetrical treatment pattern could not correct an asymmetrical head shape. I began experimenting with asymmetrical endonasal balloon treatment patterns in an attempt to produce symmetrical skeletons. First, the treatment patterns were chosen by the way that the skull visually appeared. This proved to have a low degree of success, although it was better than BNS for these difficult cases. Next, I tried applying kinesiology techniques, and this was similarly unsatisfactory. Then I tried palpation of the greater wings of the sphenoid. I found that the sphenoid wings’ flexibility changed when I inflated endonasal balloons in different nasal meati. After a year or two, I had definitive maps of cause-and-effect for the endonasal balloon inflation of the nasal meati and the flexibility patterns of the greater wings of the sphenoid.
As the years progressed, I found that I was unable to demonstrate to curious doctors the difference in the palpation patterns of the sphenoid wings. I was confused, even though the clinical successes of the asymmetrical nasal specifics were much better than the old BNS. A Canadian naturopath convinced me to call the work EndoCranial Manipulation (ECM).
In 1989, I had my naturopathic medical license revoked for injecting eight patients with vitamin B-12 and combinations in 1986. Instead of performing manipulations about 30% of my clinic day, I began working for the doctors in my clinic as a physical therapy aide and performed manipulations all day long. My skills in ECM improved. I was invited by Sam Biser to speak at “The Summit Conference on Chronic Fatigue” in Hot Springs, Virginia in 1991. There I met Lowell Eugene Ward, DC, the developer of Spinal Stressology. We talked, and I believed that he understood things about my work that I didn’t understand. I studied Spinal Stressology with his son, Steven Ward, DC, treating two patients chosen by the Drs. Ward with ECM while a DC followed their progress. I gradually came to reject the Stressology concepts. The chiropractor following the two patients then stopped the process after three months (instead of five months), saying it was time to take more radiographs. The report that I received indicated that the patients had changed greatly. Excited, I contacted the Wards, thinking that they would embrace the new techniques and would allow me to teach the Stressology community ECM so that we would all get better at manipulation.
Of course, that didn’t happen. Instead, I never spoke with the Wards again. On top of that, the two patients, both friends of the Wards, were dismayed to report that their X-rays of their ECM progress were being claimed by Eugene Ward to be his own successful cases! Appalled, I stayed home alone for a while.
In 1993 I applied for reinstatement of my license and was surprised that the State of Washington insisted that I physically leave the State for at least one year before they would consider reinstatement. I moved to San Diego in August of 1993 and began working as a nutritionist and naturopathic cranial manipulation specialist there. But first I mailed out a letter to my patient database, announcing my exit from Washington. Sam Biser read this letter and invited me to interview for “The Last Chance Health Newsletter”, where I talked about ECM in April, 1994. Over 1,000 people contacted me, and the MD who ran the clinic I worked in fired me (because of the pressure he was receiving from the California Medical Board for an unrelated incident). I decided to travel around the US alone and treat patients with ECM.
With all of the time I spent alone, I thought about bodies and manipulation a great deal. I taught ECM to Jesse Jutkowitz, DC who showed me the Spinal Stressology techniques that the Wards had been unwilling to show me. He was convinced that my sphenoid wing palpation points could be tested with the Applied Kinesiology techniques of Spinal Stressology. He required standing and seated full spine radiographs to determine the “pelvic drop” (an inferior tilt of the pelvis while seated) so that small changes in the tilt of the occipital bone could be an indicator of the need to manipulate a bone. I tried to do this as I traveled, but I did not trust my results because I had no radiographs to determine the pelvic drop.
One night I had a visual dream (unusual for me) where I saw a skull filled with chunky ground glass and saw that manipulation of the glass chunks could best be accomplished with a long steel rod being pushed deeply though the entire skull (not pushing shallowly or lightly on different areas of the skull). Somehow that dream convinced me that my ECM techniques were wrong. What I had been doing in ECM was to insert and inflate endonasal balloons in all six meati one or two times to loosen up the structure (Dr. Stober’s technique), followed with more specific treatment mandated by the sphenoid pattern of asymmetry. I realized that I should only perform the needed treatment of the structural asymmetry, and the old BNS-style loosening up of the skull structure would be detrimental (actually traumatic) to the structure
The Stressology testing techniques were designed to find the joints that, when pushed, would cause the occipital bone to drop in the same direction as the seated pelvis had tilted. These joints were the areas the Stressologists manipulated. They always warned me to push very lightly on a patient, because greater pressures would treat the target joint and the case wouldn’t progress properly. I decided to find out what happened when I pushed harder. So I did, and the patient almost fell over. I pushed her again on a vertebra near by, and she was able to withstand a much greater force without difficultly. I realized that the Stressology testing was not Applied Kinesiology but was really a testing technique to determine the patterns of the instability of the structure, allowing us to map the inability of the nervous system to maintain stability with a proprioceptive challenge. When I treated a patient with my improved ECM, the areas of instability with the modified Stressology challenge would be stabilized. I began testing carefully, and I found that Dr. Jutkowitz’ claim was true—we could determine the areas of the sphenoid to move with the palpation areas of the greater wing of the sphenoid evaluated with this peculiar form of stability testing. But Jutkowitz was also wrong because the radiograph wasn’t necessary.
NeuroCranial Restructuring had been born! It was the summer of 1995, and it took me until October to determine the name of the technique.
Since that time, the rough techniques of NCR have gradually been replaced each year with gentler, more precise techniques. My doctor-students and I are convinced that it is the next generation of physical manipulation techniques.
Have You Noticed That Physical Medicine Doesn’t Last?
That’s what I noticed 43 years ago when I had my physical medicine clinical training at Bastyr University’s College of Naturopathic Medicine. “Why don’t people get better?” I asked Dr. Bastyr. He told me that these unfortunates were chronically injured and would never fully recover. Dr. Bastyr further explained that when these people suffered their injuries their ligaments were stretched and would never resume their original shapes. “Isn’t it good that we can offer them relief of their suffering?” he asked me. I wasn’t so sure….
I KNEW THERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THIS SCENARIO. “There must be something we are all missing”, I cried. Then I heard about Bilateral Nasal Specific and Dr. J.R. Stober, DC, ND of the Portland, Oregon area. Dr. Stober said that moving the sphenoid bone (inside the skull) with a small endonasal balloon would correct the tension patterns in the meningeal tissues (inside the skull) and this would optimize brain function and the mechanical functions of the sinuses, eye orbit, the jaw, and the teeth. There was an impressive body of testimonials of clinical success and no published writings of any sort.
IT WAS LOVE AT FIRST EXPERIENCE! I had chronic sinusitis, chronic neck pain, and chronic low back pain, and I felt good, really good, after getting my first BNS sessions—for the first time in a long time. I loved BNS treatments! When I opened my practice in Everett, Washington in 1982, BNS was one of the main features of my practice. By 1985, Dr. Stober told everybody that I was his best student, and referred many patients to me. I was convinced that moving the bones of the skull to allow the meninges to shift was the missing link that would correct my perceived defect in physical medicine—it would do this through controlled movements of the skull (as well as the spine and pelvis)—then people would totally recover from their assorted injuries.
BUT I WAS WRONG! As the years passed, it became evident that, although some people fully recovered from their injuries, most of those I treated only partially recovered—some less than others. There were a few that I even made worse. These unfortunates were terrified of returning for treatment, so I was unable to help them further. Dr. Stober told me that they would get better if they weren’t such cry-babies; they simply needed to return for more treatment. I felt guilty classifying my patients as those who were at fault.
I asked all of the physical medicine doctors that I could to find out what was wrong, and a definitive answer was not offered. They always told me about the latest technique that they were using, but agreed that nothing seemed to offer the answers that I sought. I began investigating how physical medicine techniques evolved. There was no systematic approach possible—instead intuitive leaps were occasionally made. Essentially, everything in “modern” times seems to have started with the concepts visualized by Dr. Palmer (the first chiropractor) where he first noted the importance of bone position in effecting the nervous system. It was widely accepted that this caused compensatory (reflex) tightening of the musculature. Everybody kept working within these concepts, refining and improving the techniques they used if they could.
I reasoned that the problems I was having with the model that we were all using was that it was not accurate enough at portraying the conditions within the chronically injured body.
I thought about this a lot. In the science classes of my youth, I was told about the scientific method: first create a theory, test it with a experimental model, and keep revising the theory, making new models and more tests, further refining it. This is wasn’t exactly what we had all been doing—we had left out the revision. Experimentation without revising the original model was not the scientific theory, but it was the physical medicine model—since we ignored any contradictory evidence. But, in the scientific method, when facts present themselves to us that are contrary to the original theory, we are supposed to create an antithesis. The two ideas then can be synthesized to create a new theory.
I wondered “What was the antithesis of the physical medicine model?” I always seemed to have this question in the back of my mind. I kept tinkering with BNS, deep muscle therapies, and osseous manipulation—all without any real improvement. I felt lost. What should I do? My first degree was in mathematics, and my loves were symbolic logic and abstract algebra. I decided to use some of these mathematical analytic techniques to analyze the physical medicine problem.
