Episode 114: Craniosacral Therapy – The Missing Link with Mariah Woody, OTR/L

Hi and welcome to episode 114 of the Untethered Podcast. Today we have Mariah Woody joining us. Mariah graduated from the Medical University of South Carolina in 2012 and has experience with adult and pediatrics in various outpatient and hospital settings. Currently, Mariah has her own private practice as a craniosacral therapist, working with people across the whole lifespan. She's passionate about craniosacral therapy and collaborating with other professionals to help clients live their most optimal life. Quick disclaimer all information, content and material of this podcast are the opinions of the speakers and is for the informational purpose only and not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis and or medical treatment of a qualified healthcare provider. Welcome to the Untethered Podcast. I am your host, Hallie Balkan. I'm a certified orofacial myologist, feeding specialist and mentor. This podcast is all about getting your questions answered and collaborating with colleagues to bring you the most up to date information in the orofacial myofunctional therapy, tethered oral tissue and airway space. I challenge you to keep an open mind and join my mission to get this information out to the masses. Let's get started. Mariah, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I'm excited to speak with you. I am so excited. I have been waiting for this. It's gonna be so fun. So before we hop in, will you just tell us a little bit about you? Because I know that you're an OT by nature, but you're doing cst. You know, give us a little bit about your background.

Yeah, so I got into CST when I was on my fieldwork rotations doing OT stuff and one of the clinical instructors came back. She was like, yeah, I went to this cranial course. You know, they taught us how to.

Feel the craniosacral rhythm.

And so she came back and I was like, this is kind of interesting. Okay, I'm going to add that to the list that once I graduated when I wanted to take and it took me days to feel what they were teaching, you know, some people felt it right away and it I really had to get out of my head and like some of the hard manual things that that they taught us. So anyway, took that and I worked in the adult inpatient rehab population while I was also working in pediatrics. I wanted to keep my feet wet in both. So I have a lot of experience in the neurological populations, but as well as pediatrics and it's all working with the brain. I have A lot of training in reflex integration, sensory processing, some trauma experience.

And.

Then some integrative listening stuff and working with lots and lots of babies and kids with various abilities and various ages. But I found, you know, I would find different niches. So neuro, habilitation niches and reflex integration niches, and they were all so good, but I couldn't help but think something else is missing. Then once I started taking some cranial courses, I started doing some techniques when I would go to the hospital and work with some post strokes patients and all of a sudden they would have feeling in their arm. After one session, my TBI patients could finally sleep. And it was, you know, you turn on that parasympathetic system and that, that safety system that the brain can truly let go and breathe and then really incredible things happen. And not even with stroke stuff, sometimes it would be, yeah, I've had a hip replacement and my knee is killing me now.

Right, well, I'm not going to work.

With that hip right now because it's a little bit too testy, it's not stable yet. But I'll be happy to work with that knee. And then their knee would be pain free for the rest of the stay. And so now as an ot, it gives these patients a lot more independence in what they're trying to do. Taking that to the pediatrics world, it really helped with constipation, it really helped with some sensory processing, helped with some visual stuff going on. Again, when our tissues and our brain can breathe, magical things happen. And other interventions are so much more effective and efficient, you know. So, yeah, that's kind of how I got into it, was excelling in other areas and realizing that, okay, this is great, there's so much more that I need to know, but there's, there's a bridge here and I'm missing it.

And I find this is the bridge.

That's really cool. I mean, it just kind of makes me think about like the whole myo space too. It was like the missing piece in the work that I was doing with a lot of these patients. And when I stumbled upon it and came to find that like, hey, this exists and why isn't anybody teaching me this in grad school? Like, that was, it was very eye opening because, you know, there's, we can keep patients on caseloads for a very long time or we can find that missing link that helps to relieve pain and allows them to get more, you know, benefits from the other therapies they may be undergoing and that allows them to fully and optimally function. Right. You know, maximize their potential to function. And that's always my goal. And so I'm always so excited about other therapies or just, you know, methodologies that allow for this to happen. And that's, you know, that's where I know cst, craniosacral therapy, for example, can come in for some of our patients. So will you tell us? Because I think there's a lot of, like, either misinformation or just misunderstanding around this topic. Will you tell us, like, what is craniosacral therapy? If someone is brand new to this, you know, listening for the first time, what the heck is it?

