Osteopathy

There are two kinds of complete medical doctors in the world - M.D.'s and D.O.'s.  An M.D. is a "medical doctor" and a D.O. is a "doctor of osteopathy." Both are physicians and both have the practice rights to make medical diagnoses, prescribe medications, admit patients into hospitals and perform surgery. Both specialize in all areas of medicine, such as family medicine, pediatrics, neurology, rheumatology, etc. So what's the difference?

The story of osteopathy begins with a man named Andrew Taylor Still, who announced the art and science of osteopathy in 1874. He was an M.D. and was distraught over the lack of efficacy in the dangerous drugs of his time. Discovering relief for his own headaches while sleeping on a rope below his neck, he expanded the principle that pain and disease had a physical, anatomical basis. It took him decades of hard work to develop a complete, independent system of manipulative treatment and his friends helped him name it osteopathy.

Follow Me Down the Rabbit Hole...

This gets interesting for those who want a deeper answer. It's going to be long, but if you're interested, the information is here.

Disease: Effect, Not the Problem

Every disease as you see and feel is rarely the underlying problem. This is one of the few times in life when one can truly say "every, ""all" and "always." Coughs and colds, every pain and numbness known to man, organ disturbance, even infectious diseases and more - they are all effects. The symptoms that you feel, such as pain, fever, "I don't feel right," are problematic because they are annoying and give us trouble, but they are not the real problem. The real problem is what is causing you those symptoms. Disease is the end result of a process happening in your body; it is what you see and feel at the end of a series of events. So if disease is at step #10, what happened at #8, and #6, or #5 or #3? There is an often forgotten or ignored principle...

The Anatomical Basis For Disease

You have a physical body with physical parts, such as organs, muscles, nerves, arteries, veins and lymphatic channels. You will never have a change in physiology (how the body functions or works) without a change in functional anatomy (the capacity of a body part to do its job). Assuming a floor is relatively or perfectly flat, and a table upon it has four even legs, the table will not wobble. It just won't. If it does wobble, there's something wrong with the legs. Same thing with the body. If there is disease, it is the end result, the effect, of a series of causative events. And those events are physical. Even if one were to subscribe to non-physical, energetic or metaphysical forces wreaking havoc, the process of disease still involves a physical body part. Why? Because it's what you got! "Well, how about mental illness," you ask. Have you ever had a thought and not turn your eyes toward a certain direction? How do you manifest mental stress? Neck ache? Back pain? Stomach issues? You see, mental processes will involve the physical body. Your mind, your spirit, your body - they are inseparable. We talk about different aspects of your self because it's easier for discussion, but in reality, you are three-in-one. No mental, spiritual, or physical (of course) process will take place apart from your physical body. 

Solving Disease Backwards

If we ask different questions, we get different answers. If we ask better questions, it leads to better answers. The question isn't "how can osteopathy manipulate disease away?" It isn't even really how it can treat fever, or heartburn or disease XYZ. Since disease has a physical, anatomical basis, the question then becomes, "what is happening with the body so that it is yielding the effects of disease?" Or, "why is the body deciding to sweat excessively, produce pain, bloating, swelling, etc?" Symptoms are merely the responses and reactions. The "why" leads to the "where;" somewhere there is a strain keeping the body from functioning at ease and with greater efficiency and that is a great place to begin looking for remedies and cures.

Many Effects, Few Causes

Any disease only has meaning in the context of the host. Ten people with fever, neck pain or heartburn has it for 10 different reasons. If treatment remains the same for everyone, the assumption is that everyone has the same problem, which they don't. When the effects of disease get complicated, and they grow in number, all of a sudden we think we're dealing with 8 separate problems when in fact there really are only 1 or 2 or 3 actual anatomic causes. Consider bone spurs. They are not arbitrary! And neither is disease! Why would spurs grow in certain directions? What is pulling on bone to make it grow certain ways? Muscle, tendon and ligaments! I just gave you the answer for why people have arthritis. For every pain, inflammation, nodule, cyst, etc., somewhere there is a blockage to healthy blood or lymph delivery and drainage. Somewhere, there is a pinched or kinked nerve. And the resulting body tissue or organ is suffering for want of nutrient delivery or waste removal, or of nerve power for force and motion. 