I found physical medicine analysis techniques are rather simple in concept (and complex in practice). We focus on the local physical misalignments that result in the first-level, immediate-symptoms that our patients suffer from. If the neck (or low back, or the mid-back, or the TMJ) hurts, then we work on the bones, muscles, and tendons in the area. Essentially our model is that local misalignments of the bones, muscles, connective tissues, and nerves lead to malfunction that we should correct by re-aligning the bones, muscles, etc. in their original position as closely as we can. If it doesn’t go into place the first time, then repeat. And we do repeat, sometimes hundreds of times with minimal changes.
A few therapists working with techniques like NUCA, SOT, Network, vector cranial, Rolfing, SOMA, and NET talked about changing the entire structure through their treatments, but this didn’t seem to influence the majority’s thinking. (Besides, none of these people had a high percentage of success either, so the prevailing sentiment was not to change at all.) What I noticed was that the model’s focus was on which bones (or which body parts) were “out of place.” People would even say, “My neck is out.” Or “My back is out.” So, as our model concluded, if the bone would just stay in place, then the problem would be corrected. So we moved that bone back “in” every treatment, again and again, hoping for success.
With such typically poor results that all of the physical medicine techniques displayed, I decided that I would not just learn more mediocre therapy. I looked elsewhere and found nothing better. Since nobody was offering a method that I could embrace, I decided to look within and do it myself. Somebody had to, I reasoned, so why not me? My mathematical training suggested that I choose the opposite track from the thinking of the model. How could I create the antithesis? If our focus was on the bones that were “out of place” because the body would work better with the bone (or joint, etc.) in place, then maybe I should conjecture the opposite. Surely that would show me the errors in my thinking! So I made the assumption that the body was best off with the bones, etc. in the position I found them in. Even though I had called these bones “out of place,” I began treating people that way—ignoring bone alignment and ignoring muscle tension patterns—the methods that I had been taught. I still worked on the sore muscles and joints; I still opened the nasal breathing passages with a balloon. I just treated the painful areas without really thinking about it at all. Nothing had really changed from
NCR TREATMENT AND CONSULTING APPOINTMENT SCHEDULE
September 21-October 3 Tonasket, Wash
October 5-8 Orange County (Costa Mesa, Calif)
October 10-16 Brooklyn New York
October 24-28 Tonasket, Wash
October 31-November 3 Los Angeles
November 5-10 Brooklyn, New York
November 12-15 Philadelphia (Conshohocken, Penn)
November 17-20 Orange County, (Costa Mesa, Calif.)
November 26-December 4 Tonasket, Wash
December 7-10 Denver (Louisville, Colo.)
December 12-17 Brooklyn, New York
December 19-22 Orange County (Costa Mesa, Calif)
December 27-31 Tonasket, Wash.
How Can NCR Make You Think and Look Better?
Have you noticed that people’s personalities sometimes change after head injuries? There is a mechanical reason for this: the brain functions with 2 crucial fluids – blood and cerebrospinal fluid, and the flow patterns are made worse. Hydraulics tell us that the flowing patterns for fluids are determined by the shape of the vessel that they flow inside. Head bones change their alignment with traumatic events such as falls, accidents, beatings, dental work, and PTSD events. So these incidents cause changes in brain functions. For one person it can be depression, for another memory lapses, and for a 3rd he/she may have no creativity anymore. Looks change with the altered bone alignments as well because skin is only stretched tightly when the bones are in their ideal positions. Otherwise, they display wrinkles, folds, and creases in the face. Vision, balance, and jaw functions are also affected with changed bone positions.
After the head bones have changed alignments from these assorted incidents, they will sometimes recover and there will be no long-term change. But that is rare, most of the time they do not return and require very specific treatment in order to be returned to their original design. Unfortunately, physical medicine therapy focuses on relief of pain and joint malfunctions—the relief is wonderful but cures are rare. This is why many people see physical medicine therapists very regularly, needing massages, chiropractic treatments, craniosacral therapy, etc. every week or so—forever.
Dr. Dean Howell developed NeuroCranial Restructuring techniques over 30 years ago and are still the only physical medicine concepts and modalities that routinely restore the original bone alignment patterns that rid people of these annoying bony alignment problems.
There is now a 30-year history of successful treatment of many different conditions such as headaches and migraines, sinusitis, double vision, glaucoma, sleep apnea, TMD, anxiety, depression, OCD, anger management, whiplash syndrome, hunchback, swayback, sciatica, and energy-chakra balance problems. All of these conditions are primarily mechanical in causation.
For example, you should not use herbs or pharmaceutical drugs to treat chronic depression. It is better to correct the underlying problem with NCR. As the skull bones gradually move into better and better alignment patterns, the brain fits more and more perfectly inside the skull which means that it is pressed upon less and less by the bones. That’s right, it is rather like the brain is being squeezed all the time, and that’s what makes it malfunction. With NCR we gradually decompress the brain and mechanically relieve much of the body’s stress.
There is now less need of elective plastic surgery, too. Thinking about an eye tuck, cheekbone balancing procedures, or maxillofacial surgery to bring the face and jaw forward? These symptoms can be corrected with NeuroCranial Restructuring!
1996 Interview of Dr Howell with Sam Biser
What you are looking at is "scientifically impossible."
But it is happening anyway.
According to the experts, the shape of a person's head and face cannot re-form once the bones have matured.
The experts are wrong.
I know, because what they say cannot happen is happening to me.
All my life, for 44 years, my head was extremely narrow.
Then, in July of 1995, I began a new treatment created by Dr. Dean Howell, called "neuro-cranial restructuring."
In only 15 months, this treatment has so changed my appearance that people who once knew me from the past no longer recognize me. Readers who should know me will stand two feet away and not know who they are looking at. When told it is me they are looking at, they think the person telling them is joking and they do not believe it.
One friend who hadn't seen me in a while was shocked when he first saw the change.
He refused to accept it. He would only say, "God sure did something. " His hands were so shaking from the shock of a different ”me" that he accidentally dropped a glass of water all over the restaurant table.
Friends in Virginia think I look different because I shaved off my beard and mustache.
That's absurd. I do look better without my beard, but a narrow face is a narrow face, whether you shave it, or you don't. Also, my beard was not thick and bushy, but very thin. When I first went to Dr. Howell, in June of '95, you my face was narrow. I also didn't feel too well.
By November of '95, my face was just beginning to expand in the center.
In the final picture, taken almost a year after the first, there was tremendous expansion across the cheek area. My forehead became much broader. My eyes were no longer deep-set. My whole appearance was transformed. My face looked softer.
Can your doctor create these changes?
Don't even answer. No one can. Not plastic surgeons. Not medical doctors. Not chiropractors. Not cranial osteopaths.
Except Dr. Dean Howell. And now he wants to teach his work to the doctors of the world.
If I had a disease and said that Dr. Howell cured me, you might claim that the cure was "mental", and that maybe it occurred because I liked Dr. Howell.
But my bones are not "impressed" with his personality. They don't know any better. Every month, in response to his skull treatments, they continue to change their shape.
I am not done yet.
My forehead and the middle of my face are continuing to widen greatly, and my cheekbones keep rising from the deep. The cheekbones that are coming out of hiding are not plastic implants - but my own.
The hook that I had at the top of my nose is almost gone.
How do I like all this? I love it. For the first time in my life, I am starting to hear the word handsome. And my wife, who never said much about my appearance, now calls me her "beast."
I know what these treatments did for me. I also know what it did for dozens of patients I talked to.
Now I want the same benefits for all my readers, and for all mankind.
"Medicine and natural healing treat the body as if it were HEADLESS. Unfortunately, your skull shape controls your mental abilities, personality and many of your diseases."
BISER: Why can't other doctors in natural healing or medicine produce the results you did in me?
HOWELL: Because doctors regard the skull as merely a piece of bone that protects the brain - and that's it.
To them, the skull is medically unimportant. Other than bone breakage or skull fractures, doctors are not interested in what the skull looks like. Doctors of all kinds think the shape of the skull just doesn't matter, and that it has absolutely no effect on brain function or health. But they are so ignorant.
BISER: If the shape of the skull bones is as important as you say, then how did it get overlooked?
HOWELL: The problem is this: Everyone---doctors and patients---regard biochemistry as the primary and usually the only thing that affects human health and disease.
We worry about hormones, vitamin deficiencies, infections, tumors, and so on - as if nothing else mattered---or as if nothing else regulated our health.
Physical medicine is considered to be "secondary" medicine. Drugs and surgery are considered primary. Anything to do with bones is thought to be of lesser importance than body chemistry.
This view is incorrect.
What people don't realize is that when your structure (the bones of your skull and elsewhere) is off, this by itself creates bad chemistry. The only way to correct the biochemical problems created by a bad skull is to work on the skull. If this is your main problem, nothing else will help to any great degree.
"Doctors don't know how to correct serious distortions in the skull - if they even wanted to. You cannot do it with drugs, vitamins, or by any technique now used in the natural field."
BISER: What do you mean when you say that bad structure can change a person's body chemistry?
HOWELL: Let me give you a recent case I had, and then I can explain its significance. There is a ten-year-old learning-disabled boy from Colorado I just worked on.
