Episode 88. How Craniosacral Therapy Can Change Your Health for the Better with Mary Ann Fisher, LMT

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Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

We all have a blueprint in our brain in the midbrain, which is the perfect us, you know, before we had any traumas in life, which could be from the days when we were in utero, or it could be from last week, whatever our body thinks is the perfect us. And my focus, when I’m working with someone, is to support the body getting back to whatever that version of is. So that blueprint, never necessarily gets Alzheimer’s and never necessarily has repetitive use injuries, it never, you know, gets a disease process. And so it can never get scoliosis as we age. And, you know, so people can actually, through work that we’ve done can recover their full height, if they’ve lost it through age or scoliosis, that kind of thing where they can recover other aspects of their life that they might have thought were gone, because they’re still in that blueprint. And and you just you I don’t necessarily know and neither necessarily does the patient know what exactly are the things that they need to get back in their lives, but there’s someplace in their brain they know and and cranial sacral therapy supports that process.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

Welcome to another enlightening episode of the Capitol Integrative Health podcast. I’m your host Dr. Andrew Wong, and today we have a special guest joining us Mary Ann Fisher. Marianne is a cranial sacral lymphatic drainage practitioner who works with both humans and animals to augment their wellness. Mary Ann Fisher brings a wealth of knowledge and experience for discussion, having dedicated her practice to helping individuals achieve optimal health and well being through this unique therapeutic modality. Throughout this episode, we’ll hear Maryanne stories of transformation and healing, as well as her insights into the benefits of cranial sacral therapy and lymphatic drainage. We’ll hear from a 97 year old woman who got helped a lot with cranial sacral therapy and her scoliosis actually got reversed once restrictions were removed.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

Please join us as we dive into the world of cranial sacral therapy with Marianne Fisher. You’re ready to expand your understanding of the body’s innate wisdom and learn how these gentle yet profound therapies can support your journey towards optimal health and healing.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

Welcome, Marianne to the podcast. Thanks so much for coming on. Well, thanks so much for having me. I’m really delighted to be here. So today we’re talking about cranial sacral therapy. You’re a practitioner here at Capitol Integrative Health. We’re so glad that you’ve joined and are practicing CST for clients. Wonderful. I’m delighted to be here and thrilled to be part of your team.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

Thank you so much. Let’s talk about first of start. Can you tell our listeners a bit about what drew you to become a cranial sacral practitioner? And what do you enjoy most about what you do? Okay, yes, thank you. What brought me to cranial sacral therapy was migraine headaches. I had 10 years of intermittent migraine headaches, which evolved towards the end of the time to a spike headache, the day one and then a four day tale which didn’t keep me from working but certainly was a factor in my life. And I came to a physical therapist that practice cranial sacral therapy. And I was beginning to get a headache that day, and the spike never came and I’ve not had a headache since in the last 20 years. So

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

it was a very subtle, gentle treatment.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

And it had a profound effect on me. So that led me to coming back. If I had a sore shoulder I’m an amateur equestrian, so that comes with its share of bangs and bruises and

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

and I would come back for treatment of injuries and

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

I at that time I was

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

managing a global business and I would come in and before trips, if I was feeling like under the weather I needed to be top flight and she would help kick my immune system into gear and off I went so at some point in time I thought if I could make the animals feel as good as my therapist helped me feel like picked up kind of a hobby of doing cranial sacral therapy with the animals that I supported. And over time, then that became

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

just a real draw. And I then invested to become a licensed massage therapist and then focused on the Upledger Institute offering offerings in cranial sacral therapy and has spent a better part of the last 12 years focused on learning and doing and practicing with all the great resources that are

Dr. Andrew Wong 

out there today. That’s so great. So you started with your own personal experience. It sounds like yeah, migraines, helping upload their immune system then switched from, you know, running a global company to, to being a healer and working on first animals, horses. And then and then people as well. Right, right? Yep. And you asked, What do I like most about it? What I liked most about this, this whole field is supporting people in their own healing processes. So I view myself as more of a facilitator, and, and then a doer, I certainly do massage techniques that are supporting the healing process. But with cranial sacral therapy, you’re really focused on supporting a person in their own process, you give me an opportunity to step on the CH soapbox now, that is a philosophy that we really all share, whether we’re in medicine, or nutrition, or massage therapy, acupuncture, etc, I think it’s all about facilitation, partnering and witnessing with the person rather than, you know, doing something for them in a way where, you know, we’re externally giving them something excellent. And that’s very much how I view the whole healing process you know, as you say, it takes a village and does and a lot of different collaborative ways that we can support the process, yeah, and integrated village and that and that I think, to for listeners out there, that integrated means, you know, we can refer sometimes or to ourselves, conventional care will do integrative functional care, body work. Wellness depends on kind of what the patient or client needs.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

