What is osteopathy?

Osteopathy stands alongside physiotherapy and chiropractic as a primary healthcare profession and has been fully regulated by the government since the 1993 Osteopaths Act.

Osteopathy is about understanding and treating root causes of pain rather than just symptoms. Every patient is different with a different life that has placed different demands on the body. Rather than just treating your current symptoms (although I will do that of course) I'll aim to identify any mechanical, postural, lifestyle or environmental factors which might be impacting your overall wellbeing and preventing you from being at your best. I'll help you to understand what's going on so you can manage the issue yourself in the shorter term and prevent longer-term recurrence rather than being reliant on treatment.

Whatever your age and whatever keeps you busy from day to day there's nearly always something I'll be able to do to help you with your discomfort.

What discomforts do osteopaths treat?

There's more to osteopathy than just treating general back pain; it can also assist in the treatment and management of many other conditions such as:

• Uncomplicated, mechanical neck pain

• Sciatica

• Joint pain

• Arthritic pain

• Frozen shoulder / shoulder and elbow pain / tennis elbow (lateral epicondylitis) arising from associated musculoskeletal conditions of the back and neck

• Rheumatic pain

• Muscle spasms

• Neuralgia

• Minor sports injuries

Sometimes pain arises as a result of an isolated incident but more often than not it's down to a combination of mechanical dysfunction, bad posture, detrimental working and living patterns and a general loss of strength and flexibility. Osteopathy aims to identify which areas of your body are compromised and which areas of your life and environment are preventing your body's natural healing mechanisms from returning you to health.

Although osteopaths are predominantly manual therapists we are also trained to recognise clinical emergencies and to refer on for further investigation or treatment when necessary.

What to expect from your appointment

As a new patient your session will take up to one hour and will involve an initial discussion, treatment and then a few minutes at the end to cover your management plan and any relevant exercises and advice you need to take away. Follow up sessions will take about 30 minutes and will be mainly focused on treatment as most of the detailed discussion will already have been done during your initial consultation. At the end of each session we'll take a few minutes to review and make any necessary adjustments to your management plan.

You'll be asked some straightforward questions about your current discomfort and some more detailed questions about your medical history and any medication you might be taking.

You'll then be asked whether you're happy to remove some of your outer clothing so that a careful physical assessment can be carried out involving a series of simple movements and some gentle contact using the hands to assess how your body is functioning. The removal of some of your outer clothing is necessary in order to observe and palpate any dysfunctional areas but this is entirely at your discretion and can be discussed further at the time if you wish. It's helpful if you wear something stretchy to minimise clothing removal and to allow you to move more easily. You may of course bring a friend or relative along to your appointment if it will make you feel more comfortable.

I'll then give you an explanation as to what the most likely cause of your discomfort is, what treatment is appropriate and the benefits and any potential risks of that treatment. As long as you're clear on everything up to that point and you're happy to go ahead then treatment will begin.

Treatment usually starts with gentle muscle release techniques and rhythmic joint movements to relieve muscular tension, mobilise joints and help your body's own healing mechanisms by boosting the blood and nerve supply to those tissues. A spinal or joint manipulation may also be carried out if appropriate, which is a short, quick movement that helps to restore normal joint function. This will always be discussed with you first and will never be done without prior explanation and your consent.

At the end of the session your treatment and management plan will be discussed which will usually involve giving you some exercises to take away and maybe also some advice as to how you can address the issues in your own time from day to day. In many ways this is the most important part of your treatment and goes to the heart of what osteopathy is all about; to enable you to continue to make progress in your own time and to transfer ownership of your recovery gradually to you over the course of your treatment and management plan. The simple fact is that the patients who follow the rehabilitation advice are usually the ones who recover the fastest and keep future recurrences at bay the longest. You get out what you put in.

A minority of patients may feel a bit stiff or sore for a day or two after treatment, a feeling similar to post-exercise soreness. This is entirely normal for some patients but please feel free to get in touch if you have any concerns following your appointment.

The number of treatments needed depends on the individual, the nature of the discomfort, how long symptoms have been present and how much time and effort the patient is willing to invest in their own recovery. It's possible to give a likely recovery time based on experience but everybody responds differently to treatment and not everybody chooses to take a proactive approach in their own time. My aim is not to tie you into a long-term treatment plan; your progress will be discussed and reassessed during each appointment with the objective always being to reduce your reliance on treatment and to give you the means to manage your own recovery and future wellbeing. The patients who put the most in are usually the ones who get the most out.

All information gathered during your initial consultation, subsequent treatments and on-going management is completely confidential. Occasionally it might be necessary to consult your GP or another specialist of some kind but this will only ever be done after first discussing the matter with you and gaining your consent.