This boy had been a problem student. The month after I treated him, the boy's dad told me the whole special education department in his school was amazed by the changes his son has made since October.
The school has been asking the Dad to figure out if there's a way that they could bring me in to Boulder to work on all the other kids in the school district that are having similar scholastic problems.
BISER: What was the problem with his son?
HOWELL: He was viewed as autistic and he was having learning disabilities; so he wasn't retaining his class-work, and he didn't have good eye-to-brain coordination. He would see material and not remember it.
BISER: What happens now?
HOWELL: Now he remembers. Now he is more socially interactive, is better able to verbalize his feelings. These are all things that he couldn't do before and he seems to be less dyslexic. His brain had been pinched. It didn't work right, so they said, "he's autistic," "he's learning-disabled," "he's hyperactive," "he's dyslexic."
BISER: People think skull shape is like personality - we all have a different one, and it doesn't matter But no one thinks skull shape can actually determine health.
HOWELL: I disagree. It does matter, because when you change the shape of a person's head, their nervous system responds differently and they behave differently, too. Like the autistic boy; he is not the same kid he was before I worked on him. He's still Tim, but now Tim...
BISER: He's a better Tim?
HOWELL: He's a Tim that's more functional at school; he's a Tim that gets along with his brothers and sisters better. He's a Tim that's more cooperative for his parents when they ask him to do chores around the house; he's a Tim that doesn't throw tantrums in frustration any longer. He's a Tim that doesn't get angry the way that he used to, and the only thing that's been different is that we've changed the shape of his skull, just like I changed yours.
I never gave this boy any medicines, and I didn't talk to him about his problems. Obviously, the chemistry and functioning of his brain has changed - and all I did was work on his skull.
"One 85-year-old man was so senile, he was a vegetable who drooled saliva. After I worked on his skull, he now smiles and cracks jokes."
BISER: What does skull shape have to do with chemistry?
HOWELL: Everything, because the skull contains the most precious tissue in your whole body --- your brain. The skull is a container for the brain and the fluids that flow through it. There is a small membrane lining the inside of the skull, and the brain has to fit inside of that.
Imagine your brain as a sponge. Now, if you have a round sponge in a square box, there is a squeezing of the sponge, and a restriction (or mis-direction) of fluid flow within the crimped areas of the sponge.
I call it Howell's #1 Law of Brain Function: Fluid distribution is determined by the shape of the vessel.
BISER: So you are saying that the shape of the skull helps determine the flow of blood through the brain?
HOWELL: Absolutely. But it's more than that. Blood is not the only fluid in the brain. Brain tissues need more than nourishment and waste removal to be healthy. They also need to communicate with one other.
BISER: And this communication occurs by electrical signals sent down the "wires" we call nerves, right?
HOWELL: That's only part of the story.
The brain also sends neuro-transmitters and other chemical messages through a highly-specialized brain liquid called cerebro-spinal fluid.
Consider this fluid like a modem that computers use to communicate with faraway computers.
But instead of electrical messages, these are chemical messages. This fluid is manufactured in your brain, and it's a thick syrup, like the "karo" syrup people use in the kitchen. It flows down the spinal column and is absorbed at the base of the spine and recycled.
BISER: How does this fluid get around from one place to another?
HOWELL: It is the motion of the skeleton that propels the fluid.
The skull that surrounds your brain is a pump, just like the heart - only it's a different kind of pump.
The heart pumps blood by way of muscle action. But the skull pumps nerve fluid (cerebro-spinal fluid) by the moving of bones. The bones of this pump move outward as you breathe in fresh air, and they move inward as you exhale.
It's as if the brain was being lightly massaged by the motion of the skull plates.
"Until I corrected this man's skull shape, the breathing center in his brain did not work properly. He was in danger of suffocating to death every night he went to bed."
BISER: So what does skull shape have to do with this pumping action?
HOWELL: All pumps depend on their shape for their efficiency.
A pump that is symmetrical distributes fluid far better and more evenly than one that is bent or misshapen. If you don't believe me, bang up the chambers of some pump, and see if it works as well. It won't.
Your destiny, how quickly you learn, whether you feel over-emotional all the time, whether you are emotionally flat and dull, whether you feel "uptight", or whether you feel "easygoing" - all this can be determined by the flow of fluids through your various brain control centers.
And the flow of fluids in your brain is controlled by physical laws and mechanical pressures. For instance, there is a basic law of fluid dynamics called "Bernoulli's Law" - and it has everything to do with your happiness.
BISER: Aren't we getting a little too technical here?
HOWELL: Not at all. Bernoulli's Law is simple, and affects all readers so greatly, that they need to understand it.
Bernoulli's Law says that if a fluid (water or anything else) flows through a restricted area like a pipe, then the fluid will speed-up as the pipe gets narrower.
BISER: So what does this have to do with human beings?
HOWELL: Well, if there is compression in different control centers in your brain, the fluid could accelerate and flow by too quickly. Either that brain center would get too much stimulation, or possibly the fluid flow could be so quick that nerve stimulation doesn't occur properly.
For instance, what if one of your emotional control center is over-stimulated? It could mean that you feel anxiety when you are out in groups of people, while others feel relaxed. It could be coming from your skull.
Here's something else. Scientists have discovered an area in the brain you could call "the happiness center." It was reported by John Stossel on ABC on April 15th, 1996.
The amount of electrical activity in this brain area helps determines whether you feel happy or not. We all know some people who feel happy and lighthearted, even though their lives are not all that great. And then there are others who have great marriages, plenty of money, etc., yet somehow, they never look happy - and never are.
You can do all the positive thinking you want, but if the flow of blood and cerebro-spinal fluid to this center is affected, you may never feel quite right.
This happiness area is located on the left front part of the brain. Interestingly, this is where most of my patients have a lot of skull compression, and this is also the area which is squeezed the most when the baby's skull rotates as it comes out the birth canal.
It comes down to this: We all know shape absolutely matters when you design an airplane or a car. But no one realizes that shape also matters for the human skull.
Let me give you another case, and you'll see what I mean.
The man's name was Phillip and he had a problem with the breathing center in his brain. You met him in my office.
BISER: Oh yes, I remember him. He was suffering from a disorder called ‘sleep apnea.’
HOWELL: That's right. Sleep apnea is a condition in which the person stops breathing while they sleep. It can be fatal. Phillip had it 40 times an hour. It was so bad the doctor told him that if he didn't get a special breathing machine immediately, he could have a stroke or die any night he went to bed.
They gave him a lifetime prescription for a machine you are hooked up to while you sleep, so you don't stop breathing. It has a mask you wear over your face.
Doctors also wanted to do surgery to remove the entire soft palate of his throat. They wanted to remove the tonsils, adenoids, everything all the way down his throat. But people have this done - and still have apnea.
After his fourth treatment with me, the apnea was gone. He used to have to take all kinds of medications before he went to sleep and after he woke up. Now he doesn't need to take anything.
Doctors had given him MRI's, brain scans, and so on, and could not find anything. All I did was work on his skull, and correct the mechanical pressures on his brain.
BISER: Phillip was incredibly excited when I talked to him. Imagine, four treatments with you and a lifetime problem is cured. He told me he used to wake up almost paralyzed two to three times a week, and that's gone too. Tell me, does this treatment help people who just want to breathe better?
"As the skull moves, it also changes spinal curves in the upper back and releases spastic back muscles. Then breathing becomes transformed - without any conscious effort."
HOWELL: It sure does. I worked on one graduate student from Indiana, and he comes in the next morning and says, "I didn't expect these things to happen." I said, "Are you having side effects?" And he said, "No. No. No. I can breathe deeper than I thought people could breathe."
He also told me, "I feel different in my chest; it feels like its bigger and more relaxed."
People even report that their clothes fit differently because their posture change makes their rib cage ride differently. One guy said his shirt-tails hang differently and his pants fit differently too. When you work on the skull as vigorously as I do, these changes in the chest can occur in less than four days.
When I start, I notice people breathing shallow. Then, as the skull and chest muscles release, I notice their whole diaphragm moving. They feel it all the way down into their groin. You can take all the deep-breathing lessons you want, but you can't make the body breathe in a way it is mechanically incapable of doing.
I've also helped asthma patients. I had a real-estate man with asthma who told me he doesn't have to wake up anymore at one in the morning just to use his inhaler, which he's been doing for the last twenty-five years.
BISER: You mentioned spinal curves, so I'd like to ask you: what do you think of chiropractic?
HOWELL: They don't treat the true cause of people's problems. That's why their patients have to come back for years and years - for the same misalignment.
BISER: How can you say that? Don't a lot of people get relief by having their spinal bones moved back in place?
HOWELL: It's usually short-term relief which won't hold.
BISER: Why is that?
HOWELL: Because the body deliberately moves the spinal bones out of place to stabilize itself, so it won't fall over. As soon as the chiropractor pushes the bones back in, the body re-asserts itself and moves them out again, even if this causes pain.
The body prefers pain to falling over - which is dangerous for human survival. If you couldn't walk or stand-up, you couldn't hunt or run away from predators. Balance is lifesaving to the human species.
