What is so special about Osteopathy?
The primary osteopathic tool, in both diagnosis and treatment is the highly skilled sense of touch of the osteopath’s hands, known as palpation. Palpation (not to be confused with palpitation) is the highly trained and practised sense of touch, a hallmark of the osteopath.
It is known that we obtain information about the world through our five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. It is known also that we can train these senses, as a wine or tea taster trains the sense of taste, a perfumer trains the sense of smell, or a musician trains the ear. In the same way, from the outset of their training, osteopaths develop their sense of touch, to be able to feel information that is not readily experienced by the untrained hand. These all are primary senses, which cannot be described, only compared with itself or another sense.
It is this highly trained sense of touch that the osteopath uses to diagnose conditions and fine details of conditions that are not accessible by conventional means and to be able to do something about it to restore health.
Osteopathic treatment is gentle, safe and non-invasive. Osteopaths are healthcare practitioners who view the body as a whole – as a machine. Every part of that machine has to work within the whole and in tune with the whole. When every part is in tune the body will be able to do its job more efficiently and more effectively.
The body is also a very special machine, which sets it apart from man-made machinery. It self repairs. The body self repairs, self adjusts, self regulates and self maintains – automatically. We could not survive if it did not do so. When for example we apply first-aid to a cut, we are not healing it; all we are doing is providing the right environment for the body to heal itself.
Why then does the body become ill or in pain?
The body is designed to cope with a certain degree of stress or trauma. If we trip up and fall over, generally we can pick ourselves up and carry on while the body deals with the effects without bothering us. But the body is not designed to deal with some of the stresses of modern life such as road traffic accidents, bad falls from horses, falls down stairs, falls from buildings, or even difficult childbirth.
With the modern safety features of seat belts and crumple zones in cars we survive what we should probably not normally expect to survive – but body has been through an immense strain. Similarly so in childbirth. With the developments of modern obstetrics, many more children survive a difficult childbirth than would have done only a century ago – and the mother also. Some children therefore are born with tremendous strains in their system, but at least they are alive. Little wonder though, that these infants could show symptoms from their difficult birth.
The body can cope with a certain degree of stress, but when that level is exceeded the body encloses it. It cannot process it. We find that the body encapsulates the strain and learns to live around it. Often the body copes so well that for a long time there are no symptoms. The sufferer becomes unaware that there is a potential problem. But the body is living ‘out of tune’, having to adapt to past trauma.
Is this not a good thing?
It is indeed a good thing, for without it we would be in far greater distress. We see many patients who have had many such events. Each patient brings a unique history of trauma, major and minor, which is their own individual pattern. This may compromise their health and repair mechanisms to such a degree that at last the body can no longer cope. At last something gives way and symptoms result. Sometimes this final event could be something trivial – the final straw that breaks the camel’s back.
How is this treated at the Hereford Osteopathic Centre?
It is so important to ask the right questions in order to find the right answers. The question we ask is this. If the body is self repairing, self regulating and self adjusting, is the fact that the body has symptoms now, due to something which is compromising the normal self repairing / self healing mechanisms? If the self healing mechanisms have been working adequately for the last 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 years, why not now?
This question is one of the core principles of osteopathy, identified over 100 years ago by Dr AT Still, who founded osteopathy, and is every bit as relevant today. At the Hereford Osteopathic Centre we acknowledge that the best physician we can ever have is our own body. Our body knows what it needs better than any outsider, however eminent they may be. Our job is to provide the best environment for our patients’ own bodies to heal as they should – like bringing first-aid to a cut. We treat the patient’s health, rather than the disease.
How do we treat the body’s health?
At the Hereford Osteopathic Centre our care is gentle, safe and non-invasive. We work with the body, not against it. We do not impose. We use our uniquely refined sense of touch (we call it palpation) to detect the stresses and trauma locked into the body tissues. Quite frequently we may remind patients of past trauma which they had forgotten! We assess by palpation what the body would like to do to repair and heal, but perhaps can no longer, to help it back to a better ‘tuning’, guided by what it wants. While the patient is still alive, the body wants to return to health, but the more ill it is, the more help it needs.
By working with the body we can help our patients back even to an earlier state of health that they may have forgotten. It is not uncommon for a patient to say: “I feel better now than I have felt for years”.