Absolutely, and where they are in their health journey. So for listeners who might not know what is cranial sacral therapy, and how does it differ from other types of bodywork, you started out as a licensed massage therapy in terms of formal education, but then I know some massage therapists will do straight massage and then some will get into my face release I carry, and then cranial sacral is another type of specialty. Absolutely. So what is cranial sacral therapy, it’s a light touch osteopathic technique that stimulates the body’s natural healing processes.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

And

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

it supports the body as it releases both from physical and emotional traumas. And they could be as small as repetitive use type dramas, or could be falling and taking a bang, or could be dealing with chronic illnesses which create their own form of traumas in the body.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

So it can also support recovery from things such as infections as the flu or long COVID. neurological issues such as vertigo or neuropathy, sleep related issues, such as having difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep, and a whole range of emotional. So again, it’s through this light touch technique that really taps into the body’s ability to get back to its own best state of homeostasis and health.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

So if I look at cranial sacral therapy, I think that there are four concepts that are distinguish it and it’s a little different than the physical modalities that you’ve talked about with massage or or myofascial. The first is that with the cranial sacral system, we’re tapping into the cranial sacral rhythm that supports the central nervous system. So what is that? Basically, that is a closed biomechanical system in which ventricles in our glands within our head behind our eyes and behind our nose, they produce a clear liquid cerebral spinal fluid that surrounds and nourishes and protects the brain within our cranium and the spinal cord as it goes down to the sacrum through the vertebral column. Okay, and every five to eight seconds, you have a fresh surge of the cerebral spinal fluid. And in the interim, the fluid that was used previously drains off through ducts or hoses, if you will, into the lymphatic and the circulatory system. So you have a rhythm that’s five to eight seconds, that is a biomechanical rhythm similar to the heart, pumping blood, you know, through arteries and veins, similar to the respiratory diaphragm pumping air in and out of the body. It’s the cranial sacral rhythm.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

And so that’s surrounding the central nervous system. And therefore, we have this cranial sacral rhythm. Secondarily, we have peripheral nerves, so all the peripheral nerves that power our muscles and our digestion and you know, our vision and our senses. They all have one end that taps into that central nervous system, and the other end goes to where

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

or ever it goes, therefore, one end of every peripheral nerve feels that cranial rhythm. So in a relaxed body,

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

that rhythm will be carried from the central nervous system all the way out to the skin and through the dermatomes, which are the nerves that that through which we experience the outside world, temperature and wind and that kind of thing.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

So where there’s no rhythm, then you have what we call a restriction. And that restriction could be a tight muscle, it could be a bones out of place, joints, a little twisted, it could be infection, inflammation, a fever, lots of different things can cause restrictions. And then the fourth concept behind this is that every cell in our body has a memory of where it wants to be physically.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

And it has a memory of how to get back to that, given the opportunity. So for instance, if we go to sleep at night, we have a sore throat, and it’s gone in the morning, our parasympathetic nervous system, the one that helps us rest and digest and heal, that will marshal all the resources to let all those cells go back to their place of comfort, and the sore throat is gone. And it may take a few days to happen. But it will continue working until you get back to that place of comfort, the healing process. So as a practitioner, I actually will access

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

the patient through touching the dermatome the skin, and I’ll go feel where in the body, the restriction is the strongest kind of like throwing a pebble in to a still pond, you want to you want to follow the ripples back to that source where the pebble went in. And that it would be the the restriction that I would focus on. And I would put my hands on either side of it, or around it. And that putting my hands there is what really triggers the patient’s parasympathetic nervous system to come check this out. Is there a problem here? Is there a crisis? Is there a wound is there a trauma, and if if it’s nothing immediate, then it will set about the process of getting the resources there to allow a sore hip to be reorganized back to a place where it’s not sore, and you have