Sam Biser volume 6-6_Pic15
You have to remember that the skull is like an 8-10 pound bowling ball sitting on top of a pool stick. If the body didn't balance the ball on top, you'd fall over, and have to crawl on the ground, instead of walking.
So, to balance the human body, the brain moves the bones and changes the spinal curves. For instance, if your head tips forward and to the left, the pelvis may drop to the right, and the spine will change curves to throw some of your weight backwards - like a counterbalance.
BISER: Where do the muscles fit into this?
HOWELL: Here's how: Most people's heads are not centered over their necks, and the head shape is not symmetrical like it should be.
So their head wants to roll off to the side. But the brain doesn't like that, so it starts tightening muscles - just like you use a cable to hold up a tree in the orchard.
So if your head tips to the left, the muscles on the right side are usually tighter. Much tighter. And, if your head is too far forward so that it wants to flop down, then the muscles across the back of the neck are really going to be tight, because they are pulling the skull backwards.
The muscles are the body's back-up system to fight gravity. All the tight muscles are trying to do is to hold up the body when the bones can't support your weight. The muscles are like the guy wires holding up a crooked tree.
The real answer is to realign and reshape the skull, not to massage the muscles, or pop the vertebrae. People go, "Bad muscle. Bad muscle", because it's tight and so sore, but the true cause often lies in the distorted skull.
Chiropractors, massage therapists, and everyone in physical therapy is ignoring gravity and ignoring the skull.
They relax muscles that should be tight - and the person feels temporarily better, but the body is worse.
They move bones back in that are supposed to be out. The neck or back pain goes away for now, but the skull and spine are less stable, and under more stress.
Moving bones back in that should be out is like removing the flying buttresses that support a cathedral. The human body adapts by creating worse curves (a sicker, less healthy "balance") to try and avoid falling to the ground. The local symptom may be gone, but the whole system has begun to degenerate.
If we treated our buildings the way we treat the skull and spine, all our buildings would collapse. Engineers I talk to understand this. So do lay people. Doctors don't.
BISER: One question before we move on: How does the brain know how to balance the body, how many degrees off it is, and what it needs to do to balance itself?
HOWELL: This is accomplished at the base of the brain, in the brain stem, working through sensations triggered by the balance organs. These are the semi-circular canals in your ears.
These canals have fluid in them, and tiny hairs to sense motion, and they work like carpenters' levels. There's three of them in each ear that are set at different angles. So you always can tell where your body is in relation to gravity.
Your brain receives a constant stream of data from your ears telling it how to balance you.
So, continuously, your balance organs are making your body compensate to make sure you won't fall over. And, if you have someone that depends on a walker or a cane to walk, you realize they are at the outer limit of their body's ability to continue compensating.
If these people don't use physical aids, all you have to do is give them a little push with one finger and they fall over - just like a tree that got bent to one side too much.
"When you correct the shape of the skull so it balances better on the spine, severe scoliosis will change in days - sometimes in one treatment."
BISER: Can you help people who've deteriorated this far?
HOWELL: Yes I can. I remember a lady who was eighty-six, a retired hairdresser, who gave up her cane after two days of therapy, handed it to her daughter and said, "Put it away, I don't need it any more." Her daughter said, `Are you sure, Mom?" "Course I'm sure! Don't give me any lip, girl!" And she was fine.
I helped my own mother, who had scoliosis (severe spinal curvature) that got worse after a car accident.
Last month, my mother was hit by a car, when she was on her bicycle. When I first treated her two years ago, she had a tendency towards scoliosis, but now it was much, much worse. Her scoliosis measured from the side was probably around three inches. Her spine was curving sideways, three inches off center.
We're talking about gross spinal changes I showed to my sister as we looked at my mom from the back. I said, "Look at that." She goes, "She's all crooked," and I said, "That's scoliosis!"
I worked on her head, and I had to use quite a bit of pressure, because she was hit by this car and hit the pavement so hard. Her skull plates were jammed together. Once I finally muscled through that skull problem, her back is absolutely straight.
BISER: How long did it take you to do that?
HOWELL: In two treatments, she was straight again.
The scoliosis was a response to the blow to the head.
The blow moved the head so far off center that the only way her body could stay upright was to put her pelvis 3 inches off to the other side to balance itself.
BISER: So a chiropractor could have worked on her spine for years, but the true cause was in the skull.
HOWELL: That's exactly right. If a doctor doesn't understand the central role of the shape of the skull, there's a lot of people he'll never get well.
As a healer, you have no clue as to what symptoms will vanish when you start changing the skull shape. For example, there was one farmer that I worked on who had lived in the same house all his life and he was about seventy.
After I worked on him, he said, "Heard the train whistle this morning?," and I said, "So what? I heard the trains, too., they're really loud around here."
He said "You don't understand; I haven't heard it for thirty years, but I heard it this morning."
BISER: After how many treatments?
HOWELL: That was after his second treatment.
"Whenever my treatment changes the skull shape, there is also an emotional change in the patient. But control freaks don't like that."
BISER: One thing that amazed me whenever I visited your office was that some patients glowed and crowed about how much you helped them, and how no one else had, but then they said they didn't know if they had the courage to come back again. Now, I've had your treatment numerous times, as rough as you can give it, and it's no problem. So what are these people afraid of?
HOWELL: They're afraid of the emotional changes the treatment causes. They want their symptoms to go, but that's all. They don't want anything else to change.
BISER: What do you mean by "change”? All we're talking about is moving some skull bones, right.?
Note from Sam Biser: I refer doctors and readers to an recent article in Newsweek, June 3rd, 1996, or see Reader's Digest, December 1996, entitled, "What Makes Us Attractive?" It backs up what Dr. Howell has been saying in this interview
HOWELL: That's what I used to think too. Just a bunch of bones. I never used to think that I could affect emotions. It was after doing this for years that I started realizing it was the norm.
Women who were being verbally abused started standing up for themselves. People who were chronically depressed stopped feeling depressed. People who had learning disabilities started seeming smart.
People who had chronic anxieties stopped feeling so anxious. People who had stage fright stopped having stage fright. I was never asking them about these problems.
They would volunteer the information later, saying, "You know, I used to be like this, and it's gone now" And all I was doing was mechanical stuff.
I was amazed that these other things were happening. I didn't start out with this concept in mind.
BISER: Plus, as you told me at dinner once, when you did this to yourself, you also had emotional reactions.
HOWELL: Oh, I had lots of flashbacks and I had lots of emotional change. Lots. I'm pretty sure it wrecked my marriage, because I grew so much, and my partner didn't.
BISER: People don't understand that as you change the bone, you change the person. They think it's just shape, but no one in aeronautics would say, "It's just the shape. " Planes fly or crash depending on shapes.
HOWELL: And in a way, so do people.
"Unless you release the skull, the bad emotions are re-created, and re-created, and re-created. You can't talk the problems out of the person, anymore than you can talk dents out of a car."
BISER: Why does changing skull shape change emotions so much? I remember that my wife, Sandy, burst into tears after one treatment, remembering how crummy life was with her first husband. She thought she was mature, and had let all that go and it was in the past.
HOWELL: But it was still inside her - physically.
You see, doctors and your readers don't understand that the emotions and the physical are one. You cannot separate them. Every time you have an emotional trauma, there is a tightening of the physical membrane around the skull. This pulls the bones into a slightly different position, and eventually alters their shape.
This places physical, mechanical pressure on the various brain control centers we talked about earlier. Now, you can intellectually tell yourself you are over something.
But that doesn't mean the physical damage to your skull has disappeared. Usually, it is still there.
Every emotion has a physical effect. Never forget that. Defeated people look defeated. It's in their face, and in their posture that their skull dictated. Their structure is different than before. Happy people look happy. Their skulls are different, and consequently, so is their posture.
When I release the skull, I change the fluid flow in the brain, and release the pressure on control centers. This physically releases the emotional trauma, and the patient briefly re-experiences the pain they went through.
I tell patients this is going to happen, and they say, "Yeah, Yeah. It's no big deal." Then they come back the next day and say, "I can barely sleep. I've been crying all night. One 83-year old man cried for three days, most of the time, and then he smiled for the first time in 15 years.
Emotional trauma becomes physical trauma, just like recording music on a compact disc.
I treated a woman who had twenty years of psychotherapy because of a harshly abusive childhood. She used to have her face scraped with hat pins by her step-mother for being bad, as well as being whipped with belts and hands. Plus the usual verbal abuse.
She'd also witnessed her mother's attempt to commit suicide - before she was taken away from her mother as a four-year old. She went through years and years and years of psychotherapy.
She said she feels much better emotionally from ten treatments with me compared to six or seven hundred therapy sessions with various counselors, psychiatrists, and psychologists. And I never discussed her problems; I just released the physical trauma from her skull.
BISER: This all sounds so purifying and beneficial; why would some people run away from something as healing as this?
HOWELL: Because the control freaks want to control everything, and they can't control how they will feel after the treatment. It changes your emotions, and you don't know how until you get there.
