A fun cartoon video about how osteopathy can help patients.
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The iliacus muscle lies on the inside of the pelvic bones. Although it can be a big factor in low back pain, is seldom evaluated or treated. I have previously written that often times when we treat a dysfunctional psoas major, we assume that we are also treating a dysfunctional iliacus muscle. However, I rarely find that a treatment for psoas major truly does help resolve a dysfunctional iliacus. Although these two muscles share a tendon, they are two separate muscles with separate innervation. It has been my experience that to treat iliacus dysfunction requires a different approach than treating a…
I recently requested to volunteer as a physician at a race. I was told that I could volunteer as a physician but that I could not provide osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM) because the tents were not equipped for ‘major manipulations’ and that doing so is contraindicated on the athletes because they mostly have musculoskeletal issues and exhaustion. There are so many parts of this statement that shows ignorance about OMM, what it is, and how to use it. Somehow I do not believe that the same physician above would tell a specialist surgeon, whose specialty of which they have little…
Tips For Osteopathic Physicians: Understanding how to interpret the information the body communicates can be the difference between helping a patient get pain relief or leaving them in pain. In this day and age, pain is poorly understood and pain management can be dangerous. Currently, prescription related deaths are higher than cocaine or heroine combined. To understand pain, we have to change the way we think about pain and how we approach it as practitioners. Perhaps we need to look at the bigger picture instead and consider the “forest instead of the trees.” In order to progress, we may need…
Chances are that if you do cranial osteopathic treatment, you probably do not pay much attention to the mandible. Most of the treatments for the mandible have simply focused on treating the temporomandibular joints (TMJ). In this blog, I want to explain why as a practitioner of osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM), you should pay more attention to the mandible even beyond the TMJ, such as intraosseous strains during your osteopathic manipulative treatments (OMT) . Releasing tension at the mandible can give profound pain relief throughout the body. This is done because of the mandible’s influence on the dura. The mandible…
Do you ever “pop” or “crack” your back by twisting? Does this ever truly resolve or keep you from needing to do this again? If the answer is “no,” then why would it be any different to have someone else do that to your spine? This article discusses what is missing when only this thrusting type of treatment is given and why I do not feel it is effective in giving permanent relief of pain and stiffness most of the time. People often describe osteopathic physicians as “chiropractors who can prescribe medications.” Although not accurate, part of this perception is…
I once went to a doctor who did manual therapy to try to get relief for neck and shoulder pain. He worked on it for a while but I had a knot in my neck that just wouldn’t go away. “Muscles are stupid,” he said, “all we need to do is inject it with numbing medication and the brain will think everything is okay and tell the muscle to relax.” a few hours later when the numbing medication wore off, the knot was still there unchanged. “If muscles are stupid,” I thought, “then that doctor was just outsmarted by a…
Have you ever been told your pain is because one group of muscles have been over exercised? Many of my patients are told this. Therefore they are told that the solution for their pain is that they need to exercise the “weak” muscles to balance out the muscles. Many patients I see go to physical therapists and trainers believing that there will be a “magical” exercise that once they do will rid them of all pain. According to this theory once this balance is restored, then one’s pain should disappear. Although this occasionally works and I do believe exercising is…
One of my favorite stories about what Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment (OMT) can do is the story of a mother of three who had been dealing with urinary frequency problems. This had been an issue for about 10 years and her life revolved around this problem. Headed on a downward spiral, she was unable to get a good night’s rest and was afraid to drive long distances or even go to the movies. Her life revolved around this problem and her frustration mounted as she had been to every specialist and tried every medication her doctor could think of without any…
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