What to Expect

For your first visit, please complete the online intake form before coming, and please bring a pair of loose shorts and tank top to wear for every treatment. The room will be warm, and there is a snuggly blanket on the table. After a short conversation with respect to your health and goals for the treatment, I will assess via palpation, not only where you feel your discomfort, but also, generally.

Osteopathy involves allowing your tissues to inform the practitioner through palpation, where to treat. In this way, your treatment is guided by the needs of your body, as opposed to me deciding for you what I think might be best.

Most patients find the treatments gentle, and many fall asleep on the table, but some patients are more sensitive. I expect you to tell me if something is uncomfortable, and where you feel the discomfort.

It is likely you will not be lying down for the entire treatment, but rather sitting, standing, or in another position for part of the session, so as to better treat your discomfort in the position that's bothersome.

The treatments are 90 minutes to ensure adequate time to complete a session without feeling rushed.

Some pain issues can be resolved in about three treatments, but the longer an issue has been present, the more systemic it becomes, and the longer it takes to unwind and rebalance your tensegrity.

Your body web expresses the sum total of your life - your motor vehicle accidents, your falls, your wounds, your surgeries, your habitual postures, your habitual activities, your movement and exercise habits, and even your nutritional health and disease states. You go into every incident with your pre-existing body-web shape.

Generally, the older we are, the more impacts we've had to our body-web, taking out more and more slack in our system. Perhaps this is why, frequently the older we are, the shorter our steps when we walk, the less capable we are at reaching into high cupboards, and why we fall into chairs and have trouble getting out of them. We no longer have the range-of-motion to do these activities, and often they hurt, because we have lost too much slack in our tensegrity-web.

It is possible for you to reduce your discomfort and regain your range-of-motion. Treatments to unglue adhered tissue combined with daily mobility exercise are helpful.

I would be honoured to treat you and give you guidance with respect to which mobility exercises would be most beneficial to you.

This movement involves moving forward as well as up, so it is easiest to imagine a trajectory of about 45 degree angle as you get up.

One starts with one knee and toes on the ground, the other foot forward and on the ground. Bring the pelvis forward so your body-weight is over the forward foot, then push down through the floor with the forward leg, and push the body forward with the back toes to stand up. The work should be felt in the buttocks and upper hamstrings of the front leg.

It can be helpful to have a walking pole, or even pretend to use a walking pole in the opposite hand to the forward leg. As energy is exerted by the forward leg to stand up, the opposite arm is pushing down and back through the pole (or imaginary one).

Getting up from the ground in this manner is one of those basic movements that everyone should always be able to do easily with both legs. This movement would also ensure the ability to step up onto a high step or rock, or step over a small fence.

The movement can be made easier by putting a step or small platform under the back knee, and can be made harder by putting a step or small platform under the front foot.

How Osteopathy Can Help

The goal in the treatment sessions is to assist your body in balancing the three-dimensional fascial web such that you can stand, sit, and move with ease. The ultimate goal is for you to forget you have a body - to bring you to a place where you can participate in all the activities you want, and you are not worried that your back, knees or any other body part will regret it later.

If you were to squeeze a partially inflated balloon, the shape of the entire balloon changes. If you were to squeeze it in two or three places, the balloon would change shape dramatically, depending on where you squeeze. If one of the squeezes were permanent due to a restriction in the plastic, the balloon's shape or tensegrity would be permanently altered.

Tensegrity is defined as integrity through tension. In the case of a balloon, tensegrity is achieved by the air tensioning the plastic. Tents and geodesic domes are examples of architectural tensegrity structures. They are stabilized only through tension. If one were to pull one guy line on a tent more tightly than the others, the tent would stand lopsided as a result of its unbalanced tensegrity.

Similarly, the body-balloon changes shape depending on the position we are in, and a permanent restriction or "squeeze" somewhere, may explain why we hurt in particular positions and not in others. In some positions there is adequate slack in the web to accommodate the compromised area, whereas in other positions, the slack has been used up, causing pain or an inability to move well.

Furthermore, the blood vessels and nerves are strings that run throughout the body, from the head to the fingertips and the toes, and they form two separate, yet interrelated, whole-body trees within our body balloon. If there is a boulder holding down the root of the tree in the foot, it will alter the shape of the entire tree within the body-balloon, as the strings of the body-tree are pulled inferiorly towards the foot, just like the tent would be pulled towards a tighter guy line.

For example, if the sciatic nerve is unable to slide within a moving leg because it is adhered, it would not be surprising if it pulls a vertebra off axis where the nerve roots exit the spine, potentially causing sciatica, and a disk problem. Veins and nerves are not stretchy at all, so if they are adhered firmly to any other tissue, the body-tree has no choice but to be pulled towards the adhesion, which in turn might alter posture, causing pain elsewhere.

Ideally, our body is stabilized through tension as opposed to compression. When our body-web, or tensegrity, is distorted, parts of the web become restricted, which may compress joints, and/or alter their axis of rotation, potentially causing pain and reducing range-of-motion.

Treatments take into consideration the positions you feel your discomfort, so slack can be achieved in those positions. Your feedback with respect to where you notice pain or pulling is important, as it is likely to change locations during your treatment.