Osteopathy and Our Secret Health
Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment (OMT) is a well-kept secret, one that deserves to be shared.
For those unfamiliar with osteopathic medicine, there are two schools of medicine in the United States: Allopathic (Medical Doctor, or MD) and Osteopathic (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, or DO).
Osteopathy was founded by Andrew Taylor Still, a physician who served as a surgeon for the Union in the Civil War. His experiences treating wounded soldiers—and later losing his wife and several children—led him to reevaluate conventional medicine. Dr. Still founded the first osteopathic medical school in 1892 and devoted his life to studying anatomy and alternative pathways for treating disease.
The scientific paradigm is reductionist: isolate and treat. Doctors focus on specific genetic markers and unique proteins. Reductionist practitioners intentionally do not focus on the whole body and consequently do not consider its functional capacity as a whole. Reductionist paradigms can be successful, but they lead to specialized practitioners focused on individual organs or functions rather than considering that the body’s health is more than the sum of its parts.
Osteopathy invites patients and practitioners to consider our basic foundation and human biological process, with its inherently miraculous physiology and capacity to function and heal.
Osteopathy focuses on the whole body. Its tenet is that the body comprises mind, body, and spirit. Second, the body can self-regulate, self-heal, and maintain health. Third, structure and function are reciprocally interrelated. Finally, rational treatment is based on understanding these three principles.
Osteopathic medical education teaches physicians to palpate different tissues in the body and centralizes touch as a vital part of the physical exam. Our palpatory skills are used to diagnose and treat using various techniques. Osteopathic physicians, on average, have over 200 hours of hands-on training within the first two years of medical school. Physicians who focus on hands-on manipulation take additional, advanced, hands-on courses to improve their palpatory skills and treatment techniques.
Everybody has a history that affects anatomy: birth trauma, breastfeeding history, sports injuries, concussions, abuse, car accidents, repetitive motions, and even just sitting at your desk several hours a day repeatedly.
Osteopathic physicians palpate different body tissues to find restrictions and unhealthy lack of motion. The osteopathic inquiry asks: “Why now? What has prompted a complaint?” “Why does this patient have this specific complaint?” “What prevents the body from resolving the issue on its own?”
Osteopathic physicians who practice OMT are applied anatomists. DOs work within and through the anatomy, through the body’s structure. If the structure is “off,” the function will be “off” as well. Bringing motion back to the structure improves functioning. To an osteopath, function describes the healthy processes of the lymph system, blood flow, toxin removal, and the balance of sympathetic and parasympathetic rhythms of the nervous system.
For example, if a patient’s vertebra is restricted, could we assume it affects nerves and blood flow? Absolutely! Osteopathic physicians have an immense background in anatomy and an understanding of how the immune and autonomic nervous systems work through anatomy. Manipulating tissue in restricted areas impacts the functioning of the nervous and immune systems and helps the patient return to optimal functioning.
Conceptually, osteopathy is intuitive. So why is it, as I have stated, a well-kept secret? Perhaps because MDs are not trained in OMT, and in fact, most DOs occupy the same specialties in medicine as their MD counterparts. Only a handful of DOs who graduate each year continue to study, practice, and use OMT.
Reductionist paradigms have strengthened our understanding of the body and led to new, groundbreaking, and highly successful treatments. However, our body is not a collection of organs, bones, and tissue—it is a physiological and fundamental whole. Our practice of medicine should reflect this irreducible truth.
“The first step in Osteopathy is the belief in our own bodies.” Dr. A.T. Still
