Accidents that result in whiplash-type injuries and concussions have the potential to not only be extremely painful and life-altering, but also very disconcerting to patients due how little these injuries are understood. Typical symptoms in adults (for infants and children click the Ages and Stages button on the home page) include debilitating headaches, memory fog, irritability, poor concentration, sensitivity to light, neck pain, upper back pain, and odd sensations within the head including cooling sensations and the feeling of things moving around. Understandably, these symptoms make it very difficult to perform any kind of physically or mentally challenging work.

In addition to the physical suffering, there is often the added frustration that results from the inability to properly understand these types of high impact injuries.  The medical community is at a loss owing primarily to the fact that the effects of these high impact accidents cannot generally be viewed or appreciated using our current imaging technology.  Perhaps even worse, the family members, co-workers, and bosses of these trauma sufferers often run out of patience with them.  This is due not only to the fact that there are typically no long term physical signs of injury, but also because these traumas often take a very long time to measurably improve.

To explain how the body responds to a traumatic event, which is an absorption of energy, I like to use the example of the cracking of an egg. If you gently drop an egg from a height just high enough to crack the shell, you’ll notice that the fracture lines spread out in all directions from the point of origin.  This is by design, and is an attempt to disperse the force of the trauma to allow the shell to absorb as much of the energy as possible, preserving the fragile contents inside. In this mild trauma, the thin membrane on the inside of the shell remains intact, no fluid escapes, and the contents are unharmed.  If you drop the egg repeatedly, or from a more substantial height, however, the shell will be unable to properly disperse the trauma.  In that case, the fluid within the egg—the gelatinous white of the egg—becomes the next level of protection and serves as a shock absorber for the future being inside. 

As with the egg, we also benefit from having several layers of protection designed to preserve life and functioning in the event of trauma.   Minor trips, falls, or head bumps will be dispersed and absorbed by our “shell,” the musculoskeletal system—the bones, membranes, and other soft-tissues of the body—keeping their impact to a minimum.  More intense events, however, overwhelm the protection offered by the musculoskeletal system, penetrating  deeper along the vector it came into the body at.  While ideally the body would meet all incoming traumatic forces with an equal and opposite healing force, it must have a limit to the amount of energy it can mount in its defense. Imagine if you could split your own atoms and create nuclear energy—you’d be wallpaper!  

Biodynamic cranial osteopaths like Dr. Tieri have spent years learning how to treat birth trauma, concussions, and whiplash type injuries because they appreciate that these traumatic forces become absorbed into a deeper and more subtle layer of the body, a layer that osteopaths call the fluid body. This protective layer, akin to the white of the egg, is not a fluid like water, but more like the fluid into which our own embryo was born into and developed.  Similar to protoplasm, it is a highly charged, energized, and intelligent life-nurturing substance. By design, the body responds to these fluid body traumas—referred to as fluid lesions—by compartmentalizing them, enabling the body to adapt and compensate as best as it can. All the while, the healing forces within the body work to resolve the fluid lesion, chipping away at it. Unfortunately, despite the body’s best efforts, the pain and suffering can remain for years without the aid of treatment.