(You can find a french translation of this article here)
Nothing at all...
In Fact Osteopathy does not treat anything but helps the patient to treat himself. The Osteopath just sign-posts the patient's body towards a different route of adaptation. In short, helping the body to improve itself.
In general, I would say that Osteopathy can "treat" or help with dysfunctions of the body :
"Dysfunction" could be described as a state between health and disease.
Untreated dysfunctions can lead the body toward uneconomical way to adapt a certain pattern. Uneconomical through a mechanical, physical, physiological, energetic (calories) point of view. It is a bit like driving around with a Porsche forgetting to remove your handbrake ! You can expect a poor acceleration, overuse of the brakes and high fuel consumption.
On the long term the body will be more exhausted and this can lead to potential illnesses (eg : infections) or premature ageing (eg : osteoarthritis).
While Osteopathy focusses mostly on the dysfunctions of the body certain pathologies can also be helped or improved (to a certain extent) ; certain types of asthma, gastritis, endomitriosis, Crohn's... Even if A.T. Still reported to treat cases of dysentery, it is unreasonable nowadays to prefer Osteopathy to an allopathic approach for the treatment of any types of infections, diseases or cancers.
"Osteopathy has no limit, only Osteopaths have some" this is a sentence from Idon'trememberwho, and I find it particularly true.
I have met a few people telling me about there symptoms during casual conversations and they say that Osteopathy can't help it because they saw an Osteopath and their problem didn't get any better. I would say that this Osteopath couldn't help you, how many have you tried ? Because you know there are as many different Osteopath(ies) than there are different Osteopaths. That's right, no Osteopath will practice the same way another one does !
The following list includes a series of patients' complaints or symptoms that I could help with :
Common complaints :
-whiplash injury
-neck, shoulder pain/sprain
-lowback pain/spain
-"disc" problem
-"sciatica"
-Thoracic outlet syndrome, carpal tunnel syndrome
-Headaches, migraine
-Temporo-mendibular joint pain
-hip, knee, ankle, foot pain/sprain
-complaints due to wear and tear (osteoarthritis)
-sport injury
-Repetitive strain injury
-gastritis
-IBS
-infantile colic
-stress
Less common complaints :
-Crohn's disease (decrease reoccurence of crisis, improve digestion and stress)
-endomitriosis (in certain cases helped with pain and associated symptoms eg : lowback pain/headaches)
-asthma (mostly with stress or effort induced asthma decrease of frequency and seriousness of attacks)
-kidney stone
-Bell's palsy (helped to recover but need more patients to say how much the treatments help)
-hemiplegia (might help the recovery after the attack, but mostly decrease the aches and pain caused by spastic muscles and body imbalances)
-paralytic syndromes (see above)
-ankylosing spondylitis
-frozen shoulder
-trigeminal neuralgia
These are cases I have treated over the years where I believe my osteopathic treatments have been helpful in the recovery.
Of course not all complaints are "treatable" and when there are not, it is important to check the reasons that could interfere with the improvements. These maintening factors can be due to daily activities, diet, intoxications, lack of sport, poor posture, psychological barriers or underlying pathologies. In this case your Osteopath is able to refer you to the appropriate consultant or to another Osteopath who may have another method of treatment.
Showing posts with label pain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pain. Show all posts
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
How Scars influence your posture
(You can find a French translation of this article Here)
Surgeries are not always useful or needed but they do save millions of lives every year.
While allopathic medecine "saves" your life, it brings little attention to the consequence of such a procedure. I don't talk here about the risk inherent to a surgery but about the "post traumatic adaptation" of your body.
My first clinical experience with such a case was when I was an Osteopathic student at the ESO teaching clinic. I was treating Mr G., 67yrs old, for some chronic low back pain. Mr G. couldn't stand for more than 30 minutes without experiencing pain in both thighs. This was a good excuse to avoid the boring food shopping with his wife. He was playing golf twice a week, while the walking and the swing were more supportable than standing still, at the end of the game and for the following few days his back was particularly stiff.