This is. This is what I tell people when they call me, saying, okay, hey, this.

Lactation consultant referred me to you.

I don't know what you do, but they spoke highly of it. So here we go.

Great.

I don't want you spending money to go into something blindly.

Right, right.

What I tell people is that cranial work involves a very light touch palpation. And usually when we hear that, we're like, what good is that?

It actually does a lot of good.

So what I want you to do is I want you to. I have a mattress that my computer is on, so if you have a desk or a mattress or, gosh, even your pants, you can rub your hands along that surface and do it very gently and very lightly.

Okay.

Now, with that very fine perceptual skill that you develop with light touch, I'm able to feel on this mattress. Oh, okay. I can feel that it's rough. I can feel that there's ripples in it. It has little crevices from the creases. And if I draw my awareness into maybe what's in the mattress. Oh, I can press in just a little bit more. And now I can feel the air cells inside of it. I can tell that it has pockets in there. I can feel exactly where the seams are, and I can feel how that seam is running.

Okay.

So that is why we use light touch. One of the many reasons, in fact, is that I am able to gain more information about what I am touching and open up my fine perceptual skills than give a massage, for example. I think, first of all, massages are great. I think they are wonderful. That is just not what we are doing. Massages will push in. And now I have lost. I've lost where these seams are. I've lost my depth. I just know that pushing in, I've lost taking in all of the information about this Mattress that I'm feeling. I can't feel the ripples anymore. I can't really feel the air cells anymore. I just know that I'm supposed to push in right here. Ok. Which there's a time and a place.

For a massage, but that's not what.

I'm doing when I use light touch on the human body is I'm able to feel those fascial restrictions. I'm able to find the depth of them. I'm able to find exactly how they're p. Is this a pull from a tightness? And are we having pain because it's tight here? Are we having pain because it's rotated? Are we having pain because it's sheared?

I don't know.

I can't tell you that if I'm pushing in too hard. I can tell you that by listening to the body when we use light touch, we're able to get information and facilitate the body's ability to heal. I am not there to fix the body. I'm not there to do something to the body. I can't help the body do anything that it doesn't want to do.

Okay.

I've sat there with a restriction for no joke, 30 minutes one time. Like why isn't this going? Oh, it's because I'm not following the body at that point. As soon as I would start to follow the body, the restriction would go.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

No.

And it makes sense to me because you know, we were chatting for a few minutes before we recorded and you know, you know, from me sharing. I have been to manual therapy where this light touch like on my head throughout my body usually like they do like the scan up top on my head and then they can go to like a specific point on my body and release something because they could tell based on what was going up on my, you know, feeling around the skull, they could tell exactly what was going on in throughout my body. And I'm as a patient who's received this type of, you know, therapy, it's freaking phenomenal. I mean it's fascinating. It is, it's absolutely incredible because you feel, I mean personally speaking personally, I felt so good and I feel so good every time I leave a session like this. And it was always mind boggling to me because I'm going, I didn't have like this full body massage, right? But I feel like I had a full body massage. Like I just felt better. It because things are flowing, things are functioning better, things are, you know, now starting to the other work that I'm doing, for example, I was doing expansion, right. I'm doing is using a DNA appliance. And I've told people, they've probably heard me on the podcast in the past say that I would go to my pt, who does, you know, modern counter strain technique. I could not crank that DNA any further. And then I would see him, and immediately I could crank it again. So it was supporting. Everything was kind of it supporting each other and allowing for the therapy both, you know, through the dental appliance and the bodywork to work together harmoniously to allow me to continue to move within the body and, you know, and things are flowing and things are pulsing and, you know, and he would walk me through and explain exactly what he was doing. And, you know, I could always feel things start to pulse, like, more when, you know, something would release and would start to function the way it should. And he, you know, and I've been told that not everybody can truly feel that. So I was always really excited because I was like, oh, it's working. I can feel that. That's so cool. So cool. You know, and I've had it done on, you know, I've had CST actually with an actual cranial sacral. A pediatric craniosacral therapist done with my. My youngest. And, you know, and she. She also saw an osteopath, and it could have been a combination, the two, I don't know. But I've also shared on here that she then quickly got up, started walking, and like a week or so after that started crawling, and we were. I was just like, yay, everything's working, because. And that was the missing piece to the puzzle for her. She had had other therapies, and they didn't work. And. Or maybe they didn't work because we needed some CST in place. Maybe the CST allowed her to then take everything else we'd been working on and put into play. Who knows, you know, but it's all the time. Yeah, right. Exactly, exactly. Like, you hear these stories over and over again, and so that's why I'm so excited about this conversation. So will you tell us, though, like, how is CST different than other modalities? Is there. Are there differences aside from, like, the light touch that you would highlight?