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

the return of fluid in circulation to an area and that can then read the release the pain. So that’s my focus as a practitioner is to find the areas on the patient that

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

where the restrictions are, and then bring the bodies attention to that. And I will feel releases, they could be fascial movement, it could be a chiropractic adjustment, it could be a release of heat, or a therapeutic pulse, we call as the cells are moving around to find they’re actively find their place of rest.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

And then I pay attention until, until that releases and then I move on to the next place. So that is the process of cranial sacral therapy. Craig, thank you so much, Maryann, it sounds like from the description of this four concepts and cranial sacral therapy. There’s there’s some sub questions that were generated from listening to you here. First of all, where are you putting your hands on the different body parts of dermatomes? Are you are you you’re not up just in the cranium or right behind the neck area and sacrum? It sounds like you could be anywhere. Exactly. Okay, exactly. That’s a really good question. So thank you. So that the the term cranial sacral therapy refers to where the system is in the body, which is the head and the spinal, the vertebral column down to the sacrum. But those peripheral nerves go out to all of our

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

everywhere. Yeah, so

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

to give an example, if you’ve injured an ankle, I might be finding that the least the least cranial rhythm might be down at that ankle or it might be up at the hip or might be in the back which the nerves go support the ankle. But it might be related to that or it could be a shoulder or a neck work could be someplace on the head. And that’s the the challenge is to listen to the body and figure out where that that biggest first restriction is. I’m excited to chat with you looking for ankle Thank you.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

And also you mentioned how the cranial say the rather the strip of spinal fluid CSF bathing the you know brain and the spinal cord etc. has its own rhythm.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

How or you know what, what is sort of generating that rhythm you know,

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

Who is that? What’s the purpose behind the drum beat of the rhythm? That’s a really good question. The drummer behind the the rhythm is

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

for ventricles, if they are glands within the brain to kind of behind the eyes and to kind of behind the nose. And every four to

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

five to eight seconds, they produce a fresh

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

surge of cerebral spinal fluid. And there is a circulatory pattern that goes around the brain within the cranium. And then it goes down the spinal cord to the sacrum.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

And so that is the drumbeat.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

My understanding of cerebral spinal fluid and your listeners may have more

Dr. Andrew Wong 

is that they, they don’t understand everything about it. But they do know that from studies that it’s critical for healing. So if you, for some reason, have a blockage of cerebral spinal fluid, you could have challenges recovery. So one of the wonderful aspects of the cranial sacral therapy process is one of the first things we do is just make sure that there’s a nice flow going up and down and supporting the whole central nervous system. And then we can move on from there, all these dots are connecting in my head right now. Functional Medicine, wellness really posits that, you know, we’re looking at trying to find the root cause of both health and illness or disease, when you look at what you just said about how, if there’s blockages in the CSF pattern, it kind of reminds me a bit of acupuncture meridians where the meridians get blocked, and there can be disease or imbalances that happen from that. But I think and point to what you talked about was that the peripheral nerves are at a nerve ending, but then the other part of it is connected to the central nervous system, and that you need that really consistent, pulsating rhythm, you know, generated for the ventricles, that that is leading that CSF everywhere, to the to the, to the nervous system, and that you need to relax body for that.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

But then it sounds like if people don’t have a relaxed body, then then that that whole system gets gets affected. Exactly. And so for instance,

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

if if you are a driver, you know, and drive for a business, or if you are

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

standing on your feet all day, you can develop repetitive use

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

patterns in your body, which will overuse certain muscles and fatigue them and then they don’t get enough circulation, and then you lose that

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

balanced flow around the whole body. And so whether it’s acupuncture or cranial sacral therapy, there are different ways that you can then access and help get the fluid and return the homeostasis to that part of the body. And a lot of listeners probably do know this, but I just want to reiterate that the nervous system really is least in my mind, a control panel, it really influences very heavily the rest of the body. So like you said the nerves going everywhere in the body. So if there’s a nervous system issue, you know, then then people will often have hormone issues or gut issues, musculoskeletal for sure. Immune issues, right, everything is affected by the nervous system part, you know, cardiovascular issues, these are all affected. Exactly. So that’s one key area and other key areas, the fascia that surrounds all the muscles and bones and circulatory system. And that fascia oftentimes will be tight in a protective mode, around an area that might have a repetitive use or ever have had an acute injury, your body, you know, throws resources and throws what we consider inflammation to kind of provide that natural casting and that