The treatment that I was providing were mostly based on deep massages, mobilisation of the spine, hips, knees... Mr G. was feeling some relief from it and was coming back every 3 weeks for a maintenance treatment.
One day, my Osteopathic tutor (Miss Celine Meneteau) entered the treatment room and asked me : "What is the scar your patient does have on the front ? Did you ever stretch it ?" Effectively the patient had a peritonitis 20 years ago and a subsequent 20 cm scar on his abdominal wall, and "no" I never worked on it, and never thought that it could be of any significance regarding my patient symptoms.
I did indeed stretch this scar as well as providing the usual treatment.
3 weeks later, Mr G. reported that he could not escape any more the shopping with his wife because he could stand more than 2hrs and half without any pain. His swing improved of 60 yards (obviously with the same club !).
"Post traumatic adaptation" :
Obviously an open wound is an experience a bit painful. The following weeks after the surgery, the patients will tend to protect their scar adopting an antalgic posture. The aim of this antalgic posture is to decrease the tension around the painful area.
In the case of a Csection, for example, the patient will bend forward and avoid to straighten up or to arch backward. Slowly the patient recovers from her surgery and can sraighten up a bit more, but compare to her initial posture she is now leaning forward. Why is this ? because there are some scar adhesions !
When an abdomen is cut open, you cut different layers of skin, muscles, fasciae... when the healing process takes place, scarring tissues create adherences between these different layers. What was once upon the time smooth, sliding, elastic healthy tissues are now fix, congested, non-elastic ones. This is the beginning of a long chain of problems...
Let's continue with our new mother who just had a Csection :
The first symptoms will be a sensation of heavyness on the lower abdomen, increase frequency of urination, bloating sensation.
Few months later low back pain starts being an issue and can be associated with pain/cramps in the calves. Of course carrying a child is not helping, but the tension of the scar obliges the mother to constantly lean forward. To compensate this imbalance, the extensors muscles of the spine constantly contract to prevent her from falling forward. At the same time when she leans forward, her gravity centre moves forward as well. This increases the pressure at the distal end of her feet. More tension by the calves muscles is needed to bring back the gravity centre. Guess what ! it gives pain/cramp/stiffness in the calves !
Exercise Time, let's have a try :
Please stand up, flat feet on the floor, bend forward a bit then grab an inch of skin underneath your belly button. Now straighten up (gently) stop as soon as you feel uncomfortable in your lower abdomen. As you cannot straighten up completely, you should be able to feel some contraction in your low back muscles. Slowly you will feel your posture shifting forward, and an urge to push down with your toes, now you feel more tension in your calves . Well done ! if you are a man you just discover the post traumatic adaptation of a Csection!
If you continue this little exercise, You will notice that if you want to look straight you have to extend a bit more your neck. On the long term it increases the compression on the facets of the cervical spine which leads to neck pain, spondylosis, headaches...
In this case, if you just manipulate the spine or massage the back you cannot expect any improvement but a symptomatic short term relief. As soon as you will start working on this scar as well as opening the anterior fascial chain, the change in the posture will be tremendous and this will lead to a great improvement of the symtoms.
Patients who had a masectomy and suffer from shoulder pain on the same side few years later, Patients who had an appendicectomy as a child and now you suffer from some sacro-iliac pain on the right side, patients who had a Csection or a hysteretomy and complain from low back pain or neck pain, did you ever think it could come from this old scar ? If it sounds familiar don't hesitate to contact your nearest osteopath or another competent therapist.
Surgeries are not always useful or needed but they do save millions of lives every year.
While allopathic medecine "saves" your life, it brings little attention to the consequence of such a procedure. I don't talk here about the risk inherent to a surgery but about the "post traumatic adaptation" of your body.