Yeah.

So I'll be careful to speak specifically on other modalities just because I'm not trained in them. There might be something that I miss about them, but generally from this moment and what I know about them is that they're all beneficial to some degree. The thing that I like most about cranial work is that you can take other modalities and apply it from a craniosacral perspective. So I'm also trained in something called visceral manipulation, which is a little bit firmer of a manipulation of your organs, but I take it with a more light touch and following perspective with cranial work. Okay. And that's. That's what's most comfortable for me. But yes, the light touch is important, but I find that we can work with a slew of systems. You know, we can work, yes, with fascia, which is like the clothes that are muscles or organs. Everything wears it. Okay. But we can also. Excuse me. We can also work with ligaments. We can work with tendons. I can work with blood vessels. I can work with organs. I can work within the tissue of the organs themselves. I can work with the brain matter. I can work with the brainstem and the cranial nerves. And then, of course, I can work on muscle. And so there's so much depth that we can get into. And then, of course, there's emotional releases.

Okay.

Emotions don't just get housed in the brain. If anybody knows the book, our body keeps the score. It's because our brain and our body are completely connected, and our brain has to do something with the impact that a stressor has caused. I don't even like the word trauma, because I think that can be such a spectrum. But a stressor, whether that's birth or an actual emotional or physical stressor can happen. And we see emotional releases all the time, even in babies.

Yeah. I mean, and you basically have spoke to like, it helps babies, it helps kids, it helps adults. You know, this is a modality that really can help across the lifespan. What do you. So I know, and I know you work with like tots babies, so let's talk about that a little bit. What are you doing with these, these tots babies? How does that generally work? When are they referred to you? You know, let's talk about that.

So it depends on the referral source. We're doing some education in the area that generally I'd like to see them anywhere between two and four times pre release.

Okay.

You know, there used to be an old standard of. Yeah, yeah, one body work visit is good. It's actually not because our systems are so complex, and especially for babies, I find that their tolerance for a therapy session is only but so long. And so if there's more restricted fibers and if we can get them in an even more optimal place, I Want them as optimal as they possibly could.

Be for a release.

So that means going back to the bridge example, that cranial work is a bridge between brain accessibility in our nervous system firing appropriately and the active movement that therapy is trying to do.

Okay?

So if we can release structures in the brain to help the brain and these active movements fire and wire together, then the release is going to go so much more soundly. And I like to start off with three or four sessions because then we're really encompassing the whole body. It goes along with the song. The toe bones connected to the foot bone, that's connected to the ankle bone. And before you know it, the toe is somehow connected up here to the shoulder. Our tissues are no different. If we're to take the tongue, for example, the tongue comes and meets the hyoid. Okay, what hangs out behind the hyoid? You have a lot of deep visceral fascia. That fascia. I'm going to back up a little bit. That fascia.

A lot of that deep visceral fascia.

Comes and connects behind the heart. And then what's over here, then it's our diaphragm and our esophagus, and our esophagus runs through the diaphragm. And now we're involving our guts, we're involving our stomach. And then if we're involving our peritoneal cavity, then we're involving the pelvis. Okay? So it's just this giant chain and ripple effect. And if we miss addressing that, then we're missing a whole body system. I don't like thinking in terms of even just gi because everything touches each other, everything is in layers, and you have to listen to the whole body to make sure that you are optimizing outcomes. So, for example, I just worked on a little babe who's been seen. She's had a tongue tie release. She went through a growth spurt, and these tissues got restricted again. We see this all the time because we can never release tissues 100%. There's always a fiber in there that's a straggler. And then when we go through a growth spurt, that fiber tightens down. Sure enough, she's been working with a colleague of mine on the oral motor skills. But what was happening is that her palate was shifted because of the fascia pulling on her palate. Shifted, rotated up, cramping in this eye.

But what else goes through here is.

