“The body has it’s own medicine chest ”
A.T Still – The founder of Osteopathy
Osteopathy is a regulated, highly effective form of hands on medicine that focuses primarily on diagnosing and treating complaints of the musculoskeletal system. Osteopaths work to rebalance the structure and function of the body, not simply treating the presenting problem but looking holistically at all the factors contributing to the body’s state of disturbed health. For example, a lower back pain may actually be caused by poor foot mechanics.
Osteopaths facilitate self healing. The body inherently strives to heal itself, sometimes it just needs a little help! For example, if you injure your back badly the muscles spasm and prevent movement. This protects it from further injury but prevents it from healing, as the lack of movement inhibits a good blood supply to the injured joint. An osteopath will work on the soft tissues and articulate the joint to allow better movement and blood supply for self healing.
Treatment therefore will aim to relieve pain, improve function and promote healing. It will also help to reduce the likelihood of the problem recurring. We aim to explain our findings so that you understand why your body is not healing of its own accord, give advice and exercises where necessary and allow you to take control of your injury.
Structural Osteopathy
Structural Osteopaths use their hands to identify abnormalities in the structure and function of a body, and to assess areas of weakness, tenderness, restriction or strain.
We will usually start treatment by releasing and relaxing muscles and articulating stiff joints, using gentle massage and rhythmic techniques. If it is thought beneficial by your osteopath and you are happy, some joint manipulation techniques may be performed always with care -the clicky work, known as HVT.
Cranial Osteopathy
Cranial Osteopathy is an extremely gentle but profoundly effective form of treatment. The name is deceptive, as the gentle rebalancing techniques can be applied to every part of the body, not just the skull.
Cranial Osteopathy has developed form the discovery that a small amount of movement exists within the human skull. From this, an approach to diagnosis and treatment has evolved in which the osteopath’s highly trained sense of touch is used to identify and unwind strain patterns and correct limitations of tissue mobility, not only in and around the joints of the skull, but throughout the body. A great example of this is treating babies after their journey through the birth canal.
The technical approach used involves extremely gentle, but specifically applied adjustments to the movements of the body tissues. Treatment aims to re-establish the body’s own self-healing and self-regulating ability, so health can be maintained.
It is a very safe and relaxing method of treatment for the whole body. This gentle, cranial approach is suitable for people of all ages, especially babies, children and the elderly, but is also appropriate for many patients in conjunction with more structural techniques. We often choose to use these cranial techniques if your body is under particular stress from mental or physical trauma, if you have experienced a bad impact to your head or spine or if the injury you are presenting with is slow to recover. It is a subtle and very useful way in to accessing and settling down the nervous system, which sometimes needs to be achieved before structural techniques can be fully effective.