Cranial Osteopathy and Headaches

Hi, I'm Oriana Leo and you're watching Body of harmony with Dr. Hakimi. Today we're talking about cranial osteopathy and headaches. So, doctor, can you explain what is cranial osteopathy?

Exactly. So we've talked about osteopathy before. We've talked about the fact that as we move certain body parts where it has sort of become stuck in the body, or let's say someone has had a rib problem and that rib has gotten tight and they have a hard time moving that part of their body. That will cause some problems for the body for breathing, sometimes nerve pains and different issues that can happen because of that. With cranial. It's exactly the same thing with the cranial with our head. Any trauma to the head can cause some issues for us and these issues can become sort of long term and chronic for the rest of our life.

When you say trauma to the head, what do you mean exactly?

So trauma to the head starts from the time that we're born. So a lot of us, as we go through the birth canal, what happens is, because the head is pretty pliable and flexible, what happens is we go through the birth canal depending on how much the birth, how long the birth takes and how much force there is on the head. And if we use, I don't know, vacuums or forceps or even C section, at times you put a little bit too much pressure on parts of the head as the baby's head is coming out, on its way out. And what happens is part of the cranium shifts according to the other parts. And if that stays in the body for a long period of time, it's going to start causing.

That's fascinating. So that's why when we hold an infant, we always want to be very careful of their head because it's so soft and pliable, their cranium hasn't quite closed yet. Is that correct?

Yeah. So we take care of them because their neck is still, you know, not strong enough to hold their head. The head is, you know, heavy as well as the fact that you want to put pressure on the baby's head because bones are very, very fragile at that point.

So how would one know if they are experiencing a symptom a. That could be helped out by cranial osteopathy.

So a lot of the issues that come up, like headaches. Headaches is the number one issue that comes up because of the fact that the cranial bones are not where they're supposed to be. But as we grow so going through the birth canal is probably the first thing. And then as we're going through our life, we, you know, one year old, we start walking, and then you start falling. And then as you fall, you start banging your head here and there.

Right, right.

And then 4 or 5 years old, you go to school and you start, you know, you fall and you bang your body or you bang your head. And then as we grow, it gets more, you know, like some of us practice martial arts or practice soccer or, or any other sports, and you can bang your head. As we grow a little bit, we, you know, some of us do horseback riding and some of us do bikes and car accidents and all of that can start moving the cranial bones around. And some of us even have surgeries on the head because of certain things that has happened on the head that also shifts the cranial bones because of the amount of pressure that we put on the cranial bones.

So it sounds like there's a cumulative trauma, if you will, from coming out of the birth canal to growing up. All kinds of things can happen that will ultimately affect the structure of your head.

Exactly. But most of the time, time the body can actually fix itself. We don't need to do anything. Some of these traumas are actually a little bit harder than other ones, and they stay with us. And those are the ones that are going to cause problems for us. And those problems can be headaches.

Okay, this is very personal to me because I suffer from headaches and migraines, and you've been helping me. Can you help me understand? You know, most people, when they have a headache, it feels like a tension headache. But how can you explain to the people out there what's really going on?

So the cranium expands, and as our blood pressure changes, as your heart pumps, what happens is you get expansion in the whole body. Basically, you also get it in the cranium as well. If one part of the cranium is stuck, what happens is that part either doesn't get a lot of oxygen or doesn't get a lot of sugar, or the waste products of the cells stay in that area and they don't. They're not sort of transferred down, back to the rest of the body and clear through the kidneys. So what happens is all those toxins stay in the body or that part of the brain doesn't get enough oxygen or sugar. And so you start having issues that's related, related to those symptoms. It can be headache, it can be change in mood, it can be anxiety, it can be Problem focusing can be anxiety, it can be problem falling asleep. All those can result from a shift in the cranium.

So cranial osteopathy is like chiropractic for your skull?

Exactly. It's moving the bones of the skull.

And what kind of treatments? I mean, who can benefit from this? If I'm suffering from a migraine or. Or nerve pain or what else? Tmj, what can you treat exactly?