Your facial and trigeminal nerve. All of her sensory feedback was just everywhere. She was gagging. She couldn't even practice the oral motor skills because she couldn't organize enough. Then she was able to follow up with the colleague and they were actually able to. To get some good sound work done. Does that make sense?

Oh, yeah, no, it makes total sense. And it's so fascinating. And I think it's an area that's majorly lacking that we need to be talking about for anybody who's doing pediatric feeding myofunctional therapy. I can think of all of my colleagues who go, this kid or this adult, they have this hyperactive gag reflex. And then we can't even address these underlying issues because I'm trying to get them to do jaw work. And, you know, they put something in their mouth and they like, almost vomit. Like, they're really. It's hyperactive. And so it's. I didn't even think to send to CST for that. Usually we try to, you know, decrease it, not decrease to get rid of the hyper. Or the gag reflux. You know, we always want to keep that. We just want to move it further back in the mouth and make it. Make them not so hyper reactive, you know, kind of bring it down a little bit. So. But that's. That's amazing. Now, do you also. Oh, go ahead.

No, I was just going to say. And there can be lots of different reasons for a hyperactive gag reflex. We've worked on other kiddos who they were constipated and they had a fascial twist in their intestines, which then puts pressure on the whole system and pulling it down, and it's stressing them out. So any more stimulus in there, our body's just not free. And I also like to use the example of imagining you're wearing clothes that are two sizes too small and somebody's pulling you along with it. How would you feel? Oh, my gosh, you feel so stressed out your body wouldn't move. We're not the end all, be all. And I think anyone who thinks that they are the end all be all is seriously missing the mark. You know, it's just not. You can have great results with one modality, but to really have optimal results, it takes a team. Absolutely. Yeah.

I love that. I mean, we are super pro team approach as well. And I'm sure everybody has heard me drill that into their brains, like through all of my programs and this podcast, you know, hundreds of times over. They've also heard me continuously say, we are connected from the tip of our tongue to the tip of our toes, because we all know that fascia Runs throughout the body. Well, maybe we don't all know, but you'll know when you listen. You know, it runs all through. And I love that image from anatomy trains that like, I think it's been like recycling around the Internet again around. So social media as of late, where there's like a black background and you just see the fascia from literally from the tongue to your feet. And it's just, it's phenomenal because I don't think people stop to. Even people in the medical space, people don't stop to consider the fact that we are whole. We are not compartmentalized medical beings. We are whole and we have to work from the place of. Just because something is bothering us down here doesn't mean that something. That everything up here, here is unrelated or not possibly the cause of or root of what might be going on further down the digestive system. And I find it so fascinating. My first daughter, when we had her tongue tie released and she had a local anesthetic, it was in general, or a sedative, I think. And the next day her constipation went away and it never returned. And she was 24 months old. And I'm like, this was a kid who had been constipated ever since we introduced solids at six months. And then boom.

That is wild.

I was like, okay, 18 months of constipation gone. And people are like, wait, well, are you sure it wasn't like a. You know, just usually people get more constipated if they've had some local anesthetic or sedation. And, you know, and I'm going, nope, pretty sure we're having the opposite effect over here. And it stuck. And she's five and a half now, and I can tell you it's never returned. So, you know, to say that like, fascia is not interconnected and then it doesn't impact it. You know, that really for me as a mom and a professional was so eye opening. And I started like going to Google Scholar and like tongue tie constipation. And I'm like, where is the research? Why isn't it out there? Yeah. So now, you know, I'm a big proponent of, yes, I believe in research and ebp, but I also believe that what we find repeatedly from a clinical standpoint, you know, experience wise, has a much larger space at the table. Because I can tell you that when we take this approach and we work as a team and we involve these other modalities and we're not silo treating these patients, they get the most optimal, most functional results compared to patients who really just prefer that. Nope. We're just here for some MYO sessions or we're just here from some speech sessions, or we're just here for some CST sessions. And I don't really want to do anything else. Well, that's your choice, but I can tell you, or I can. There are conversations in my head that I know this is not going to, you know, we're probably not going to get the same results as if we take that team approach. So. Big proponent for taking that team approach. For sure.

Exactly.

Now, do you work with patients with general coordination disorders then? Or just like, what about a kiddo with just a speech disorder, a speech delay? Do you treat these kiddos and see results? Everybody, Everybody. Awesome.

There's a thing about cranial work, is.