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

cranial sacral therapy can help to relieve some of that once it’s no longer needed, and keep it from becoming a chronic issue. So I have a I have a real deep dive rabbit hole question now because I always like to throw in a rabbit hole question on here.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

In our modern society with a lot of chronic stress and the lifestyle and things like that, have you ever seen a client where you’re kind of like, Hey, your CSF is flowing amazing and all the Aqua ducks are off, you know, open?

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

At the end of a session? Yeah, oftentimes, yeah. What I tend to find in our modern society, you know, you might even find someone who, who comes in you know, they have an issue won’t pick on ankles, you know, yeah, but they’re feeling pretty good otherwise and all that and you know, but they’re managing busy modern lives, and through cranial sacral therapy. Treatment, we might find that their respiratory diaphragm releases you know, they’ve had because of all the tension

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

They’ve had muscles

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

around their, their diaphragm that are tight and keeping them from having full relaxed breaths. And, and through a session, they could suddenly access more effective, they’re breathing, deeper breathing. And that really has a huge effect on overall wellness and, and recovery from injuries. Thank you. And then we also talked about in this podcast a lot, you know, trauma, like you said, and also the cell danger response, and you were talking about how cells have memories and trying to, you know, acts as healing to get back to that original, you know, healthy state. You were mentioning the the sore throat example. So, does cranial sacral therapy help with restoring that that some memory? Oh, yeah, it will. And it relies on that cell memory. To some extent, the way I think about it, is that we all have a blueprint in our brain in the midbrain, which is the perfect us, you know, before we had any traumas in life, which could be from the days when we were in utero, or it could be from last week, whatever our body thinks is the perfect us. And my focus, when I’m working with someone, is to support the body getting back to whatever that version of is. So that blueprint, never necessarily gets Alzheimer’s and never necessarily has repetitive use injuries that never, you know, gets a disease process. And so it can never get scoliosis as we age. And, you know, so people can actually through work that that we’ve done can recover their full height, if they’ve lost it through age or scoliosis, that kind of thing, where they can recover other aspects of their life that they might have thought were gone. Because they’re still in that blueprint. And, and you just you I don’t necessarily know, and neither necessarily does the patient know, what exactly are the things that they need to get back in their lives, but there’s someplace in their brain they know, and, and cranial sacral therapy supports that process. Great. So activating the parasympathetic kind of clearing out some of the mud, so to speak. Oh, wonderful. It’s a great way to put it. Thank you. Sure. Sure. I think it is some tadpoles right now springtime? Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

What are some of the top? I mean, you mentioned some things already, but what are what are some of the top conditions or issues that you see among your clients, you know, for cranial sacral, that it would be more helpful for so I’ve seen it with

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

be very effective, I’m going to kind of go in age, you know, from young people that are having challenges, focusing in school or learning or speaking, it can help kind of accessing them at all ages, all ages, cranial can be effective with all ages, put it that way.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

And then I see young people who are, you know, varsity athletes or, you know, pursuing athletic careers, and it can help them recover from performances, it can also help them prepare, okay, reduce stress and get focused so they can perform better.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

And then, you know, from the general population, I see it be very helpful for

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

age related challenges, memory arthritis balance.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

Again, it can be very helpful if you have sleep related issues or stress related issues.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

That’s been kind of a wonderful surprise for one some of my clients to find out oh, you know, I thought I was sleeping fine at, you know, five hours a night and now I realize I get seven or eight, then I feel a lot better type thing. So, so it can it it. The wonderful thing about the parasympathetic nervous system is where you need it will, it will get active and support you. So it kind of has a wide range of applicability in each of us. Yeah, yeah, it wanders a lot in different parts of the body. Yeah.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

And let’s talk about also any considerations for I don’t know if it’s just a medical or health contraindications or what where would you say, hey, maybe someone shouldn’t be you know, doing cranial sacral or, or use caution. The biggest area for contraindication for cranial is blood pressure. So if you’re actively dealing with the stroke, what I’ve been told is if you can’t bear down to have a bowel movement, you do not want to be getting a cranial treatment because it can take your blood pressure it

