What is Osteopathy?

Osteopathy is a health care system based upon finding and treating the cause of a disease or injury rather than only attempting to address symptoms. Pain is a symptom, not a disease.So addressing the origin of what is causing the pain is always the goal of osteopathic treatment. Sometimes pain overlaps with the cause so when we treat the pain we treat the cause but most times pain is distant from the cause so we find the distant cause and address it either by osteopathic treatment or by referral to an appropriate medical professional.
Osteopaths utilise a patient specific, anatomically accurate hands-one procedure known as Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment, which can include:High velocity low amplitude, muscle energy, counterstrain, myofascial release, craniosacral, and lymphatic drainage. Many Osteopaths also utilise other techniques like massage, acupuncture, hydrotherapy, taping, exercise therapy etc. (We’ll talk about these techniques more specifically in many other post).

Irregardless of the technique used the goal of an Osteopath is always to restore the body’s natural ability to self-heal or to creatively compensate by strengthening the local and global heath of the body and by removing obstructions to proper blood flow, fluid flow or nerve function. During an osteopathic intervention,

1. First we make a through anatomy diagnosis while monitoring the vitality of the tissue.
2. Second we apply a tissue specific and patient specific osteopathic manipulative treatment. Treatment will not be only local to the primary site of complaint but would also be above and below the site of complaint, for example, for shoulder pain, expect the osteopath to apply hands-on treatment not only to your shoulder but also to your neck, upper and lower back and elbow.
3. Finally, we let the body do the true work of healing of repair, renovation, restoration of motion and creative compensation.

Osteopaths are commonly known for treating arthritis, back pain, neck pain, headaches, shoulder pain, hand and elbow pain, tennis elbow and golfers elbow, hip pain, knee pain, foot and ankle pain. Osteopathic patients includes babies and children, young people, older people, manual workers, office professionals, pregnant women and sports people.

If you need more information on how osteopathy can help you, get in touch below.

Ayo