Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Andy Cotton on October 20, 2008 at 9:59pm

Thanks Jody,
I suppose I get worried when people who are qualified osteopaths start propagating orthopaedics in the name of osteopathy as if it is a given. I know I get too intense, for years I got frustrated about the medicalisation of our education process. Feel free to remind me of the benefits of thinking a bit before I say anything, and Bruno sorry if I seem critical. Osteopathy is so much, and I don't like it being lessened. The less we apply Osteopathy, or we allow it to die, the increase there is in the sum total of human suffering. That's why I get carried away.
andy

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Andy Cotton on October 20, 2008 at 10:11pm

Thanks, bruno,
as you know you cannot apply randomized studies to multifactorial aetiology, evaluation and multimodal treatment. You cannot because the act of randomizing turns it in to something other than what it is, ie it becomes a process being studied, and this is not generalisable to treatments not being studied.
So no evidence. And never any prospect of there being any. We cannot submit to scientific trial methodologies, applicable to single vectors versus placebo. You are not studying osteopathy as practiced, so again results are not generalisable. The evidence we have, case studies, are not accepted as good quality evidence, so we are denied the validation when the only acceptable validation tool cannot be used in our practice. I would practice defensively If I knew I was being observed, so again you cannot generalise. Etc etc etc.
Evidence based practice is medical (again), and is an illusion in Osteopathy.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Clement Rhein on October 20, 2008 at 10:35pm

Cheers,

But would you agree that a hemivertebra would be energetically draining for the organism due to the compensations that will emerge from it? Just like a Knee (or whatever) somatic dysfunction would? And therefore, we can be fine for a while or most of our life until the last drop adds up...
So perhaps significant to resolve it?

Why do you think you could not resolve the deformation of a hemivertebra? If bone's a living tissue, and capable of changing its structure...

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Yan-Chee Yu on October 21, 2008 at 9:24am

Andy

sure thing - I wasn't attempting to use an extreme case to disprove your assertion. Rather, I had heard some rather interesting claims about what it's possible to do with bone tissue, but the information was incomplete. I was wondering if what you were claiming would allow me to complete this bit of knowledge.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jody Jakob on October 21, 2008 at 11:27am

You are right to be worried as I am!!!
You have probably heard that in Spain osteopathy is a module taught to physiotheapists during their training.
It is not so bad in Portugal although many physios do a weekend course and chrisian themselves an OSTEOPATH

By the way myself and I know others find your classical approach not only helpful but enlightening.
Thank you for keeping the flame burning

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Andy Cotton on October 21, 2008 at 1:29pm

Thanks Jody,
Since Howard flamed out i've mostly only got the ever reliable Kuno as companion. The classical approach is only Osteopathy strategically applied to the constitution, with no undue focus on structural injury. I know this is absent from many Osteopathy curricula and my heart goes out to those who see a history of heroic Osteopathy but no present. It must be strange, dislocating. Osteopathy must be found by the individual, it will not necessarily be served up.
If I could, I would like to say why this is not academic.
Say a person has, for example, Menieres disease.
I have had patients with terrible ear pain, progressive deafness and/or tinnitus, and or episodic vertigo. Any one of these would be bad enough, but all of them, you are talking a hell state. "Diagnosis", Meniere's Disease.
I was taught at college to refer this to a doctor and that was that. The feeling was one had no right to tinker in case things got worse.
Well, a patient came to me by personal recommendation. I had only been in practice a couple of years. He was a prison governor, a tough man, and had been suffering for years with Meniere's. He and been backwards and forwards with doctors, and was told he could have radical surgery to cut some nerves, which he did not want.
I examined him, and his upper cervical spine soft tissue was the texture half way between leather and wood. Well, what chance would the lymphatics stand. What weird leverages might be applied to nerve sheaths. So I decided that if structure really did govern function, then this was all logical. Of course he would have his symptoms. His neck generated them. They were the same thing.
So I treated him. He took the train from Yorkshire to London once a week for eighteen months, and gradually he got better. As his neck improved, so did his Meniere's. I came to see them as not just linked, but coexistent. When we finished he was completely symptom free.
I saw that this realisation explained so many so called Iatrogenic problems, and decided to treat them all. Now you have to know the basics. Be red hot at Anatomy, applied Neurology, Endocrines, mechanics and material behaviour. Be top of the line with cranial, functional, soft tissue and manipulation. Latterly I added GOT/constitutional/natural hygiene. And then it all seems so easy, works for most things. People out there get unnecessary surgery, take severe medication, and suffer and die.
If we can help then we must. To not is a crime of epic proportions.
So this is why I get wound up when people say they are Osteopaths but talk like a physio. They are not the same. In fact, it is insulting to physios.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Andy Cotton on October 21, 2008 at 2:32pm

Thanks Yan-Chee.
Interesting to hear from Kuno about his vertebral asymmetry. I suspect that lateral growth failure is of a different magnitude of trouble than crush fracture failure. So much more opportunity for focal lesion development. That's why treatment is so important, catastrophe theory. Holding back from the brink is much better than falling over and trying to get back.
Things can always get worse, so not treating is not doing nothing, it allows the worsening.
As to how much bone can change, well that is an unboundaried thing. Most phenomena related to humans are reducible to a distribution curve, so with bone shape treatment you get some failures, some spectacular successes, and mostly pretty good results. And outliers?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Clement Rhein on October 21, 2008 at 9:36pm

Well people, this discussion sure is something more than scoliosis, hey?

God Andy, you can't believe how nice it feels to hear this coming from someone else! You're making me feel emotional now :-)

Kuno, I don't quite understand the context story there...
I think of lesion patterns or layers of compensations. In my mind (simple I know :-)), I would imagine a layer for the hemivertebra, and then other layers overlapping from other primaries. Is that similar to what you mean with context?

I agree that better quality of life is better than no change (and should be enough for not beating one's self up :-)), but being a perfectionist extremist i've got high expectations when I treat someone, regardless of their presentation...

Therefore, I want to resolve this hemivertebra (if i come across one that is) or any congenital, bony or not, presentations. And I strongly believe its possible. But I'm missing a last bit of knowledge, which is hiding somewhere in this world, regarding the explaining of how that is possible. So I decided to pick your brains, hence the birth of this discussion. So thanks a lot! - cause I have learnt some stuff.

I've decided to purchase the biology of belief, Bruce H. Lipton. That will help me i think... (?)

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Clement Rhein on October 22, 2008 at 9:21pm

:-)
I think there could well be Kuno!

I understand now what is meant by context, and funny enough, I think we're saying the same thing ;-) love this! Merci for your input.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by OsteopathyNY on January 15, 2012 at 9:39pm

If the scoliosis is idiopathic and there are not structural changes, then you need to look for the cause of the scoliosis. Scoliosis is an effect and not a cause.  If you haven't found it yet, then you need to look elsewhere and consider ideas you may not have considered yet. For example, have you considered vision strains, a unilateral expanded or compressed rib cage, fascial weakness, intraosseous strains, foot and ankle dysfunction, etc. I recommend reading Stephen Myles Davidson, D.O.'s paper on Neurofascial Release, where he discusses possible causes of scoliosis. 

• ▶ Reply

▶ Reply to Discussion

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page