A lot of headaches are treated by cranial osteopathy. I also treat a lot of patients who are between three months and a year now to two years for the birth trauma issues. I get a lot of patients coming in from other pediatricians and doulas and midwives. They come with head traumas, and the head has shifted its shape. And we know that as time goes on, they're going to have some issues. And what we do sometimes is we give them a helmet. The problem with the helmet is it changes the structure of the body. So the babies fall and they don't feel that pain in their head anymore. So after you remove the helmet, what happens is the kids fall and they don't know that it's going to hurt, and they start hurting themselves more. So what I do is I actually move the bones of the. And the cranial osteopaths obviously remove the bones and we set it back. It takes a little bit time, but over time, the bones start shifting and come back to where they're supposed to, and the head becomes round. And if you leave these kids with the issues that they have, with this cranial trauma that they have, they can have problem with swallowing, they can. They can have headaches and be crying for no reason. As they grow, they can start getting. These are the kids that get chronic ear infections. So they have three ear infections in one year or four ear infections in one year. As they grow, they get chronic sinus infections. They have sinus infections over and over again. TMJ is the big thing actually, with cranial abnormality. And then obviously, headaches, headaches are the most important thing.

Right. So do you want to show us your friend here and what do you do for your patients that come in that are seeking help from their headache or their jaw issues?

Okay, so this is a colorful skeleton of the head. Obviously, it's not like that inside our body. But what we do, what I do, or cranial osteopaths do, is what. Have to figure out the lesions or the abnormalities in these what we call sutures or joints.

So the head is not all one piece. It's disjointed.

Exactly. Okay. The head is not all one piece. There are different bones. And as you can see, they're all colorful bones here. So that you can see. And there are so many bones. And without getting so technical about it, the most important part of it is that the cranium feels round. And once you put your hands on there, everything is moving and it's balanced on both sides. Right. And so what we do is we start from the occipital area. This area is probably the most important part of the head. So after aligning the neck vertebrae and relaxing the muscles, because, remember, all the muscles that come from neck, they become basically attach to this part of the body. So after relaxing the muscles of the neck, we start working with the occiput, and we start with the.

Right here.

Exactly. So we start releasing this area and then start releasing the other part of the cranium and try to balance everything out so that it's functioning properly. And. And it actually is round the way it's supposed to be. Some of the issues that we get is the head being too narrow and sort of longer or too wide and shorter, and those all cause their own issues. Right. So we basically have to open it and give it the structure that it needs.

So how long does it take to feel relief or to kind of work out some of these issues that are causing headaches? Maybe for a child versus an adult? How many times do they need to be treated?

So I've worked with people with severe head issues, kids with severe head issues, which we call craniosynostosis. And that takes months, sometimes six to eight months to release that. But remember, that's a huge. That's a major problem where one of these bones or a bunch of these bones are completely shifted, and you can actually see it from their head if it is. And I'm working with someone right now who's less than six months old. It has probably taken us four to five sessions to release the bones to a place where it looks like it's almost ready to be done. So it depends how early we get the kit, because the earlier we get these patients, the easier it is to move the structure and the bones, because they're still moving around pretty good.

Okay, and what about an adult, someone like me that suffers from headaches and TMJ and all wants to come to you and get help.

Right. So an adult, we start like you, we start releasing from here, and we release all these bones. And then you've noticed that I actually. We do some Intraoral stuff, we don't dislocate your jaw, but so that we can see, we get inside. Your cranial osteopath will get inside the. The cranium or inside the mouth and start moving these bones around and opening this part. This part of the cranium actually has a lot of bones, as you can see. And these bones go to the sinus cavities, they go to the eye cavity, they go to the ear cavity, so they cover all of that. So if there's any problem in the frontal part of the head, we'll basically go inside the mouth and actually open up all these bones so that they. There's a relief. And you've noticed that right after we do a treatment, you start feeling good. Wow.