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

activating the parasympathetic nervous system can take your blood pressure down too low. And you don’t want to. You don’t want to do that in that situation. Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

What about there are some people with say hypermobility syndromes, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome? Cranial cervical instability? Are those people candidates for cranial sacral? Or? I think they are. And it’s, again, it’s a matter of

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

incrementally tapping into where each person is. And so they may be getting certain other treatments and resources, but the cranial will help them, kind of meet them where they are, where are they in the process? Are they almost recovering? Are they deep into the process, and it will help them kind of reorganize their systems to go deal with, and I’ve had some cranial sacral therapy before the little bit, I have found it to be a gentle treatment, it’s Yeah, gentle to me. Absolutely. So that because the engagement is with the parasympathetic nervous system, and because the patient is doing all the work,

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

there’s very little pressure. So if if I think that the, the biggest restriction might be a shoulder someplace, and if the body doesn’t agree, then then it won’t use it, it’ll use that energy some other place in the body, and I will never know. But so it’s very, very light, the whole concept is that you offer support to the body. And I in my years, I’ve not yet found a body that doesn’t want it. That doesn’t, where I don’t necessarily, you know, I don’t see a change or feel a change in a session. But it might not be where I in the client thought we were starting, like, if you pour river water, I mean, into her riverbank, it’ll it’ll flow wherever it needs to go. Exactly, exactly. And, and that’s part of the challenge for the practitioner is to not have an agenda. Yeah, because the only agenda is the patient’s agenda. And that’s, you know, so my job is to listen and to we call it blend and meld with the body,

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

and then feel for the releases, and then move on once they’re complete. So, but it’s really not my process. And as a result,

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

you may find that, you know, you feel 10 or 20, or 30%, different or better after a session, and you may find in two or three days you feel 80% Better. And that’s because your system is doing the work it started it on the table. And now, it’s continuing to do that as you go forward over the next days and weeks. So would you say that if you let the agenda go, I guess it’d be for both the provider and the client, this CSF will flow

Dr. Andrew Wong 

like that. So I think we have a new we do we have a tagline, a tagline? For the website. I mean, because I think this is also an issue with when we are when we are patients or clients or selves we sometimes expect you know, this is going to be Hey, what should what should be happening from this, or this is what I want from this. But in fact, maybe it’s better to let that agenda go. Exactly. And then the body will take care of you. So I’ll use myself as an example. In Intel, I was deep into my training, my awareness of my body mean I was athletic I like I thought of myself as a well integrated person, but really my awareness below my head was like, none. So. So what I always ask patients is notice what you notice, see if there’s something that changes.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

You know, do you feel your posture changing? Do you feel more relaxed? Do you feel, you know, a difference in that part of your body that you were concerned about? But note getting ourselves to notice is half the battle and you with the integrative health plan, noticing across the different modalities is really the key to wellness. Yeah, for our, for our patients. Yeah, great. I agree with that for sure.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

Let’s kind of walk through the listener, what can someone expect during a cranial sacral session? What techniques are used? How long does a typical session lasts, etc like that? Okay. Well, a typical session would be 45 to 60 minutes. I have done longer sessions, and I have done shorter sessions and I when I work with animals, sometimes the session is only 10 to 20 minutes and they get up and leave when they’re done. So when you work with

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

With what kind of animals? I have worked with horses and dogs primarily,

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

but the occasional rabbit or Galapagus tortoise, you know, you know what I’m gonna ask you right to cats tolerate this. Oh, yeah, I do I do cats actually, cat should be right after dogs so they’re not jumping on the counter if you tried to, you know touch their neck or something no not not generally. But it’s it cats are a little trickier, like, but they they do like it they do believe it’s surprising they need they need CSF treatment as well. They do animals they do they do this one. And Galapagos tortoises that that’s interesting. That was really it’s a fun story in its own right. But yes, they so I always use the word the learning is all about mammals using it. But we happen to be in a scenario where Galapagos tortoise, which is not a mammal, I was having a problem with its leg and we were able to help it recover. And it walked off sound. Yeah, after a treatment. The tortoise is the one said that the longer than humans, like 150 years or something? Yes, yes, yes. This particular tortoise was, I think they said 18 years. But he was already so big, you couldn’t turn him over to see if there’s a male or female because you can tell I guess from the bottom of the show, and and they don’t mature until they’re in their 60s or something. So it’s a whole different game. Yeah, yeah. When you live that long. That’s funny.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

So a session lasts, you said 45 to 60 minutes, typically, how many sessions might someone need? And I wanted to ask you also does does a client leave your clothes on to take them off?