Health as Builder and Animator

What are the units of health? Blood, lymph and cerebrospinal fluid. They carry the substance of health: oxygen, proteins, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, white blood cells, antibodies, etc. Our living human machines contain every drug and chemical needed for life and health. Efficiency requires two things: good building blocks and roads. Good building blocks include wholesome, nutrient-dense foods and the roads in our bodies ensure proper delivery, namely, the arteries, veins and lymphatics. How does osteopathy combat disease? By removing the obstructions in the body, thereby allowing health to be delivered. 

How the Body is Connected

The medical community considers the esophagus (your eating tube) and the stomach mostly when it comes to heartburn. But what else is implicated in process of heartburn? What else is connected? The diaphragm. Treating diaphragm dysfunction has often led me to the neck, where its motor nerve comes out, and the back, since it has muscular connections to the lower back. Inadvertently, I fix people's neck and back pains while I'm at it; that's 1 treatment fixing 3 problems! When one only considers the foot for foot pain, or the knee for knee pain, or the stomach for stomach pains, one is missing out on a web of connections that contain the cause and cure for whole body imbalance, not just 1 or 2 problems. Our living organs and parts move in relation and connection to other parts. Every moving part in us has a unique shape, designed to perform very specific functions and moves in particular ways. If a part isn’t moving well, it will "kink" every other part connected to it. And since the body creates substances, makes deposits and transports material, anything that disturbs the process of drop-off and pick-up is a problem. The trick is finding where the true problem lies and restoring normal motion. 

Miracles Galore!

2.5 y/o boy who "has not been normal since he was 3 m/o," according to mom. Frequent colds and fevers, nagging coughs, anemia, chronic constipation, would wake up 2-8 times several times per week for over 7 months during his first winter and the cycle had started again for 2 months prior to seeing me. After first treatment, he slept 14 hours and pooped the next day. After third treatment, he was pooping every day and sleeping through the night, every night. 

62 y/o gentleman with a tumor in his ear received radiation for several weeks, leaving him with numb lips and tongue. Three months later, he found out about me, got treated, and with 3 treatments he got 50-90% feeling back. 

11 y/o boy with 3 year history of jaw pain with every meal. Treated him twice; pain was all gone.

66 y/o man had a numb patch to his back for over 6 years. He was told by his doctor that there was nothing to do for that. Two treatments - near complete normal sensation returned. 

42 y/o lady with a C-section scar that was numb, painful, burns and uncomfortable for over 15 years. One treatment - over 50% better. 

34 y/o woman had a red rash to both arms for 9 months. With just a single osteopathic treatment, all redness has gone, the left arm stopped itching and the right arm has minimal itching still present.

Every week, there are new miracles to be had. If someone has been living with a condition for a long time, or was told that there was nothing to be done, and people get better with osteopathy, I consider that a miracle. 

Every Style of Medicine Shines

Conventional medicine shines in acute emergencies. Fingers have been reattached and conjoined twins have been separated. It is absolutely amazing what modern medicine can do. But to expect the same system to rescue chronic conditions is challenging. Conventional medicine doesn’t truly shine there. Every form of medicine can answer a limited range of clinical questions with the tools it possesses. You just have to be aware of the advantages that a form of medicine can give you and be ready to move on when its limitations have been reached.

Nothing is 100%

Surgery isn’t 100%, osteopathy isn’t 100%, doctors aren’t 100% and neither is optimal nutrition. Some problems remain a mystery for now and some really are beyond rescue. Your own vitality serves as the basis for any healing. Again, we live in a broken world and each of us have different bodies. The “rules” don’t always work the way they should. What works for one may not work for another. Every system has blind spots because people also have limited knowledge and views.

So Why Osteopathy?

A.T. Still sought to revolutionize the way that medicine is practiced. One hundred forty years later, we are still largely chasing the effects of disease rather than eradicating the cause. There is too much attention on the chemical basis of disease; that is why pharmaceutical medicine still dominates as a popular treatment. The anatomical basis of disease, based on the biomechanics of the body, is as relevant today was it was in A.T.'s day. Osteopathy allows me to see the human body in a new way, approach disease conditions from a different point of view and the physical tool - OMT - lets me act as a mechanic and translator to the human body, physically fixing deranged parts so normal function can be restored. I am determined to know this one thing really well. In the short and long run, fortifying the host is far greater than chasing the germ.