We have all had it: a sore back. We visit the doctor, she writes some prescription medication, and gives us advice on how to prevent further damage. We follow the advice, take the pills, and the problem slowly disappears. Or so we hope. Two months later, we manage to injure our backs once again by lifting a heavy suitcase, and the vicious cycle - doctor-medication-advice - seems to start 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 can use Osteopathic Manipulative Training (OMT) - a special diagnosis technique with the hands. This form of diagnosis gives the body opportunity to heal itself naturally by allowing the blood to flow free to the areas that need it most.
3. An Osteopath is trained to use their hands, rather than medication, to help treat an ailment. Instead of using anti-inflammatory treatments, for instance, as a medical doctor would, osteopaths adopt the more natural approach of manipulating the afflicted muscles with their hands, freeing the blood flow and thus motivating the body to engage in its own healthy process. This prevents the same problem from resurfacing in the future.
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.
Osteopathy therefore has many advantages, but do these outweigh the benefits of a visiting a GP? That is up to you: depending on the nature of your injury, you might want to see both. The question you want to ask yourself is whether your ailment is persistent or not, and whether you merely want to treat the immediate symptoms, or cure the source of the problem.
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 can use Osteopathic Manipulative Training (OMT) - a special diagnosis technique with the hands. This form of diagnosis gives the body opportunity to heal itself naturally by allowing the blood to flow free to the areas that need it most.
3. An Osteopath is trained to use their hands, rather than medication, to help treat an ailment. Instead of using anti-inflammatory treatments, for instance, as a medical doctor would, osteopaths adopt the more natural approach of manipulating the afflicted muscles with their hands, freeing the blood flow and thus motivating the body to engage in its own healthy process. This prevents the same problem from resurfacing in the future.
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.
Osteopathy therefore has many advantages, but do these outweigh the benefits of a visiting a GP? That is up to you: depending on the nature of your injury, you might want to see both. The question you want to ask yourself is whether your ailment is persistent or not, and whether you merely want to treat the immediate symptoms, or cure the source of the problem.
About the Author:
Andrew Mitchell, editor of Osteopath Network, writes articles about osteopathy, back pain, neck pain and soft tissue injuries. If you are looking for a Edinburgh osteopath or for an osteopath in the UK please visit his website.
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