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Case Studies and Testimonials
CranioSacral Therapy and Massage
Kelowna, BC
Advanced are some testimonials as well as some case studies, some of which are from the Upledger book: "Working Wonders. . .Changing Lives with CranioSacral Therapy".
If you would like to sign my "online guestbook" and share your experience of how massage or cranial work has benefitted you, I invite you to send me your story or comments, or your permission for me to write about your experience.
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I strongly recommend Tia Cherneski. I have been to many practitioners over the years and Tia's methods have produced the best results by far. Her empathy and attention to detail is unparalleled. It is great to be treated by a health care practitioner that really cares.
Mike R., Kelowna
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I have had chronic neck, shoulder and upper back pain for years. I have had many people work on these areas yet it still strongly persisted. When I came to see Tia I was amazed at what her treatment had done for me. The pain had eased up and I finally felt that I would be able to truly heal and be pain free. Tia is wonderful and her ability to make one feel cared for and comfortable is very encouraging. I am elated to have been referred to Tia and I highly recommend her for the journey in the healing process. Tia I am grateful for your gift. Thank you.
Debra S., Peachland
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I highly recommend Tia as an extremely qualified professional, and skilled massage practitioner. She is ever striving for excellence through a commitment to regular professional development which is evident in the work she does and the value she brings her clients. Tia has an exceptional intuitiveness, empathetic sense, and gentleness of soul and manner. She contributed very significantly to the healing of the guests at A Home Away Inc. over several years. Our guests looked forward to their weekly massage with Tia with anticipation, always expressing gratitude for her healing touch, kind caring manner, and the therapeutic benefit they experienced.
John Derry, A Home Away, Drug and Alcohol Treatment Program, Kelowna
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Tia Cherneski is a very gifted healer. Tia provided each of our guests at A Home Away with weekly massage therapy for over four years. Our guests unanimously praised and commented on Tia's unique abilities and intuitive techniques. Tia is very conscientious, trustworthy, hardworking and talented. I highly recommend Tia Cherneski on a business level, and also on a personal level as she continues to provide me with substantial energy work and massage therapy. Tia possesses a quiet, humble, and powerful presence.
Jane Derry, A Home Away, Alcohol and Drug Treatment Program, Kelowna
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For over a year now, I have been experiencing amazing results from the treatments I have had with Tia. I am sincerely grateful to have been introduced to such a highly trained professional with a love and passion for her career and all mankind. Her hands on approach has been both physically and emotionally healing and has alleviated chronic pain in so many parts of my body. I really believe that people are put together at just the right time to help each other, and I know in my heart that Tia has done this for me.
Thank you Tia for your caring, compassionate and healing touch.
Debra P., Kelowna
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Tia offers a very relaxing atmosphere with quiet music playing. The health, welfare and comfort of her patients is her prime concern. I have been to other therapists for craniosacral therapy - I put Tia at the top. She is a very concerned therapist that I recommend to others. She has a wonderful smile and gifted caring hands.
Shirley G., Kelowna
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Tia is a great practitioner and takes the time to fully understand the situation, and apply her knowledge for best results. While my sessions have been only periodic due to my proximity, they are always much appreciated. Great results and High Integrity!
Earle C, Vancouver
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Liberated from Polio’s Effects-Case Study from the book "Working Wonders . . .Changing lives with CranioSacral Therapy"
A fifty-two-year-old woman suffering the effects of polio came to see me. She had to walk on her tiptoes on one foot to compensate for the shorter leg. She had endured numerous surgeries throughout her life to try to lengthen the leg—and she had the scars on her calf and Achilles to prove it. At the time I began the CranioSacral Therapy (CST) session, I knew only that she had had polio, but I did not have the specifics. Her sphenoid was very compressed, and it felt like her face was sucked inward. The tissue began to soften. I detected the rhythm and felt the parietal bones spread. As I did a pelvic diaphragm release, her entire pelvis began to rotate out, as did her spine all the way up the diaphragms. It felt like a rope that was untwisting. I was drawn to do a regional tissue release on her right leg. I worked that for about twenty minutes. I felt tissue releasing and her leg lengthening! I had goose bumps from my head to my toes but continued to allow her body to organize all the while. She was in a state of deep alpha and felt nothing, she said later. I felt so much movement. Then I began to work on her foot, and it also twisted and straightened!