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

client leaves clothes on, you want to wear comfortable clothes, okay. And then we do have a blanket if you know, because oftentimes, on the table, your blood pressure can go down, you can feel chilly, but you wear whatever, you’re comfortable with a change out of my tuxedo.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

We’re on video site. That’s right, see, I’m wearing my scrubs. But yeah, and

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

we do

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

they recommend, you know, four to eight sessions, I find that people generally feel a significant difference within one or two. Yeah, so you, and then you can kind of do you do them weekly, every other week, you kind of you’ll find a rhythm that feels good for your body. It’s not the kind of thing where you need to do it every day, you know, for a period, it’s, it’s something that, but you do want to

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

give your body a chance to adjust to it. That type of thing. And the techniques, so you lie on the table, usually on your back. And then I will gently put my hands listening to the cranium rhythm and your ankles and your hips and your shoulders and your head. And we’ll find a place that feels like the rhythm is the least and I’ll slide a hand on either side of where the rhythm is the least it could be your hips, it could be your shoulders, it could be your neck or your spine. And then

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

each session or each hold could be three to five might be longer minutes, but three to five minutes until I feel the releases, and then move to the next place where I feel the restriction. So it’s a very gentle process.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

Yeah.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

Marian, let’s talk about Thank you. Let’s talk about how

Dr. Andrew Wong 

clients can benefit from comparative psychotherapy, if you could share one or two case studies of people who have used this therapy, utilizes therapy and you’ve had their health transformed by cranial sacral therapy. Okay, sure. There’s lots of there are sites out there. So well, I’ll give one example of a client who

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

was having trouble breathing. And because she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t sleep. And, and she went to her doctor and they took blood and they looked her blood, looked at her bones and said, you know, you’re fine. Okay? So instead of a workup, they did the medical workup, but you know, you’re older and maybe now’s the time. So you need to prepare yourself so.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

So she called her lawyer and said, I need to get my papers lined up. And the lawyer said, Well, are you ready to go? And she said, No. And he said, Well, you want to try something relaxing, you know, which is how he interpreted he’s the client he interpreted, my work is relaxing. And I started working with her on the first night she would be in bed in her PJs because she was not mobile at the time. And the very first night I was explaining to her and her caregiver the process and when we got to her respiratory diaphragm, which is kind of the top of your ribs

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

In the bottom of your shoulder blade, she took this huge breath, and her chest opened up, my hands went up. And she opened her eyes and she exhale, closed her eyes and went to sleep. And she slept all night. And so