That cranial work benefits everyone, whether you have something going on or not. We do things to our bodies throughout the day and throughout life that we're like, oh, is my body really adapting and adjusting to this? Well, and then all of a sudden we have a pain. And usually that pain, unless it's a significant event, like in January, I got crushed on my snowboard and had a concussion. So that's an isolated event. And people have those. But generally speaking, I slept funny. Usually it's a compound effect. And so if we take care of our bodies throughout our life, the instances of that happening are so much less or our recovery is so much better. Better because of it. But the need, again, general coordination disorder. No, I can't fix anything. But our job is to support the body. And usually when the body is supported and listened to and to help in the areas of restriction, then we get optimal functioning, we get more optimal coordination. Just like the example about coordination with your daughter of, oh, now she's crawling. You know, I would be curious as to what they worked on. Was it something fascially that she pulled in one direction and it was too hard to push through, or was it something more Nervous system that the jacket, the dura of the nervous system was restricting her ability to fire and wire together. You know, when breathe they can function and we see more optimal work. So I see a lot of babes with CP hie tethered oral tissues, of course, general newborn stuff. Colic. There's actually a good actual research article on colic that babies who receive cranial work either in the hospital or soon after. The majority of them never have colic. So there you go.

Well, and that's. That's such an interesting conversation too Because I feel like that should be something offered in the hospital for these babies, like along with a Todd screen, just like they do the hearing screens. You know, universal newborn hearing screenings were our universal tot screenings. You know, it's, it's one of those things where why are we. Yes, hearing is important, I'm not downplaying that. But why are we not looking at the thing that's going to impact their ability? Breathe properly and eat properly, which are the two most important functions for any single human. So if we can't eat and breathe, or breathe and eat for putting it in order, we got problems. And it's so fascinating to me because these babies have just been through a traumatic experience leaving the birth canal. They're going from this one position that they've been in, which may be optimal or maybe suboptimal in utero. We don't really, I mean, yes, we scan a lot more these days, but we don't really know that information. So why aren't we looking at these babies and treating them, you know, as soon as they come out to set them up for success? It's not going to harm them. It can only help. Right, Is that, yeah, kind of the thought here, Right?

Exactly, exactly.

So, yeah, but then there's, there's been.

Lots of case studies on autism and cranial work. Sensory processing. I see a lot of sensory processing children who are able to regulate and express themselves a little bit better, who are less sensory seeking or even less withdrawn, whatever that spectrum is. Granted, I'm using some dated terms there for the simplicity of the conversation because sensory processing in itself is a three hour long conversation.

But.

Minimum, of course, pediatric populations, that's really where we can come in. And then of course, any accidents, Torticollis plagiocephaly in adults and kids, we can help make a difference. That's awesome.