After the session, she stretched and was very relaxed. She said she felt nothing physical, only deep relaxation like she had never felt before. When she got off the table, she began walking quickly back and forth. She was nearly hysterical with excitement.“I have never been able to do this in all my life!” she kept saying.When I realized what she was so ecstatic over, I was taken with emotion also. She was walking heel-to-toe with both feet! Not on her tiptoes. She was in shock for about half an hour and continued her fast pacing back and forth in the office. That large shoe lift she always wore would no longer be needed. I don’t ever discount the miracles of CranioSacral Therapy. I reminded my patient of the potential the body has to heal itself when given the correct modalities. In about an hour’s time, CST had accomplished what doctors had tried to achieve all of this woman’s life.
Karen McGill,ND, BSNH, Herbalist
New Buffalo, Michigan
CranioSacral Therapy Practitioner since 2003
Liberated from Polio’s Effects
An Angelle Changed My Life - A Case Study from the book "Working Wonders . . .Changing Lives With CranioSacral Therapy".
My story begins with the birth of my third child, Angelle Elizabeth, born on February 18, 1995. Angelle was born with craniosynostosis, chronic static encephalopathy, and mild cerebral palsy. She was extremely different-looking as a baby due to the premature fusing of her right lambdoidal suture and three-fourths of her saggital.
Angelle was diagnosed with brain injury at eight months of age and craniosynostosis when she was two years old. She was extremely mentally and physically delayed. When she was one year old we started her in an intensive program that included physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and work with a special teacher. It involved a one-hundred-and-twenty-mile drive two days a week. This went on for two and a half years, until Angelle went into the Three to Six program in the public school system.
Angelle had a problem retrieving information from her brain and using it again when needed. Her syndrome was causing her jaws to be pushed to the left side of her face and her head to become very misshapen. She was in a great deal of pain. She had cluster migraine headaches when she was five years old.
I was introduced to CranioSacral Therapy (CST) by our family chiropractor and decided to study the technique myself. I started working with Angelle when she was four years old. I can tell you firsthand the changes that took place in my little girl. She began to retrieve information quicker and was able to function better. She had a movement disorder, which became eighty percent better with CST. She advanced so much in her learning that she became top of her special class when she was five years old. Angelle could follow two- and three-step commands without hesitating, which she had been unable to do in the past. Her language skills improved. When she entered first grade she no longer needed speech therapy, and by the end of second grade no longer needed occupational therapy. Angelle has not had one migraine headache since she was five and a half years old.With the intraoral work I do, her jaw has maintained and not gotten any worse. Her doctors have been amazed with her progress. Her neurologist could not believe how the migraines stopped with the CranioSacral Therapy. In fact, he was fascinated by the work. Angelle is now going into fourth grade and is in the regular classroom, with the exception of math classes; she has a mild learning disability in this subject.
I know in my heart that had we not found CranioSacral Therapy, Angelle’s life story may not have had such a wonderful ending.
Julie Wachter
Prairie du Chien,Wisconsin
CranioSacral Therapy Practitioner since 2003
CranioSacral Therapy and Children
Search for Help Crosses Continents, From the Book, "Working Wonders Changing Lives with CranioSacral Therapy"
Rafael is a seven-year-old boy from Africa diagnosed with severe autism. His family moved to the United States in order to find better services for him. He scored fifty-seven initially on the Childhood Autism Rating Scale, which is the highest end of the severely autistic range.
Rafael was essentially nonverbal, very aggressive, and scared of people.He experienced nightly sleep disturbances. He was highly agitated and difficult to console, which are traits of social and language disabilities within the autism spectrum. Severe motor disturbances) were also apparent, as he could not imitate any actions or carry out independent motions.
Rafael was referred to our clinic for occupational therapy with Sensory Integration, but the family was seeking CranioSacral Therapy as well. He was enrolled in a private special education programand received speech therapy at another clinic.
Though the entire craniosacral system first appeared to be completelyrestricted, there was eventually a cranial rhythm detected in the feet. Still point inductions were the primary means of intervention for several weeks. A significant finding was compression at the anterior-posterior cranial base. The dural tube was pulled tightly three-dimensionally and was most easily worked on from the sacral region. Cranial sutures were not only tight and immobile, but touch to each suture was very painful to this child at first. Slow and gentle intrusion into his system was the pace. The 10-Step Protocol for pediatrics was the guideline for intervention. The parietal lift technique was a consistent method that seemed to bring on many behavioral improvements.
CranioSacral Therapy was the primary treatment for at least four months and then was often halted for several weeks, either due to scheduling conflicts or by choice to test its effectiveness. There were consistent recurrences of behavioral deterioration during each ofthe pauses in treatment.