Getting the treatment is like walking through a curtain and you don't know what's on the other side. The treatment mechanically forces you to confront feelings that start pouring out as the head releases. Some people cannot deal with that - so they stop. It's their loss.
BISER: Why has it been so hard to get doctors to study this new science?
HOWELL: Because doctors are afraid of change too. Just like the patients.
One doctor told me, "How can I do this? I'm scared. It will completely change my practice." And I said, "How can you see what this does for human beings and NOT do it?"
Doctors are financially used to seeing perhaps 30 people a day, and these patients come back and back, because they never get cured. With this treatment, the doctor can only work on perhaps 12 patients a day, and they get cured, and never come back. But the doctor can adjust his fees accordingly, and find new patients.
What's the matter, aren't there enough sick people out there?
Another problem with doctors is that they have been taught that skull shape is insignificant, and that the shape is permanent anyway - and can't be changed.
But these are assumptions, not facts.
I've seen a huge ridge on an old man's forehead flatten out in one treatment.
I saw a crater in the top of someone's skull disappear after a single adjustment.
I saw the straight, flattened side of a woman's face open up and begin to round out after a big adjustment with a huge crack as the bones moved outward.
I've seen ridges on the top of the head, and pointed heads, all go to smooth rounded bone as the abnormal pressures on the bone plates was released.
This stuff happens every week.
And we know what has happened to you. But that all doesn't matter if the doctors don't believe it can happen.
BISER: You mean to tell me there are doctors who can look at patients with changed faces and deny anything happened from your skull work?
HOWELL: That's absolutely right. I've got a patient named Scott, who I've been treating for years. His skull is so enlarged that his dental arches have widened, and his crooked teeth have straightened out - just from the larger skull.
Scott goes in to the dentist, who he hasn't seen in two years, and the dentist says "Beautiful work! Who did your orthodontics? This is great. God, it is fantabulous. You look so good."
Scott said, "I haven't seen any dentist since I've seen you. When was I last here?" The doctor says, "Stop lying Scott. I know you had ortho." Scott said, "I haven't. I've been having cranial manipulation." The doctor says, "Cranial manipulation doesn't do anything. I know you had ortho."
He said "I haven't had ortho. Cranial is all I had done. That's why my teeth moved. The doc says, "You're lying to me. Stop lying." That was a year ago. Scott went back for his annual checkup and the guy said again, "Now tell me the truth, who did the ortho?"
"You cannot understand how much BETTER your brain will work until you release your skull. It's like trying to imagine the color purple before you ever saw it."
BISER: How does your work compare to therapies like cranial-sacral therapy?
HOWELL: Cranial sacral therapy and all the others are utterly trivial compared to neuro-cranial reconstruction.
This work causes vast, enormous bone changes in days that cannot be accomplished by outdated methods such as cranial-sacral therapy. My work changes the sphenoid bone, one of the major bones in the skull, and this bone cannot be accessed by the external massage-type methods used by others. Also, I use multiple layers of quite-strong balloons never used before. These are inserted into the nose for about ten seconds and produce great leverage in cranial bones.
Also, my system of analysis and treatment stabilizes the entire spinal column so that the patient benefits are permanent From what I have seen of other work, the changes are quite small, and don't last.
In addition, I have thousands of before and after pictures of patients with changed faces that no-one from any therapy could produce. For example, I am treating a woman named Theresa, who was a cranial "poster child." She had the best cranial treatments in the nation, was documented, measured and shown off.
Then she came to me. On the very first treatment series, she had an emotional flashback and release from a head injury in which her head was jammed in a door that banged shut from the wind. Her emotional release was intense and incredible. This had never happened before.
She goes back to her cranial doctor, and he says, "What have you done? You look different. I've never seen you like this?" She went to her dentist, who had to remake and remake her dental appliances, because her arch kept expanding from the treatments.
Her own fourteen-year old son (and kids don't compliment their moms) said, "Mom, you look so much younger; what have you done?"
BISER: Some cranial doctors have complained that your work is intrusive and too intense. What do you say?
HOWELL: Of course it is. That's why it works. I am intruding on a skull pattern that is not working. My goal is to make permanent changes in people's skulls and people's lives - not to cater to their fears.
If you want soothing treatments, take a hot bath. But if you want to be cured after being a reject from other therapies, then release your skull. You decide.
Last words from Dr. Dean Howell...
HOWELL: It is time for doctors to change from a "chemical-only" to a mechanical view of the body. Human suffering cannot be released until you work on the skull.
There is an optimum skull shape designed by nature, and until you approach this shape (broad face, high cheekbones, wide forehead, symmetrical balanced features) a human being cannot use the full potential of his brain or personality- due to mechanical pressures.
The only side-effect of this treatment is that you become more attractive. What is wrong with that?
NeuroCranial Restructuring: Unleash Your Structural and Neurological Potential from Price-Pottenger Foundation Journal
By Maria Francesca Parrino, Ph.D., and Dean Howell, N.D.
NeuroCranial Restructuring® is the most powerful manipulation technique in existence today. NCR® has been developed over the past 26 years by Dean Howell, ND. It exhibits a new paradigm for physical medicine which will revolutionize the world of natural medicine with its new concepts in healing. With NCR treatment, a patient will consistently and dependably unwind patterns of skeletal tension returning his/her body to its original, optimal design. This represents the next medical leap in physical healing techniques and redefines protocols for the treatment of the causes for pain and many other health challenges.
NeuroCranial Restructuring® Is Like Repairing the Foundation of a Building
Imagine hiring a contractor to build a dream home—an impeccably-designed building to be made of the highest quality materials inside and out. Now place this home on a foundation of sand. Despite the contractor’s best efforts, despite the finest materials, despite the wonderful interior and exterior decorating, this will not be a good home. The constant shifting of the poor foundation would result in wall and floor cracks, leaks in the roof, and doors and windows that won’t open. These problems would never end—unless the foundation was repaired.
Similarly, in the human body we often forget the importance of structure. For our best health and appearance, we might exercise, meditate, eat well, take vitamins, etc., straighten our teeth, wear night-guards, get injections and surgeries to look younger, and even dress impeccably. But we still have problems—so we eat health foods, take nutriceuticals, take medicines, go to counseling, go to physical medicine therapist, and even undergo surgery—all to try to fix the problems that have resulted from our skeleton not being in its optimal position.
Just as the building must have a stable foundation to stand, the human body must stand too. So the nervous system's first priority is to maintain stability. Dr. Howell found that most physical medicine treatments do not last. Most of these treatments last such a short time that Howell describes the situation as the body recovering from the treatment and thereby reverting to its pre-treatment status of maximum stability. He describes that as showing that the body values stability and ignores joint restriction and pain. Howell has clinically shown that, if the head is even slightly distorted, then it is difficult for the neck to hold up the head, and the spine compensates with a counterbalancing distortion patterns to create a makeshift stability.
This is why chiropractic adjustments, osteopathic treatments, craniosacral, etc.—all designed to put bones and muscles “back where they belong,”—are all assured to be temporary by their faulty design—and therefore maintenance therapy is continually required. While they might fix the symptomatic problems—the muscle- and bone-pains pains created by the compensation of the musculoskeletal system to the body’s instability created by asymmetry of the skeleton—the underlying problem, the asymmetry, is not addressed or even considered. Of course, the structure remains unstable, so your body reverts to its previous pattern because, although painful, it is the most stable pattern. “Your treatment didn’t hold,” is all that your therapist will say. Massage will produce the same temporary results: after rubbing away all the tension in the muscles, your treatment wears right off, because as soon as you go about your day, the muscles lock back up again to support body’s stability. The body’s ultimate goal is structural stability! Thanks to NCR®, these temporary solutions are no longer necessary.
A New Paradigm Creates a New Alternative for Healing
NeuroCranial Restructuring focuses on correcting the gravitational instability of the body’s structures. The cumulative NCR manipulation process involves the controlled release of the connective tissue tension in the skeleton, especially the skull. This in turn triggers precise movements of the cranial bones and body to unwind and to gradually return the musculoskeletal system towards its original design. Only the symmetrical skeleton can perfectly house your ideal nervous system. A nervous system with perfect fluid flow patterns can only occur if the skeleton is perfect as well. Imperfect skeletal structure leads to imperfect fluid flow which leads to imperfect nervous system function. If you have problems with your emotions, your thinking, your hormones, etc., especially after a trauma, then the brain must be fixed—and it is a structural problem!
So it is only by appropriately correcting the cranial structure that an optimization of nervous system function can occur. Similarly, it is only a perfect skeleton that can have perfect movements of all of the muscles and the joints, perfect function of the mouth and jaw, perfect function of the eyeballs, and perfect function of the nose and sinuses. Isn’t this what people hope is happening when they go to a physical medicine doctor? Yet the faulty premises of physical medicine lead to successful outcomes rarely. This is not the fault of the therapist who offers mediocre therapy. It is the fault of their teachers who have embraced a faulty therapy design! They can only remedy the situation by learning a new paradigm. NeuroCranial Restructuring offers this!