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

that began a relationship where I would work with her. And within a couple of weeks, she was back to walking and got back to mile and a half a day. So she was very quickly back to her normal life. And about eight months later, her caregiver texted me and said, You’re never you don’t know this, because you’ve never seen her standing up. But she has severe scoliosis, to the point where she’s kind of bent over her walker. And this morning, when she stood up, I’ve noticed it over time, but this morning, when she stood up, she was at her full height, eyeball to eyeball with me. So that’s an example of, I didn’t have an agenda, I would just work with her back and do what her back wanted to do fascial movement this way, in that way. And what I didn’t understand was that her vertebrae were realigning themselves. So that at the end of eight months, she was at her full height, once the restriction was removed once the restriction was, and I didn’t know that there was a restriction there. I mean, I, I knew that something was happening, because I could feel my hands going one way or the other and wasn’t me moving. So it wasn’t a catalyst. You didn’t really, no one necessarily knew what would happen. But it sounds like that was a catalyst there. Right? Amazing story. And nobody, nobody thought that life could change for her. She’d been that way for many years. Sounds like her doctor said she was ready to die. Exactly, exactly. So get ready to die, get your papers in order and stuff. And so with it, and she did eventually pass, but it wasn’t from any of those things. Okay, it was. So it was really a restriction that was maybe causing the breathing issue. So So what it turned out was that her she and her caregiver figured out that she was grieving, the loss of a dear friend who had died a couple months before. And, you know, grieving, you can tighten the muscles in your chest and in your diaphragm. And if you’re grieving, and you’re tightening your muscles, your body starts to think something’s wrong. Yeah. And so it starts to throw that natural casting. So you can’t take a deep breath. So it’s, your body thinks it’s protecting your respiration by tightening up. And when I put my hands there, her parasympathetic system went down there and said, Well, what’s the problem? Well, there is no urgent problem, you know, grieving was over or, you know, dramatic part of it was into, you know, several months before, not the grieving ever ends. But the point is the trauma of it. Yeah. And so it told all the soft tissue to go back to scratch and her she was able to open up her diaphragm and start breathing normally, that fast is kind of felt like my migraine headaches, you know, like, I don’t know why they ever let go so quickly. In her case, it was the breathing that let you know, return so quickly. So. So that’s a case study. That was a surprise to me on both ends. One is the breathing, improving so beautifully the first time and second is somebody being able to regain their posture. It’s so it’s so enlightening. And so interesting how this is really we’re talking about, we’re talking about cranial sacral and wellness. But this is also biology because there’s that bidirectional relationship between structure and function. And you were talking about how the tight muscles as a result of the grieving, but then that leads to the body thinking there’s a fight or flight. But then by, I guess, loosening the restriction or, you know, basically, having that person kind of released those tight muscles. It sounds like that also relieves releases or transforms the grieving process as well. At least from Yeah, perspective. Absolutely. And I didn’t know that at the time. And she didn’t know that she closed her eyes and went to sleep. But it was, maybe the next week when I came, they said, You know what happened and they spent the time during that week kind of cogitating on what happened and why and they, they kind of she remembered. And so the last thing that went was, well, I have this great friend, and I was grieving for her, and now I can breathe.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

Great. That’s a great case. And it just shows the power of the body to heal itself. Once everything is you know, kind of back in balance.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

Are there any exercises Marian or practices that you can recommend to listeners to do at home to I guess help the cranial sacral system or should they see you first and then so, so I was thinking about self care, what can we all do? And some of this is not cranial sacral therapy, but I’ll

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

And with the cranial thought, but one is, of course breathing, taking time to ground ourselves and breathe, and

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

somebody asks a question and take a breath before you answer. So you can start thinking through whatever you need and not respond in that flight fight or flight mode. So breathing would be really a significant thing.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

A second is, you know, remembering to put our heads on top of our spines, the whole postural therapy, which is totally separate, but a lot of our issues that wind up manifesting themselves in cranial sacral problems is due to modern living, we’re driving, we’re cooking, we’re on the computer texting, we’re texting, we’re leaning forward. And when you lean forward, your head is no longer on top of your spine. And that creates a whole imbalance that can affect vertigo, it can affect nerves, muscles, comfort, stress, everything so. So those would be two things. A self care cranial thing that people can do, which I do every morning, and every evening to support my neck, is before I go to sleep at night, and when I wake up in the morning, I’ll put my hands behind my head. So if you don’t have shoulder issues, or elbow issues or wrist issues, you know, and you can either put them like knit your fingers together, or put them one above the other one on the neck and one on the head. And just lie there and don’t pull or anything. But if you just lie there in the morning or at night, when you’re relaxing, suddenly, you’ll notice sometimes your your soft tissue, your spine might lengthen your soft tissue around your spine might reorganize. And it’s a wonderful way to kind of protect our necks and whatnot. You don’t want to put any pressure on the neck. You’re just attending to it. Okay, how many minutes? Do you do that? A couple minutes, five minutes, whatever, you know, I mean, it’s kind of the thing that I used to watch my brother doing growing up, he’d been lying in bed with his hands behind his head. It’s kind of a natural thing that we do. It’s not anything unique. But it can have a really wonderful, profound effect on our spines. Yes. And speaking of our head on our spine, which the second point you made here, I just did that while you were talking. I’m noticing like more alert and more energy. It’s like a flow of the river is unblocked. Right. When that happens. Good. If everyone could listen, you know, listen to this right now. Try that right now in the home and exactly what you how you like how you like it? Yeah, we are we are doing a lot of cervical Ford flexion quite a bit in our, you know, modern society and work and, you know, computers and cell phones. I think this is something that we kind of need as an antidote to Right. Right. Or prevention. Wonderful. So, so you talked about some exercise, some practices, any, I guess any resources that people can go to in person or online or something for people to learn more? Yeah. So an easy way to do this would be to go to upledger.com. That’s left ledger Institute is the group that I’ve taken a lot of my training with, there are several organizations that have different concepts behind cranial sacral therapy. The one that I have talked about today is really led by the Upledger Institute, and upledger.com, or Upledger, institute.com. They have a wonderful website that talks about cranial sacral therapy, and it also offers classes, and it offers