So it sounds like. I mean, it's a real shift in thinking for people that just reach for an Advil when they have a headache. If they have chronic headaches they've been suffering for a long time, it really could just be the bones and the way they're aligned in their head.

Actually, most of the time it is.

And how. How do we go about kind of helping people understand that?

Exactly. It's understanding that major things that can cause headaches are either the arteries bringing in blood and taking away the deoxygenated blood, or the nerves. Okay. The nerves can get entrapped and sort of get sort of squished in between all these bones because there's a bunch of nerves that come out of the. The brain and supply the face itself.

So many people have headaches all the time, and they just reach for an Advil or a Motrin to alleviate their pain. How often is it caused actually by the misalignment of the bones in the cranium?

Right. So Motrin obviously takes away the inflammation and pain, and Tylenol takes the pain away. But if the problem is actually related to either the bones being misaligned and causing pain in the area, or the blood vessels that bring oxygenated blood to the brain and take away the oxygenated blood. And also related to the nerves that come out of the sutures or joints, because the brain actually also supplies the face itself. So there's a lot of nerves that come out and go to the face. So. So a lot of the issues, a lot of the headaches are actually related to either the inflammation of these nerves or the inflammation caused by the abnormal exchange of the oxygenated blood and the oxygenated blood and the arteries and veins. So as we release all of that, as we release the Muscles of the neck. And as we release the head, the bones of the head itself, we release all of that, and a lot of the pain and issues actually go away.

Well, it's really exciting that there is an actual cure for some of these issues, you know, the chronic ear infections. In recap, can you kind of go over all of the issues that can be resolved by getting treated like this?

Yes, definitely. Before I do I do that, I wanted to tell you, actually, the treatment of tmj, because, remember, there's not a lot of treatments for TMJ out there. And, you know, we do appliances when we do everything else, but most of our patients continue having tmj. One of my specialties is working on tmj. And as you can see, this is the area that we're going to be treating. It's the area that's really close to the ear itself, and that shoots a lot of the pain up to the head itself. So the treatment of tmjs is actually very easy. With osteopathy, it's because of the misalignment of the jaw itself. So usually people who have TMJ either have cranial misalignment or they chew on one side more than the other. So what they do is basically they grind one of these joints and they move the joint out of a socket. Oh, wow. And so what happens is it will definitely cause some pain. Sure. So what we do with TMJ is we actually release all the muscles that are outside all these big muscles. In some of us, they're actually really painful. And then we'll go inside and release all the bones and muscles that are inside the mouth, and that loosens up and relaxes the tmj. And we actually have osteopaths have a lot of success with treating tmj. And to recap, anything that goes to the brain can be treated with cranial osteopathy. Add. I've worked with doctors who work with patients who have had autism, and we've heard from the parents that every time that we treat the kid for that week, the patient doesn't have the aggression, and they're actually more in control and more focused.

That's fascinating.

And this basically comes from the parents. There's no study. I'm sure there are a lot of studies out there that will show and prove all of these things, but these are the stuff that I have learned just working with patients myself. So add, adhd, depression, anxiety, sleep problems. But the major thing that should bring someone to an osteopath is tmj. Headaches, sinus infections, chronic ear infections, any headache that's in the face and in the back of the head. These will all basically get you to come to see an osteopath, which can actually help you with those. I started doing this on myself before I even started cranial osteopathy. And what I did is, you know, one night I was sitting home and obviously I had gone through the school and I knew how to do cranial osteopathy and I had this headache and I started working inside my own mouth and my head. And I actually asked people to start treating themselves. If they want, they can actually start moving their cranium around. And if you push on the bones, you see how good it feels at times. And there are places I do it.

All the time because it really makes it feel better.

And there are places that are tighter than the other places. And those are what an osteopath can help you with removing.

Okay, well, thank you so much, Dr. Hakimi. That was our wrap up on cranial osteopathy. And please check out my testimonial about how much he has improved my health and migraines. And that is in a separate video. Thank you so much and join us again for our next Body of Harmony video.