The entire skeletal structure can be permanently changed with NCR®. Each treatment releases the structural systems of the body to incrementally and cumulatively return towards their most vibrant, harmonious, pain-free and energetic mode of functioning. By optimizing the physical structure, the bones, the muscles, the connective tissues, and the nervous system can all move into positions where they can function more effectively.
As the treatments accumulate, the symptoms of pain and malfunction—which are the expression of structural problems—gradually go away. NCR® is not focused on the removal of specific symptoms. Instead it is designed to treat the cause of the symptoms—the asymmetries which produce instability—so that the body’s structure is no longer creating the symptom. The body wants to be in its most optimal position. After each treatment, the body is more stable gravitationally and has no need to revert to its previous pattern unless a new accident or trauma occurs.
Let’s Get Our Heads on Straight
[Diagram of skull] NeuroCranial Restructuring® focuses on moving the sphenoid bone, the foundation or linch-pin of the bones of the head. The sphenoid’s shape resembles a bat or butterfly. It is easily twisted or contorted. When the sphenoid is twisted, it forces the skull into asymmetrical positions. The brain then modifies the positions of the spinal vertebrae to stabilize the skeleton. It may, for instance, align the Atlas off-center, and the atlas being off-balance can force other areas of the body to compensate to maintain stability. With precise movement of the sphenoid, structurally-related cranial sutures open. These therapist-created movements permit the distorted connective tissues inside the skull to unwind. Then the attached cranial bones move as well. If it is done properly the body moves towards symmetry. The brain expands in its new space, receiving the blood, cerebrospinal fluid, and nutrients it requires, optimizing function and reducing nervous system malfunctions and disorders. As the skull returns to its proper shape and position, fluid flow patterns gradually optimize, so the cranial rhythms treated by osteopathic cranial manipulation cease to be a problem. The spine naturally returns to its optimal shape and function, eliminating the subluxations that are the focus of chiropractic. Headaches and migraines do not occur in a perfect skull. Muscular tension and spasms disappear because they are no longer required for stability. Flexibility and ease of movement return as joint positions optimize. A variety of symptoms begin to disappear. Increased energy and a profound sense of well-being arise.
In the early 1990s Dr. Howell found that sphenoid and connective tissue tension patterns are not easy to evaluate. Yet, without this information, a sensible treatment pattern cannot be deduced. Applied kinesiology, static and motion-palpation, X-rays, muscle strength testing, and visualization of symmetry-asymmetry patterns, and other techniques were all inadequate to design this “new age” of analysis. Only subtle sphenoid palpations were accurate, and these patterns were difficult to feel. Then Howell studied with Drs. L. Gene and Steven Ward, DC, who showed him Spinal Stressology and its supposedly applied kinesiology techniques. Howell rapidly deduced that their very effective analytic techniques were not AK, but instead were tests of the gravitational stability of the tested joint.
Overjoyed with his new tests, Howell found that any joint in the body could be evaluated for its inherent stability (or instability). All that needs to be done is to gently but firmly push a joint forward or backward and then watch the overall body response. When the body behaves like a dampened pendulum, rapidly coming to rest, then the joint is under good nervous system control. When the body behaves as a pendulum, slowly coming to rest, then the joint is under poor nervous system control. Only the unstable joints should be corrected, or the body becomes less stable and will soon revert to its previous alignment pattern. Dr. Howell has been collecting the treatments that answer these stability questions for over fifteen years, and he calls this NeuroCranial Restructuring (NCR)®.
From the moment we are born, each time we receive a physical, biochemical, or emotional blow to the skull, the connective tissues react by tightening the smooth muscles encased within them. By definitions, a joint is an area where two bones come together and move. Tightening of the connective tissues can, therefore, create movement of the bones. When the meninges tighten, the sutures between the cranial bones can shift, changing the shape of the skull, putting pressure on the brain, which can diminish optimal learning and well-being.
Every time you are traumatized, the nervous system reacts. The connective tissues usually respond by tightening. The tightening can lead to skeletal changes, changing movement dynamics and nervous system function. The body will seek stability, so it will make some of the effects lasting. Every time you are traumatized, it is like rolling a dice to find out how lucky you will be this time—will it go away or become a lasting problem? Everything from falls and car accidents to infections and emotional traumas can cause the head to be distorted into undesirable shapes and positions which, in turn, can cause a person to not only look unhealthy but suffer from a wide variety of uncomfortable and sometimes debilitating symptoms. In his research, Dr. Howell found that the body’s structural priority is to maintain head balance (stability) against the Earth’s gravitational environment. As a result, the skeleton and muscles will assume whatever position necessary (however painful and limiting) to support the head and maintain this gravitational stability.
Living in the NeuroCranial World
The skull houses the brain and the top of the spinal column. Nutrient-loaded fluids that need as much circulation as possible bathe the brain, which expands and contracts like a sponge surrounded by a blacksmith’s bellows. Surrounding the brain is the meninges, which is a rubber band-like sack that connects the brain to the skull. When a physical trauma moves the skull bones, the meninges must maintain its integrity by compensating for the movement by tightening. If we are emotionally or biochemically traumatized, the meninges immediately react by tightening smooth muscles within its tissue. This forces the skull bones to shift. So either of these situations results in mechanical pressure on the brain from the skull. Hydraulic principles tell us that fluid flow patterns in a closed vessel are controlled by the shape of the vessel. So changing the shape of the head changes the flow of blood and cerebrospinal fluid. Most of the time traumas will cause restriction of the flow of those important nutrients. Obviously, this condition is common (misstated as “normal”). Our functioning is reduced, including our capacity for mental activities. The traumas we experience either tighten the meninges or compress the bones. Both result from the mechanical pressure from the bones and the squeeze produced by the meninges. The brain compression is the inevitable result from the altered skull alignment. The shape of the skull is gradually altered, and no longer sits properly on the spine. The spine takes on a distorted shape to support the changes in the skull and gradually the spinal muscles tighten to adapt to that movement. Conventional medicine doesn’t really help, since the original problem with the skull is never addressed.
Dr Weston A. Price, in his immortal classic Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, studied and documented various primitive peoples as he traveled all over the world. All the subjects had wide skulls and huge dental arches until they began to eat modern diets. Then, in one generation, their children showed the narrow faces, misshapen head and smaller crowded dental arches that are universal today.
Dr. Price performed experiments with “Mongoloid” (Downs’ Syndrome) children and cut the arch at the roof of their mouth down the center. He placed expansion screws and opened up the bones at the base of the skull. When he did this, the intelligence of these “retarded” children became almost normal. The “retardation” returned when he removed the expansion screws and the skull bones reverted. After traveling worldwide and seeing all races, Dr. Price concluded that degenerated structure (poor skull and dental development) is the main impediment to human intelligence.
Dr. Howell discovered how to release the power of the brain without these drastic surgical procedures. NCR® optimizes brain function, which is the foundation of our mental capacities, and our physical/spiritual well-being as well. When a problem is treated with NeuroCranial Restructuring®, the skull is gradually restored to its original shape, and the brain can resume operating at peak levels. As the brain and skull adjust, the muscles relax and the spine returns to its optimal position on its own. Since this is truly a more stable position for the body, it holds permanently. This can have profound physical effects by not only providing relief from a variety of serious physical conditions, but also with beneficial changes, such as increased flexibility, energy and mobility.
There are also outstanding mental and emotional benefits from NCR® as well, including relief from anxiety, phobias, depression, hyperactivity, nervousness, learning disabilities and even lessening of the effects of serious mental disorders. All of this can result by simply correcting the imbalance that starts at the top of your head, just as Dr. Price foretold.
The functioning of our brains is perhaps the greatest factor for success in all areas of life. When the brain is allowed to achieve its maximum size and ideal shape, amazing things can happen. Many of the health problems from which people suffer may resolve themselves naturally.
Health Challenges That NCR® Can Help
NeuroCranial Restructuring® helps conditions that have either a structural cause or a significant structural component. It creates a permanent structural release for changes triggered by the traumatic events of a body’s life. Birth trauma, accidents and falls, sports injuries, medical procedures, severe emotional and biochemical traumas are just some of the causes of musculoskeletal damage that are corrected with NRC® treatments.
Some health challenges which manifest from cranial bones that are out of alignment:
Chronic Depression
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Dyslexia and other Learning Disabilities
Hyperactivity
Epilepsy
Migraines and Headaches
Mental problems
Double Vision
Glaucoma
Eye Abnormalities
Balance Problems – Vertigo
Tinnitus/Hearing disorders
Chronic Sinus Problems
Nasal Breathing Problems/Sleep Apnea
Neck and Shoulder Pain/whiplash
TMJ, TMD, Various Jaw Function Problems that effect
bite patterns
Scoliosis
Neuralgia and Neuritis
Muscle spasms, seizures
Sciatica - Low Back and Pelvis Problems
Sinus Problems
Muscular and Skeletal conditions
Emotional and Mental difficulties
Insomnia and problems caused by lack of sleep
Dystonia and Parkinson’s tremors
These are all mechanical, structural complaints that have to be treated systematically and system wide. They cannot be treated locally (or the cause is not addressed) and the problem will return. Many people experience lives of misery and suffering with little hope for a happy, energetic, pain-free future. Too many doctors refuse to acknowledge that our skulls are the most important part of the skeletal system.
