UpClose & Personal - Dr. John Upledger

I recently had the opportunity to work on two unusual little boys named Ahmed and Mohamed Ibrahim. They’re 16-month-old Egyptian twins. And they’re joined at the crown of the head.

The Ibrahim twins were born June 2, 2001 to the wife of a laborer in a remote village about 500 miles from Cairo, Egypt. The surgery needed to separate them was called “one of the most challenging decisions I’ve ever had to make,” said Dr. Kenneth Salyer. Dr. Salyer is the lead surgeon and founder of the Dallas-based World Craniofacial Foundation which sponsored the twins’ trip to the United States.

Unlike the recent case of the conjoined Guatemalan girls who were successfully separated, Ahmed and Mohamed share brain matter and extensive blood vessels, some of which snake like a maze between the two. Yet for all intents and purposes, the boys are happy and well adjusted. They laugh, play, interact with those around them and are perfectly at ease in the spotlight.

It is an agonizing decision confronting the surgical team and the twins’ father, who has the unwanted task of giving the ultimate yes or no to the procedure. Yet through the ordeal hope has remained strong — thanks in large part to the bodily changes being witnessed in the twins since they began receiving CranioSacral Therapy.

CranioSacral Therapy Helps Prepare Twins for Surgery

Dr. Kenneth Salyer learned about CranioSacral Therapy and its influence on the central nervous system from his wife, Luci Lara-Salyer, a massage therapist who studied CranioSacral Therapy through The Upledger Institute.

At their invitation, I flew to Dallas on August 26, 2002, to evaluate Ahmed and Mohamed. I had never even seen conjoined twins before. I had no idea what I was going to feel until I put my hands on them.

The twins’ condition prior to their first CranioSacral Therapy session was not encouraging. The boys were subdued and Mohamed, the smaller of the two, was not eating or having bowel movements. It was as if Ahmed was eating for both of them.

Our first step was to look at all the physiological systems and decide from the feel of things whether the systems were being controlled by the larger twin. We could tell because there were two signature energy patterns. So if we found both those signature energy patterns in one heart, we knew that wasn’t going to be a good thing.

Fortunately, evaluation showed that not to be the case. The degree at which the twins’ heads are conjoined had caused flat spots to form on the back of each head. That area on Mohamed was situated over the vagus nerve nucleus on his right side, which controls the stomach, gallbladder and liver. And that, I believe, might have explained why Mohamed had not been eating.

Over the next three days I worked with the twins for up to an hour and a half each day. I was joined by Sally Fryer, a Dallas-based physical therapist certified in CranioSacral Therapy, and therapists from her Integrative Pediatric Therapy practice. With therapists positioned at the twins’ sacrums, I worked on the juncture of the boys’ skulls using the sustained, gentle maneuvers (barely 5 grams of pressure) of CranioSacral Therapy to stimulate fluid flow and encourage decompression. I think they were motor-sluggish because of the compression on each of their heads. So as I got a little bit of space in there, they started kind of twisting their heads away from each other and responding in their sensory systems a lot more.

The boys showed marked improvement. Prior to therapy Ahmed was weaker and more passive. And Mohamed was trying to get up on his hands and knees and initiate rolling, but he couldn’t. By the end of their first CranioSacral Therapy session the twins were smiling and playing with each other, imitating sounds, and overall much more animated. And about three days after I returned to Florida, Sally called to tell me that Mohamed had started eating solid food and having small bowel movements.

The Twins Travel to The Upledger Institute for Intensive Therapy

The next step was to bring the twins to The Upledger Institute HealthPlex Clinical Services in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. We wanted to find out what further improvements could be made if the boys were exposed to a week of intensive therapy with a team of skilled CranioSacral Therapists. The goals were to bring about as much independent functioning of their body systems as possible. And most ambitiously, we wanted to encourage the boys’ bodies to begin a subtle separation where the vessels are shared.

From September 16 to 20, 2002, the twins received daily therapy that involved at least three therapists working on them at any given time for a total of about five hours each day. Our team included 14 certified CranioSacral Therapists on staff at UI HealthPlex and 12 visiting therapists.

In addition to the skull work, we concentrated on getting each of the boy’s systems functioning independently. On the second or third day I decided we’d do this system by system. We worked first on their livers to make them independent from each other, then on their spleens, their hearts, then their lungs. Then we went on to their brains and spinal cords and craniosacral systems. I think they did very well.

Sally Fryer agreed, explaining that before CranioSacral Therapy, “These little guys weren’t babbling. They weren’t eating. They couldn’t play with their feet. They couldn’t pull themselves into a crawling position. Since we started the CranioSacral Therapy there has been dramatic change.”

After just one day of the intensive therapy, for instance, Ahmed closed his eyes completely while sleeping — something he had never done before. The progress they made over the course of the week astonished everyone.

Dr. Mamdouh Abou el-Hassan, the twins’ physician from Cairo, commented, “I’m a physician of medical practice. We are not usually convinced of this kind of therapy, but when you see improvement with your own eyes, you can’t deny it.”

The Twins Return to Dallas

Upon their return to Dallas, Ahmed and Mohamed continued to show progress through their sessions with Sally and her staff, who worked with the twins three times a week for up to an hour and a half each time. Within just two weeks after the intensive program, the twins were standing with the aid of a therapy ball.

“They can bear weight on their feet,” Sally reported. “They stand over the ball and push it with their hands, and they rock back and forth. Both have become really vigorous in activity and social interaction.”

On her outlook for the twins, Sally said, “I’ve been optimistic since the start. I just feel that we’re preparing them for whatever happens.”

And whatever that may be in the days to come, one thing is certain now: CranioSacral Therapy has improved the quality of life for Ahmed and Mohamed Ibrahim. These two playful toddlers are having a great time exploring their world with all its new sights, sounds and feelings. They just don’t know it’s therapy.

Learn more about the many benefits of CranioSacral Therapy. Call The Upledger Institute toll-free: 1-800-233-5880. Ask for priority code R0103. Or visit www.upledger.com.

Send e-mail to sharon@upledger.com