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

the ability to find a therapist, and so you can by zip code or whatever. If you’re not in this regional area, you could find somebody in another area, do you need to be a professional to take classes? Or can you be anyone or well, to practice with people, you need to have a license, so that would be massage therapy. You know, any any healthcare practitioner, licensed health care practitioner, nursing, all kinds of dentists. But anybody can go. And so when my went to my first cranial sacral therapy class, I was in class to be licensed massage therapist, and I wasn’t certified certified. Yeah. So that you can go and it’s actually geared towards the non medical professional that way. Good. Great. And what is one thing Marian, you wish everyone knew about cranial sacral therapy? Oh, so that it will meet and support you wherever you are in your process. So if you have a chronic issue, you have an acute issue.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

You know, you’re feeling like you’re out of sorts, some way I mean, maybe you don’t even feel like it’s physical. It will support you. So it’s, it’s an interesting thing to give a try. Thank you so much, man for coming on today and talking to us about cranial sacral therapy and how it can benefit people. Part of our mission here at Capitol Integrative Health is making integrative health care more accessible and we’re doing it in this way of you know, the

Dr. Andrew Wong 

podcasts and then things we have, you know, in the future, as well. And we also want to focus on small steps that we can take to improve our health. We’d love to hear from you, Marianne, what is one thing under $20 That you feel has transformed your own health? Okay. So I’ll give you the product version of this, which is actually 2995. I apologize. But then I’ll give you an under $20 way to do it well rounded up from

Dr. Andrew Wong 

I read someplace,

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

make it 30 bucks, it’s fine. It’s, it’s called a steal point inducer. And what it is, it looks like, well, it’s actually it looks like two balls that are put together, it’s a plastic

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

contraption. And it’s small in one ball is one of the balls is designed to go on each side of your cranial base between where your head hits the your neck, okay, and you can lie on it. And it is a wonderful way to release the tension in the back of your head.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

And if I’m feeling tense from the day, my jaw, my neck ally on that, and then when I roll off of it, I’m asleep. I mean, it’s gone. So but the under $20 way to do this is to go pick up some tennis balls. So if you live near a golf course, I’m sure you could find them free, and then put them in a sock and tie a knot in the sock. And that’s the exact perfect size for a cranial base. So point and do, sir. Great. So that was that was fundamental, I have to say I use that many years. Great. And then when when it’s inducing those points there is that activating the parasympathetic when, when it’s back here and the neck and the head base, I think it’s doing a few things. Yes, it’s activating that it’s also we have a lot of tight muscles back here and fascia that are organizing to protect our spinal cord as it leaves. So there’s a lot of 24 hour work going on there. And when you lie on it, you’re you’re pushing

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

maybe some of the toxins associated with those muscles and the fascia. And then when you come off of it, it allows for circulation to access there. That’s my sensation of that makes sense.

Mary Ann Fisher LMT 

Well, thank you so much, man, man for coming on again to this done. It’s such a pleasure. Thank you. I’ve really enjoyed it. how can listeners learn more about you and work with you? So they can work with me on by reaching out to capital, integrative health, so and they can learn more about me. They’re so great, thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Dr. Andrew Wong 

Thank you so much for joining us today for this episode of capital Integrative Health podcast. A quick reminder that the information we share on this podcast is meant for educational and informational purposes only. It’s not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. We highly recommend that you speak to a qualified health care provider before making any medical or healthcare decisions. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a few moments to subscribe and leave us a review. Your reviews help us reach more people and continue to offer innovative insights and information to better optimize your health and wellness.