By Dr. Kevin Kita

You are born with 306 bones in your body give or take a few because of anomalies. There are so many bones to choose from that are important to the human body functioning properly, but this bone when misaligned or out of place can affect almost every bone in the body. Unless you are a healthcare practitioner you probably haven’t even heard of it before.

The bone that I am referring to is the Sphenoid bone. The sphenoid bone is one of the cranial bones that make up the skull. It is an unpaired cranial bone located right behind the side of both eyes. Why the sphenoid bone? The sphenoid bone has also been called the keystone bone, because it touches or articulates with every cranial bone in the skull. If the sphenoid bone is misaligned then quite possibly every bone in the skull could be misaligned too. The sphenoid bone comes from the Greek word sphenoeides or wedge-like. The sphenoid bone is one of the seven bones that articulate to form the orbit of the eye. Its shape somewhat resembles that of a butterfly or bat with its wings extended.

Your skull is not a single bone but it is made up of many cranial bones. You have eight larger bones that protect your brain and 14 smaller bones that make up the lower front of your skull. Most everybody thinks that the cranial bones do not move. The Cranial Academy and Sutherland Cranial Teaching Foundation found that there is life-long mobility of the cranial bones and sutures in healthy human beings. Sutures are the spaces between the cranial bones. Cranial bones can move in small amounts and do possess an inherent rhythmic motion. According to a study by Nelson, Sergueef and Glonek this rhythmic motion or oscillations occur 4 to 6 cycles per minute. Osteopathic physicians report the same oscillation rhythm in cranial bone motion in their studies too. Even NASA research has stated, “Although the skull is often assumed to be a rigid container with a constant volume, many researchers have demonstrated that the skull moves on the order of a few micro millimeters with changes in intracranial pressure.” This movement of your cranial bones and sutures is essential for health.

Stay tuned for part 2 of this article shortly…..

– Dr. Kevin Kita, Chiropractor, Author, International Speaker, and Radio Host. Dr. Kita is well known among his patients for his compassion, wisdom, astonishing intuition, gentle and caring demeanor, and non-invasive chiropractic technique. He is a 1997 graduate of the Sherman Chiropractic College and has been practicing Chiropractic in the Yardley/Morrisville area for the past 15 years.