Testimonials
Ginny Stafford: “I had a severe 90 degree scoliosis and I was in pain from my knees to my waist and all of the pain is gone! When I first went to Dr. Howell’s office I could hardly walk up the steps and now I have no problem walking up stairs. I can breathe. And I...anyone that has scoliosis needs to come here and have this done. It's just wonderful. Your whole life will change. He saved my life."
Debra Hernandez: “My son of a year and a half, who was diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome, had so much congestion before his first treatment, that I would have to use three different medicines just to control it but after his treatment, his airways are now free and clear. His forehead which before had protruded is now markedly more in line with the rest of his face. This was only the first treatment.”
Harvey Meyers: “I had a crushing pain problem in my skull, like vise grip that was misdiagnosed, mismanaged by doctor after doctor for 12 years. I was on 180 mg of morphine, then ended the Oxycontin and went back into full pain. 12 years is a long time, and the details of how my life was crushed between 37 and 50 years old are arduous. 4 days in October removed the pain that I would call debilitating as well as improving my vision and gait. And it's hard to get anyone to understand just how PROFOUND and MIRACULOUS the changes were for me, not to mention permanent at least 3 months so far. I've got a long way to go to recover to whatever my new 'normal' is. After 12 years of disability lots of things are whacked and adjusting is hard, but the killer pain I endured 24/7 for 12 years is gone. “
Dr. Ross Hauser, M.D.: " I’m a medical doctor and practitioner of NCR®. I was fortunate to get trained in NCR® by Dr. Howell. I’m the Medical Director of Caring Medical and Rehabilitation Services, a natural medicine clinic in Oak Park, Illinois. I am also the author of several books on natural medicine, including the well-known book, Prolo Your Pain Away: Curing Chronic Pain with Prolotherapy."
I myself suffer from some medical conditions such as an inability to smell, some pain on the right side of my body, such as TMJ syndrome, as well as having some concentration difficulty. After just four NCR® treatments by Dr. Howell, I could smell for the first time in years. My TMJ vastly improved and my concentration and attention was phenomenal. And, these are similar results that I’ve seen in my patients, being a practitioner of NCR®.
If a person suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder, concentration difficulties, autism, Downs Syndrome, balance difficulties, tinnitus or ringing in the ears, vertigo, allergies, chronic sinusitis, chronic neck pain, back pain, scoliosis, headaches, torticollis, tremor, chronic fatigue, Fibromyalgia...these are the kinds of conditions that respond very well to NCR®.
Often a doctor or clinician trained in NCR® can look at a person’s face and know that they’re going to be an appropriate candidate for NCR®. What a physician or clinician is looking for is various asymmetries in the face. For instance, a person’s nose may be crooked or the cheekbones may be more full on one side or the other. These give an indication that a person will respond very well to NCR®. Such condition as mental fatigue, concentration, attention disorders, memory problems and such psychiatric conditions as anxiety and depression are helped when one improves the body’s hormone production as well as increasing the hormone production in the brain. By manipulating the sphenoid bone and affecting the pituitary gland function, as well as the various areas of the brain in regard to neurotransmitter formation and circulation, NCR® causes dramatic improvements in these conditions.
What I like most about NCR® is first, that it is very safe. There has been over a million NCR® treatments done without any long-term bad side effects. It’s an extremely safe procedure. And second, it can be utilized in the context of comprehensive natural medicine. If a person’s using a particular dietary regime, herbal regime or other interventional techniques, such as neurotherapy and prolotherapy, NCR® can be a great adjunct to that treatment protocol. Thirdly, NCR® is very effective. So by utilizing NCR® in a person’s particular natural medical regime, they can improve their health very quickly."
The NCR® Approach
Dr. Dean Howell, the founder of NCR® therapy, found that regular physical medicine treatments had only temporary results. First he discovered that he could determine where to use endonasal balloons to specifically manipulate the sphenoid bone by palpating the greater wings of the sphenoid bone (in the areas commonly called the temples). These very specific sphenoid adjustments that gentle, proprioceptive testing could be used to map the body’s areas of stability and instability. This can be performed on a patient that is standing, sitting, or lying down. and the doctors he's trained, perform an external examination to test the sphenoid's stability. Depending on where and the degree of instability, they design a pattern of treatment tailored to the individual. Small balloons of varying thickness are inserted into one of the six nasal passages to the throat, permitting a momentary direct contact with the sphenoid bone. It is inflated from a second to precisely move the sphenoid and thus all the other cranial bones, creating a new and superior stability. For maximal results, the patient receives one treatment a day over four consecutive days.
Dr. Howell has personally administered over 60,000 treatments, all of which have been safe and highly effective in reducing or eliminating a host of physical and emotional symptoms. Patients report that they feel less (or no) pain, and are more relaxed, happy and self-confident. Creativity is enhanced. Relationships improve. Learning becomes easier. Concentration, focus, mental and emotional clarity all increase.
“Everybody can use NCR®! People need NeuroCranial Restructuring® because their physical structure is not optimal.” states Dr. Howell. “I can say this because I have never seen a perfect structure.” Some amount of NCR therapy could be useful for everyone because it optimizes everything.
CONCLUSION
NCR® is the most extraordinary and fastest-healing method of physical healing today. It is the only technique that can create permanent, incremental improvements in the body’s structure, which restores the whole skeletal system to its most stable and symmetrical position. The bones, muscles, connective tissues, and nervous system are put back to the positions where they can begin to heal and function optimally. This new position allows us to function in our most vibrant, harmonious, pain-free and energetic mode.
The variety and intensity of positive physical, mental and emotional effects from optimizing the body's structure through NCR® is astounding. This demonstrates that the body's structural integrity is far more important than we had realized. Together with proper diet, exercise and rest, good structure is the key to the body, mind and emotions operating at their full potential. NCR® is the only therapy that optimally moves the sphenoid bone and with it, the entire structure precisely and effectively. If we want to be the best we can be in body, mind and spirit, receiving NCR® is a great place to start.
Maria Francesca Parrino, Ph.D., is an Environmental and Wellness Consultant,
health researcher, writer and PPNF member. She is the Founder and Coordinator
of Natural Food Choices, a private organic food and educational cooperative. She can be reached at 877.819.5976 or by e-mail at info@NaturalFoodChoices.info
Dr. Dean Howell, N.D., received his Naturopathic degree from Bastyr University, and
lives in Washington state. He is the author of ‘NeuroCranial Restructuring: Unleash Your Structural Power’. Dr. Howell practiced in Encinitas, CA, and was a former PPNF Board member. As he travels the world treating patients, he also offers training for practitioners in the techniques of NCR®. For more information call 888.252.0411, www.DrDeanHowell.com, or email at info@drdeanhowell.com.
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More evidence that symmetrical features indicate good health Sep 15th 2012 | from the print edition The Economist
BEAUTY may be in the eye of the beholder, but a symmetrical face is usually a big help. In contrast, asymmetry is often associated with malignance. Biologists have long speculated why this is. In theory, evolution provides a logical answer: unfit individuals are less likely than fitter folk to be able to maintain the symmetrical development of their bodies when exposed to stress and disease. In other words, many parts of the body are supposed to be symmetrical, so any deviation from perfect symmetry indicates that an animal has not been able to grow as intended. As an animal is unlikely to want to mix its genes with an unfit or diseased partner, evolution selects symmetry as an attractive trait.
Whether asymmetry and poor health or fitness really go hand in hand has not been easy to prove. Research on this in humans causes ethical problems and can raise hackles. Now a new study conducted with macaque monkeys hints that there is indeed a connection.
Previous studies with macaques have demonstrated that the animals will gaze longer at symmetrical faces than they do at asymmetric ones, which could be interpreted as the monkeys finding such faces more attractive. The results of these studies have led researchers to believe that the monkeys have a preference for symmetry just as humans do. However, a clear connection between health and symmetry had not been made.
Fascinated by this question, Anthony Little of the University of Stirling in Scotland and Annika Paukner of the National Institutes of Health in America established a new study with 93 female macaque monkeys. The monkeys came from three different groups (it was difficult to find one large group) and had been raised in some degree of captivity. All of the monkeys, between the ages of five and 20, were photographed, face forward.
Dr Little and his colleagues analyzed facial symmetry using a computer to measure the distance of various features, like the edges of the nostrils, lips and eyes, from a line drawn down the centre of the monkey’s face. These distances were then compared and any differences between them (say, from one nostril and another) were added to an overall asymmetry score. Thus a perfectly symmetrical face, with eyes, lips and nostrils exactly the same distance from the central line, would earn a score of zero. A highly asymmetric one would score the sum of all the distance differences between features on the face.
The team then considered the overall health of the monkeys during their first four years of life. This comparison was made from veterinary records and evidence of health problems. The researchers looked out for minor wounds that had been noted by staff but left to heal on their own; major wounds such as bites that required stitches; levels of subcutaneous fat and muscle; the quality of their coat; and their weight gain. These health factors were compiled into two scores, one reflecting wounds and one reflecting the monkey’s general condition, and they were compared with the asymmetry scores.