By the six-month mark, eighty percent of Rafael’s intervention was CranioSacral Therapy. By this time he was sleeping through each night, plus the family found it quite easy to direct him toward bed. They used to have to drive him around for miles to help himfall asleep every night. This had been their ritual for nine years of their son’s life.
Rafael began to follow simple directions and to use four or five signs for communication. He was also starting to utter recognizable words at times. This improvement did not emerge until the onset of CranioSacral Therapy, even though he had received work in this area for months prior.
Another change was in Rafael’s behavior at school. The day used to consist of the staff preventing him from hurting himself or others. Now he was able to participate in the learning process. His aggression, manifested in grabbing people by the throat, had been reduced by ninety to ninety-five percent. (He would still resort to this communication tactic during extreme moments of stress.)
There was significant increase in eye contact, smiling, and overall mood improvement. Rafael showed agitation less than ten percent of the time. Eventually it became clear that an underlying illness was imminent at these times of behavioral deteriorations. During the six months prior to the start of CranioSacral Therapy, he used to cry incessantly. Crying was now reported as being minimal, even rare, occurring only when he was not feeling well. This improvement was a major relief for his parents and otherfamily members.
Rafael’s father,who is a scientist, especially wanted the Cranio-Sacral Therapy to continue as part of his son’s ongoing health management.
Susan Vaughan Kratz,OTR, BCP
Waukesha,Wisconsin
CranioSacral Therapy Practitioner since 2000
Jackie Kucharski,OTR
Cedarburg,Wisconsin
Accident's Effects Return to Haunt Teen from the book: Working Wonders . . .Changing Lives with CranioSacral Therapy
As a daring teen, Eric* tested the limits, until one day they tested him. In 1997, at the age of sixteen, he and a friendcrashed their motorcycle into a tree at high speed. With the miracle of medicine and time, Eric’s brain repaired itself and a portion of his crushed frontal right skull was replaced with a metal plate. Some physical injuries healed while others, such as his right eye, did not. After a year in recovery and rehab, his humor and enthusiasm for life reasserted itself. He returned to high school, graduated, and began his career in an automotive shop he coowned with his father. Four years later, in 2001, something went wrong. Eric began to lose physical strength and coordination. His consciousness became fuzzy, he lost his balance, his speech deteriorated, and his blood pressure and endocrine system went out of whack. For months the family transported him weekly to the university research hospital for testing. Nothing was working. In a period of six months, he went from being an active, robust young man to being wheelchairbound in a half-conscious, near-vegetative state. His balance, his mind, his entire system seemed to be shutting down. The state granted him full disability under Social Security, and the hospital sent him home with no hope of further treatment.
Coming from a small town, I had followed Eric’s case through mutual friends. News of the recent downturn caused me to reflect on stories I had heard during my various hands-on studies. Because of the trauma history, I suspected that the extreme symptoms might be mitigated with massage methods designed to support cranial balance and scar-tissue release.
Through an acquaintance I offered to work with Eric on an experimental basis, and the family called to accept.The first week we did short fifteen-minute sessions every other day at his home, letting him remain in the wheelchair. The work was light, a combination of CranioSacral Therapy and myofascial release of scar tissues. He responded from the first session. The early focus was at the base of the occiput to restore range of motion to the head. Heavy internal scarring had thickened the tissues, effectively freezing the head/neck joint. The impact of the crash had messed with the inner tissues of the skull, brain, and face, leaving the structure out of balance with little or no sacral pulse. Head trauma and injury had left a web of scarring over the face and skull. We worked together well, and the results were profound and immediately evident. In two weeks, Eric was able to stand and stay awake more.We moved him to the bed, which allowed me better access to the whole body, especially the sacrum. By four weeks the heavy slurring in his speech was changing. Once he began to see the progress, his motivation kicked in. By six weeks he was moving. He soon walked the driveway without help. Over the next two months Eric took matters to their logical conclusion: He began running. Before long he had regained his balance. His speech became clear. He rebalanced his left/right symmetry.He returned to work. He began driving to my office for his sessions. And he joined the health club. Every few months we do one or two sessions to fine-tune and maintain.
It is a privilege to build a relationship with a client. It is a joy to watch a transformation. But, more than anything, it is a gift to be given the tools to make a difference.
Lesley Waldron, LMT
CranioSacral Therapy Pracitioner since 1999
* Location and patient’s name withheld to protect patient confidentiality
CranioSacral Therapy Practitioner since 2002
To find out more about Tia Cherneski, the owner and practitioner at CranioSacral Therapy and Massage, click here.
For contact information click here.
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