To Treat or to Cure? The Benefits of Osteopathy
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We have all experienced it: we go to the doctor with back complaints, she diagnoses the problem, gives us some medical advice on what activities to avoid, along with a prescription for painkillers. We take the painkillers, follow the advice, and after some time the problem disappears. Or so we think. Two months later, our back gives way again as we attempt to lift some heavy luggage, and are forced to launch ourselves in the vicious doctor-drugs-advice cycle all over again.
Treating psychical injuries is always an uphill struggle, unless you can find a way to eliminate the problem completely. This is where the role of an osteopath becomes central, since osteopaths don’t just treat the symptoms of a problem (as your local GP would), but will look at the entire body take the extra step of finding not only the cause of the ailment, but the cure as well. There are a range of other factors that differentiate an osteopathic doctor from a medical doctor:
1. Osteopaths are specialists in how the body works. Where medical doctors have a general overview of a large number of diseases, osteopaths are specifically trained in the musculoskeletal system. They therefore have a greater understand of how one system within the body influences the other, giving them a diagnostic as well as therapeutic advantage over GPs.
2. Osteopaths also undergo something referred to as Osteopathic Manipulative Training (OMT). This is a special diagnosis technique using one’s hands. This technique stimulates the blood to flow to the target areas, serving as a much more natural way of diagnosing a disease.
3. Osteopaths also use their hands to manipulate the muscles in your body to cure the problem (not only to diagnose). Where Medical doctors will use recommend rest and prescribe anti-inflammatory medication, Osteopaths employ a much more natural approach. By loosening up muscle tensions and stimulating blood flow, they encourage the body to engage in its own healing processes, leading to the elimination of the problem entirely.
4. While medical doctors work to treat the immediate symptoms of an illness, osteopaths look at the history of the disease. If a patient were to have a knee injury, for example, a GP would most commonly acquire a patient’s medical history through means of laboratory procedures, such as blood tests, or other psychical examinations. Osteopaths work differently: they obtain a patient’s history by questioning whether the patient experienced excessive stiffness in the joints in the past, whether increased activity further aggravates the knee, and whether the pain varies based on the position in which the knee is placed. By obtaining the history in this manner, osteopathic doctors aim to find the source of the problem, and ensue to eradicate its cause.
The benefits of osteopathy are therefore numerous, but do they override the advantages of visiting your local GP? That is for you to decide. Depending on the nature of your ailment, you might even want to see both. The primary question you have to ask yourself whether your physical problem is a reoccurring one, and whether you want to treat the symptoms, or cure the disease.
July 29 2009 | Alternative Health | No Comments »