Dr Little and his colleagues report in Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology that whereas wounds showed no relationship to asymmetry, as the monkeys’ condition scores declined so too did their facial-symmetry results. The researchers argue that this health connection is what makes macaque monkeys look longer at symmetrical faces than they do at uneven ones. Thus facial symmetry really does appear to be an indicator of health, at least among macaques. And what is true for them is likely to be true for people too.
What is Howelling?
BEAUTY may be in the eye of the beholder, but a symmetrical face is usually a big help. In contrast, asymmetry is often associated with malignance. Biologists have long speculated why this is. In theory, evolution provides a logical answer: unfit individuals are less likely than fitter folk to be able to maintain the symmetrical development of their bodies when exposed to stress and disease. In other words, many parts of the body are supposed to be symmetrical, so any deviation from perfect symmetry indicates that an animal has not been able to grow as intended. As an animal is unlikely to want to mix its genes with an unfit or diseased partner, evolution selects symmetry as an attractive trait.
Whether asymmetry and poor health or fitness really go hand in hand has not been easy to prove. Research on this in humans causes ethical problems and can raise hackles. Now a new study conducted with macaque monkeys hints that there is indeed a connection.
Previous studies with macaques have demonstrated that the animals will gaze longer at symmetrical faces than they do at asymmetric ones, which could be interpreted as the monkeys finding such faces more attractive. The results of these studies have led researchers to believe that the monkeys have a preference for symmetry just as humans do. However, a clear connection between health and symmetry had not been made.
Fascinated by this question, Anthony Little of the University of Stirling in Scotland and Annika Paukner of the National Institutes of Health in America established a new study with 93 female macaque monkeys. The monkeys came from three different groups (it was difficult to find one large group) and had been raised in some degree of captivity. All of the monkeys, between the ages of five and 20, were photographed, face forward.
Dr Little and his colleagues analyzed facial symmetry using a computer to measure the distance of various features, like the edges of the nostrils, lips and eyes, from a line drawn down the centre of the monkey’s face. These distances were then compared and any differences between them (say, from one nostril and another) were added to an overall asymmetry score. Thus a perfectly symmetrical face, with eyes, lips and nostrils exactly the same distance from the central line, would earn a score of zero. A highly asymmetric one would score the sum of all the distance differences between features on the face.
The team then considered the overall health of the monkeys during their first four years of life. This comparison was made from veterinary records and evidence of health problems. The researchers looked out for minor wounds that had been noted by staff but left to heal on their own; major wounds such as bites that required stitches; levels of subcutaneous fat and muscle; the quality of their coat; and their weight gain. These health factors were compiled into two scores, one reflecting wounds and one reflecting the monkey’s general condition, and they were compared with the asymmetry scores.
Dr Little and his colleagues report in Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology that whereas wounds showed no relationship to asymmetry, as the monkeys’ condition scores declined so too did their facial-symmetry results. The researchers argue that this health connection is what makes macaque monkeys look longer at symmetrical faces than they do at uneven ones. Thus facial symmetry really does appear to be an indicator of health, at least among macaques. And what is true for them is likely to be true for people too.
What does NCR treatment feel like?
NeuroCranial Restructuring is a unique treatment.
The concept underlying NCR is the need to create stability in the body so that the body doesn’t revert to the alignment pattern the body had prior to the day’s treatment. We begin with bodywork, first facing down, working on the head, neck, back, legs, and hips. Then onto your back and further bodywork on the head, neck, chest, abdomen, pelvis, and legs. None of this will feel much different than many other forms of bodywork. Close attention will be spent on aligning the bones of your head and face. Your symmetry is essential for your best central nervous system’s function.
With the basic treatment, we fit treatment into a 30-minute schedule. We certainly can go longer, but then our fees increase and our work becomes deeper and more intense—becoming Body Electronics and Howelling.
Body Electronics involves the choice of a treatment spot on the body to drain pent-up static electrical charge through. Then Rebecca mentally connects with the point (taking up to 90 minutes for the linkage to occur). Static electric charge then courses from you, through Rebecca into the ground. For her, this feels like sticking her finger into a light bulb socket that is turned on. Literally a shocking feeling. She remains attached to this point until the electricity completely discharges. This usually takes an hour or two, but she has had points take up to 5 hours. We prefer to schedule Body Electronics at the end of our workday so that the treatment can run to completion. For most of our members, the Body Electronics doesn’t usually hurt. It may feel a little electrical, but not painful.
Howelling is the ultra-deep bodywork that focuses on the connective tissues of the muscles, tendons, and bones. It is performed deeply on very small areas, moving along a millimeter at a time. For example, when a muscle is pulled or torn, its tendon attaches to the bone via the periosteum, a tough, fibrous sheet that covers the bone (ideally) like wallpaper. After an injury, the periosteum becomes lumpy like wallpaper hung badly. The muscle performs wrong until it's periosteum is repaired. That requires Howelling for a long enough time for the lumps and bumps in the tendon to be smoothed out (a millimeter at a time). Usually a one- or two-hour Howelling session is sufficient for the day and is enough to make you howl (bad pun).
Each day’s treatment with all of these methods is completed with a sphenoid bone manipulation that is accomplished with an endonasal balloon insertion and inflation. We will perform this procedure (which provides long-lasting, whole body structural stabilization) on everybody we see. Without this step, the treatment will become like most physical medicine treatments, gradually wearing off with the body reverting to its pre-treatment alignment pattern.
After performing this treatment for forty years, we can say that the NCR endonasal manipulation is very safe. Babies as young as two hours and elderly people in their late 90s have had great successes with these treatments. Usually we have one or two endonasal balloon insertions and inflations daily.
Inside each nostril is its entrance, known as the vestibule, This is where your fingertip can fit. Then your finger stops going in deeper because there are three, small, plate-like bones known as concha or turbinate bones. This creates four meatuses ( “hallways”) that lead into the throat. The lower three passageways in each nostril will be used to manipulate the skull.
We take a small inflating bulb with latex tissue finger cots attached with string, lubricate the balloon and insert it through one of the meatuses into the top of the throat. People report that the balloon insertion is like getting a feather up the nose. Then, when you are holding a full breath of air, we will inflate the finger cot by squeezing the bulb while holding the face carefully. The inflation is explosive, often with cracking or popping sounds. The balloon builds up pressure until it can push its way through the bottleneck of the turbinate bones and pops one or more head joints, rather like cracking your finger knuckles.
The primary bone that we focus on moving is the sphenoid bone. It reaches from temple to temple and makes up part of both eye sockets, its main body is behind your nose, and its processes (like legs) reach down to your hard palate. When we move your sphenoid, then, we can change the shape of your eye sockets (changing the way your eyes appear), the tilt of your mouth, the angle of your head, the position of your cheekbones, and/or the shape of your nose.
When the shape of the head changes, then the alignment of your neck bones must change (since the primary job of the neck is to support the skull). The changes of the body will trigger long-term improvements in the postural pattern.
This sounds great, but what does the balloon insertion and inflation feel like? (It just sounds so scary to many people.)
Have you ever jumped into a swimming pool and gotten water up your nose? This is how 80% of people describe this experience. Generally, the most difficult treatments are the first few times because your head is in its worst alignment now, prior to beginning treatment. These treatments are accumulative, so you get over some of your old injuries with every treatment. And, if the NCR stabilization has worked properly, you won’t return (revert) to your old alignment pattern and posture.
Another treatment that will frequently be recommended for your during an NCR session is a coccygeal adjustment. The coccyx or tailbone is the final extension of your spine. It is a five-segmented bone that attaches to the bottom of your sacrum (the five-segmented, triangular bone in the back of your pelvis). When you slip and fall on your bottom you usually displace this bone. You can also have it changed by hard spankings or accidents and falls.
So what? Actually, this is a big deal. A short anatomy lesson: you have fibers surrounding your brain that resembles fibrous box tape. They surround the brain and cover the spinal cord. The spinal cord ends at the level of your navel, and then turns into fibrous ropes that lead into the pelvis. The longest of these meningeal fibers runs from your brain to the end of your tailbone. When you have a coccygeal injury, and if your tailbone is now crooked, then the fibers at the coccygeal end are pulling on the fibers because of the bone malposition. What is pulled upon? Your brain is pulled towards your butt. We have had people report that their faces feel different from moving their tailbones. Others have felt a relief of head pressure and sometimes postural patterns change. So it is important!
Yet who fixes the misaligned coccyx? We do!
How is this accomplished? Very carefully (another bad joke). We use a gloved, lubricated index finger and insert it through your anus into the posterior side of your rectum. This is where we can feel the misalignment of your tailbone. We use the finger to push, pull, and smooth the coccyx and sacrum bones into a better alignment. This takes from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. People generally find the tailbone adjustment to be preferable to the endonasal balloon. Most report that it is only a pressure, and is not much different than pooping. A few people have found it uncomfortable until their rectal muscles relax. The primary problem is the concept or stigma of having their anus exposed and treated. We hope you can accept this!
We always need to follow a coccygeal adjustment (by the end of the day’s treatment) with the finishing endonasal balloon.
