Why a Balloon Up the Nose?

After 4 years of practicing ESR - Inner Opening Technique™, I have reassessed many of the people I have worked with (including over 60 sessions on myself). I continue to find this to be the single most profound and powerful technique I have been exposed to in my 27 years of practice in the healing arts. So the following is a more in-depth perspective of this most unusual technique. - David Malin, DD, PT (May 2004)

The insertion of an inflation device up through one of the nasal passages to move a key bone of the skull, the sphenoid bone, has been done as a therapeutic procedure in the United States since the 1930s. It is not a common practice and for the most part has been done by Chiropractors, but only a very small percent of them do, have done, or even know about such a procedure. There is also some evidence that a similar procedure was performed in the temples of Ancient Egypt by the priesthood as a form of spiritual initiation.

However one wants to consider this technique, as a medical procedure to help certain conditions, or as a spiritual awakening technique, it is clearly quite unusual or eclectic in nature. It is not for everyone and definitely seems to be a strange thing to do. So who is it for or why would someone want to have such a thing done?

There are approximately 150 practitioners in the world that have been trained to do this procedure (although less than 100 actively practicing). Most all are in the U.S. and practice this as a therapeutic modality for a number of given conditions. These may range from structural/mechanical problems to neurological problems, but not limited to such, as hormonal, respiratory and digestive conditions have also been helped by this technique. There are truly many types of conditions that do respond quite favorably to this unusual technique; and in many cases, these are conditions that have not responded to more traditional procedures. In fact, it often takes a person who has exhausted all the more traditional approaches without success, or with only limited success, to be willing to consider trying such an alternative approach as "having a balloon up the nose".

When I was trained in this technique in 2000, by Dean Howell, ND, I had already been practicing alternative medicine for 23 years, being licensed as a Physical Therapist. Since that time I have changed the scope and focus of my practice from the western medical model to simply helping to facilitate people healing themselves and becoming more whole. Becoming whole means physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, as the realm of spirit is ultimately where all healing comes from. (I refer here to Body Math™ which I had developed and been teaching internationally including to Dean Howell, ND and his staff around the same time I trained in his NeuroCranial Restructuring or "NCR", which is what he calls this "balloon up the nose" technique).