That is awesome. Yeah. It actually made me think when you mentioned Mia, my youngest, she was a kiddo who was born with tongue tie. And of course at that point I waited for them to diagnose her or look in her mouth. Lactation came in. They we didn't because there's gag orders in our hospitals here, so they couldn't even allude to it if they wanted to. And then my pediatrician came through like on day two, and I said, hey, she's got a tongue tie and the peed look. And she said, yep, you're right, she does. And I was like, and a lip tie. She's like, yep, I see that. And I'm like, And she's nursing, like, my first one. And that was a horrible experience. And so, you know, of course, the hospital pops in, and they're like, do you want our surgeon to release it? And I was like, nope, don't touch my baby. So I called my oral surgeon, who does a lot of our releases for our shared patients, and I said, hey, we got another one. And so he was like, so she was released day five. And, you know, I. I worked with her, but I never took her for cst. I never took her for Osteo. Like, I really wasn't as well versed in even understanding what these things were or not that I didn't understand what they were. I didn't understand how they could help. Nobody had taught me that. Nobody had even brought this up in conversation. And here I am, a speech language pathologist, certified orofacial myologist. Like, why isn't anybody telling me about this stuff, right? So here I go back, you know, I go to traditional PT with her, and we end up working on just me, you know, gross motor skills, because I felt like she was teetering on falling behind at certain points. And so our goal was really just like, let's just keep her on track. Do some sessions here and there. And it did keep her on track, but she was the kiddo who scooted across the ground, she dragged her right leg behind her, and. And even up the stairs, she would do that. And it was interesting because tradition, traditional pt, you know, they want to force against the strain, right? They want to force against the. The way that the body wants to go. And she was so resistant to that. And I would just. And I was like, as a mom, I was like, well, I'll practice. I'll do my homework with her. But, like, I'm not going to push her to a certain point if she's absolutely refusing, because her body's telling me no. And so something else is up here. And it wasn't until, you know, as we alluded to, I took her to cst, and then I took her to Osteo, and she got up and walked. I think it was like a week or 10 days after the osteo appointment. We had seen CST like a week or two prior to the Osteo. And then a couple weeks after that, without any other further treatment, she just started crawling across the couch. And I was like, oh, my gosh, my life is made. This is the best day ever. And my husband was like, why are you so excited? I'm like, you don't get it. There's so many things right now. Like, just everything is integrating the way it should. This is so good. She's got both knees down, everything. She's on all fours. Like, we're good. And, you know, it was very interesting, too, because she was completely opposite of my first daughter, who was not released till she was 24 months. But I joke, but I seriously believe because of how tight she was. She was an early motor skill kiddo. Like, she was climbing up the stairs at six months and climbing back down the stairs at seven months and climbing over things at the gym at 10 months and. And turning her body around and sliding down, like, completely independent. And everyone was like, how old is that child? I was like, 10 months. You know, doesn't walk yet, but she's got full. And she would just, like, hang from, you know, the bars at the gym for, like, I timed her. It would be more than a minute. And she wasn't even old yet. And I was like, holy cow, this is not normal. And I was a little bit. Honestly, I was concerned because I'm like, she's got to be so tense that she's holding herself in a way that everybody's so impressed that she can do these things. They think she's so strong. And I'm over here going, like, she might be strong, but I also think she's really hyper, like, tense. Like, why is she able to do these things so early? So it was. And for such long periods of time. So it was very. It was very interesting to see my own kiddos. And they're both fine. They're both, you know, very functional toddler and kindergartner and everything. But to see the differences between the two of them, to see the work I did with one versus the other and at the ages that we did it at, and, you know, it's just been very eye opening to how supportive these other modalities are and how important it is to have these supports in place and to have these conversations. And I get so excited when, like, a mom dm's me on Instagram and she's like, okay, I listened to your podcast or I saw your post on here, and we have, you know, we're going for CST tomorrow and our releases and, like, three weeks, and da, da, da. I'm like, all right. Yay. We're like. And we're getting feeding therapy, or, you know, we're working with either lactation or SLP ot. And I'm like, oh, thank goodness somebody's listening.

Yay.

I'm like, but we need to be like screaming this from the rooftops. Because these kiddos could be in such a better place functionally. Right. Their nervous systems, their just everything if we were giving them what they, their bodies truly needed. So anyways, that's, that's my rant for.

The moment, but I love it because it's so true. It's not there to replace a different modality. It's to make those other modalities more effective. And gosh, we don't have a lot of time to waste with kids. Their nervous system is booming. We want to give them what it is. And yeah, it's just, I just think the collaboration is so important. Really do.

This is amazing. So if somebody wants to find you, where can they find you?

How do they find you? Yeah, I am on Instagram. Disclaimer. I'm not very good at it.

I spend.

I see anywhere between 50 and 55 clients a week. And so I choose to dedicate my time with education, with families and direct patient care. I would love to be Instagram guru, but you can find me on there as well. See, the random things that I post.

Random is better than nothing, right? At least. And you have the past stuff that they can go back and look at too. So that's great. Yeah.

So, so yeah, I'm, I'm on Instagram. And then technically I do have a Facebook page. It's under Unwinding Therapies. And. And then people can also go to the craniosacral center.com so that's where our team is. But if they want to find me directly and have a direct conversation, going to Unwinding Therapies is the best way to get a hold of me.

Fantastic. Now, is there anything else that you want to share or talk about related to cst? I mean, I know we could talk about it for days, but anything else we haven't covered that you think is like super important, that people know if they're new to the CST space.

Yeah. Is that it takes time to deepen.

Your skills and finding somebody that has.

A good mentor or has been around for a little bit and finding somebody highly recommended is really going to be important. But then you also brought up the research part. I think most of us know that the clinic is so far ahead of research. Yes. And I'm actually speaking to a university here in the next coming months about, quote, cranial work being an alternative therapy. And right now it's classified as that. But truth be told, I don't think it's all that alternative. I really Don't. It's different and it's an area that we don't know a lot of just yet. And I do think that there needs to be more sound evidence to what we're doing. But we see it working time and time and time again.

