What IS Osteopathy?!
It is a best kept secret! While it's been around since the 1800's, some people aren't familiar with osteopathy and how it helps with overall health, pain and common symptoms people live with everyday. Help me spread the news!
Osteopathy is an art as much as it is a science. While we like to know "why" things are doing or not doing what they should, (or at least I do!) there's always an element were we can't prove or provide evidence for "how or what" helped to fix a problem. There are too many variables when it comes to the human body. We are living, breathing and most of all, thinking beings. The mind has a strong influence on pain and how we perceive it therefore what worked for one person may not have the same outcome for another. However on the other hand, Osteopathic Practitioners have exceptional palpatory skills and are well versed in functional anatomy and physiology. When treating, thinking about the body as a 3D shape practitioners can extrapolate that "when moving an arm for example, the underlying nerves, arteries, veins, lymphatics are being affected" therefore when providing treatment to an area, it help removes obstruction that in turn restores function to the area (and surrounding structures as well.)
Osteopathy is a complementary therapy working alongside conventional medicine allowing for optimal healthcare for individuals of all levels of well-being.
By using a variety of hands-on techniques, osteopathic treatment helps encourage movement in joints and soft tissue by removing restrictions and restoring blood flow where it was lost. With a non-invasive approach to treating the body, osteopathy is a great choice for all ages.
Osteopathy was founded on the understanding that there is an interconnection of anatomy and physiology and it looks at how they work closely together. When something isn’t working as it should, something else has to compensate and help out, this makes the body work harder than it should. When your energy is dedicated to these "compensatory patterns," your health in other areas takes a back seat. Osteopathy brings balance to allow for all systems to function optimally.
It's philosophy is as follows;
1) the body is a unit, that all parts work together and not in isolation
2) the body has its own self-protecting and regulating mechanisms, helping keep the body in homeostatic balance
3) that structure and function are interrelated, if the anatomy is off it can cause physiological symptoms to surface
4) that osteopathic treatment considers the above three points when finding and treating the source of dysfunction(s)
os·te·op·a·thy: a system of medical practice based on a theory that diseases are due chiefly to loss of structural integrity which can be restored by manipulation of the parts supplemented by therapeutic measures (such as use of drugs or surgery) .
~ Merriam-Webster Dictionary