Isn’t it amazing how we heal after injury?
Most of the time our bodies do such a good job of mending after an injury that we forget the wound was ever there. I don’t suppose you know how many times you have cut your finger as there’s absolutely no sign of it a couple of weeks later.
But that healing ability can sometimes get a bit carried away, leaving discomfort or lack of mobility in what should be a wonderful healing of the original injury.
Sometimes, when an injury is deep or the experience around the injury is traumatic, the body becomes confused, putting so much effort into healing that the different layers all get stuck together, making it difficult for skin and muscle to slide over each other or organs to move comfortably within the body.
Usually, skin, muscle, ligament and bone, separated by layers of beautiful shining connective tissue, glide over each other and over our organs, allowing the body to move, change shape, swell and shrink. (Think of the movement that happens each time we take a breath.)
When an injury goes through a lot of layers, the body can produce too much scar tissue, gluing together all the different parts that should be able to move separately. Or adhesions like layers of spiders web make movement of the layers of tissue difficult.
Craniosacral Therapy seems to be an effective way to allow the body to release the layers of tissue that are stuck, without causing it to think there is a new assault and a new reason to glue everything together to keep it safe.
I once had a startling experience of the effectiveness of Craniosacral Therapy for sorting this out. A friend of mine had a horse who had been pierced by a stake which had gone through the skin and run along the outside of the rib cage, leaving her with a small entry scar where the stake had broken the skin, and a line of adhesions along the ribs where the stake had damaged the tissue between the skin and the ribs.
My friend was riding her and I was experimenting with treating the scar tissue as we talked about how it was affecting her ability to move freely. It was just a gentle suggestion from me that the layers of tissue could be free to glide over each other.
The next day I saw the horse again. I was surprised that I couldn’t see any sign of the scar. When I got closer I could still see the little mark where the skin had been punctured, but all the ribs were free and able to move under the skin. How I wish I had thought to take photos before we started.
I’m always really excited when there’s a chance to work with scar tissue. It is so satisfying to see the changes that occur when old scar tissue is released and healed.
I have treated a lot of people who have lived, often for years, with scars that are influencing the whole body’s function. Usually they are unaware of the influence the scar is having on their body’s comfort. The rest of the body works round the scar, making allowances for the bit that can’t move freely.
Clients report a new freedom of movement when the scar tissue heals.
A situation I see often in my practice is the scar left after a hip replacement. This is a deep wound that has had to sustain a lot of trauma during the process of replacing the hip. It is a truly miraculous operation that gives so much freedom to so many people. I am always amazed that our bodies can accommodate such dramatic invasion and make good use of it.
But I get the impression that the part of the body responsible for healing thinks that it has to do an extra special job after such a trauma and goes overboard, joining the layers to each other to make them strong. If you try and disturb this glued up scar, it will only panic more, but gentle suggestion from CST allows it to find a distinction between the layers again and adds to the comfort the new hip is already supplying.
Cesarean and appendix scars also respond well to CST, allowing the body to reclaim full use of all those amazing layers of muscle in the belly.
There are also scars that are completely internal. A client came to me suffering repeated bouts of shoulder pain. She had had pneumonia in the upper lobe of the lung under that shoulder. It seemed that the lung had lost its shiny glide against the pleura and so the whole area was trying to work around the restricted lung. Following treatment, her shoulder pain disappeared and she also said that she felt her breathing was better than it had been for years.
Deeper still, is the trauma associated with the original injury or surgery. This also seems to get tangled up in the scar, and often releases as the scar releases. When we experience an event that is overwhelming, a part of our story gets left behind at that point. Surgery in childhood can be the time when the innocence and belief in the safety and joy of the world gets lost and with it the childlike delight in everyday.
As the scar tissue releases, clients report that they feel they have reclaimed a part of their being which has been trapped too.
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