My first clinical experience with such a case was when I was an Osteopathic student at the ESO teaching clinic. I was treating Mr G., 67yrs old, for some chronic low back pain. Mr G. couldn't stand for more than 30 minutes without experiencing pain in both thighs. This was a good excuse to avoid the boring food shopping with his wife. He was playing golf twice a week, while the walking and the swing were more supportable than standing still, at the end of the game and for the following few days his back was particularly stiff.
The treatment that I was providing were mostly based on deep massages, mobilisation of the spine, hips, knees... Mr G. was feeling some relief from it and was coming back every 3 weeks for a maintenance treatment.
One day, my Osteopathic tutor (Miss Celine Meneteau) entered the treatment room and asked me : "What is the scar your patient does have on the front ? Did you ever stretch it ?" Effectively the patient had a peritonitis 20 years ago and a subsequent 20 cm scar on his abdominal wall, and "no" I never worked on it, and never thought that it could be of any significance regarding my patient symptoms.
I did indeed stretch this scar as well as providing the usual treatment.
3 weeks later, Mr G. reported that he could not escape any more the shopping with his wife because he could stand more than 2hrs and half without any pain. His swing improved of 60 yards (obviously with the same club !).
"Post traumatic adaptation" :
Obviously an open wound is an experience a bit painful. The following weeks after the surgery, the patients will tend to protect their scar adopting an antalgic posture. The aim of this antalgic posture is to decrease the tension around the painful area.
In the case of a Csection, for example, the patient will bend forward and avoid to straighten up or to arch backward. Slowly the patient recovers from her surgery and can sraighten up a bit more, but compare to her initial posture she is now leaning forward. Why is this ? because there are some scar adhesions !
When an abdomen is cut open, you cut different layers of skin, muscles, fasciae... when the healing process takes place, scarring tissues create adherences between these different layers. What was once upon the time smooth, sliding, elastic healthy tissues are now fix, congested, non-elastic ones. This is the beginning of a long chain of problems...
Let's continue with our new mother who just had a Csection :
The first symptoms will be a sensation of heavyness on the lower abdomen, increase frequency of urination, bloating sensation.
Few months later low back pain starts being an issue and can be associated with pain/cramps in the calves. Of course carrying a child is not helping, but the tension of the scar obliges the mother to constantly lean forward. To compensate this imbalance, the extensors muscles of the spine constantly contract to prevent her from falling forward. At the same time when she leans forward, her gravity centre moves forward as well. This increases the pressure at the distal end of her feet. More tension by the calves muscles is needed to bring back the gravity centre. Guess what ! it gives pain/cramp/stiffness in the calves !
Exercise Time, let's have a try :
Please stand up, flat feet on the floor, bend forward a bit then grab an inch of skin underneath your belly button. Now straighten up (gently) stop as soon as you feel uncomfortable in your lower abdomen. As you cannot straighten up completely, you should be able to feel some contraction in your low back muscles. Slowly you will feel your posture shifting forward, and an urge to push down with your toes, now you feel more tension in your calves . Well done ! if you are a man you just discover the post traumatic adaptation of a Csection!
If you continue this little exercise, You will notice that if you want to look straight you have to extend a bit more your neck. On the long term it increases the compression on the facets of the cervical spine which leads to neck pain, spondylosis, headaches...
In this case, if you just manipulate the spine or massage the back you cannot expect any improvement but a symptomatic short term relief. As soon as you will start working on this scar as well as opening the anterior fascial chain, the change in the posture will be tremendous and this will lead to a great improvement of the symtoms.
Patients who had a masectomy and suffer from shoulder pain on the same side few years later, Patients who had an appendicectomy as a child and now you suffer from some sacro-iliac pain on the right side, patients who had a Csection or a hysteretomy and complain from low back pain or neck pain, did you ever think it could come from this old scar ? If it sounds familiar don't hesitate to contact your nearest osteopath or another competent therapist.
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