I think we know specifically with some.

Of the populations we treat, different causes come with various different backgrounds and that's hard to put a research label on colic, for example. Gosh, there can be 20 different things for it. So picking one modality and treating just certain areas might not help everybody. It's listening to the whole system. I think research is trying to be very specific. When I don't think this work, it's like specific and not at the same time training, but the body is not. The body is a whole system. And so I do think that starting off with case studies is incredibly important. And I'm seeing more and more OT speech and pts jumping into the field and we can bring a really good research background and try to get more of that evidence based practice for things that we've been seeing in the clinic for years and years and years. And I hope that happens overall with tethered oral tissues. So if you go and research craniosacral therapy, you're going to find some research.

But just watch out, there's going to.

Be a lot more research coming out and in support of it probably.

That's great.

Such good results with it.

Yeah.

The VA and their pain clinic has started to use it, I think. I don't want to misspeak, but I feel like I've heard that other big hospital systems are starting to incorporate cst, whether it's an adult or pediatrics. And it's coming, it's coming.

That's great. I mean, and you're an ot, right? So if it's a modality, a treatment methodology that can be included, incorporated into sessions that we're already doing with patients and it can support some of the other work that we are doing or that our colleagues are doing. Why not? I mean it doesn't, it, it doesn't make sense that it's, you know, classified as this alternative thing when really we are addressing the systems of the body and helping them function better. Right. I mean, and supporting their therapy. So yeah, no, I look forward to any future research that comes out on it. And I know you sent us some really great links and things for people to look at and we'll make sure that those are all included in the show notes.

Perfect.

If there is like, let's say There's a N. SLP or an OT or a PT that wants to get into the craniosacral therapy place. Is there space, is there somewhere that they should start like any institution or what do you recommend?

Yes, the Upledger Institute is where they should go. That is the world renowned one and that is where I would start.

Even I've heard of that. So I haven't looked into cst, you know, as a methodology necessarily to get trained in myself. But I've heard of Upledger, so that's great. We'll make sure that that's in there.

Too, is the best. Fantastic. Thank you.

Mariah. This has been amazing. And again, I know we could talk about like CST stuff all day long, but we'll let people check out Upledger find you. Now, does Upledger also have a link to anybody who's been trained? Like if parents want to try and find somebody or.

Yes. So you. There's, there's a link for find a therapist and usually I like to help people find their therapists because for example, if you typed in Greenville, South Carolina, you're not going to find me. They, they do it based off of like your hometown or wherever something is. So, so you can reach out to a local craniosacral therapist and then see who else is in the area or you can type in a bunch of the cities around you and try to find somebody as well.

Got it. Okay, good tip. Thank you. I know it can be so hard and I, I joke that I'm like a connector, a networker of like, you know, connecting parents with at least a professional in their area where they can get started. And then, you know, hopefully that that person has a team or is working with other people that they can refer to as needed. And so I always tell people like DM me on Instagram and I will try and help you connect with a therapist in your area, whether it's, you know, someone in my space or somebody who I know that may be in another arena because it's so important that we as providers and I know not everybody has the time and it can be very time consuming, but I feel like if we're not connecting patients to providers, like they don't have the same resources that we do as providers. They're not in the same social media groups, they don't have the same networks and they don't even know where to begin a lot of the time. And you know, it's, it can be really hard to find that professional. So it's kind of this like passion project of mine to at least get somebody connected to someone local to them that can at least help or connect them to other people if that's not the right place for them. So anywho, doors open for that, I'll.

Be happy to help as well. Truthfully, I love it.

I love it.

Well, thank you.

Thank you, Mariah. I know you've got patients coming up, so we will let you go. But it is good chatting and we'll see you soon. Soon.

All right. Sounds good. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to this podcast. If you want to hear more of these Myotots, Airway and Feeding related episodes, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or pledge a small amount on patreon.com the Untethered podcast. If you found value, others you know in this space will too. So be sure to share this episode on your social media platforms and join us over on Facebook on my Facebook page at Halle Balkan Biz on Instagram @hallebulcken. And you can head over to theuntetheredpodcast.com to grab a copy of the Show Notes, where you can also subscribe to be kept up to date on the latest podcast episodes.