The Science

Osteopathy is a unique blend of Science and Art. The osteopathic doctor spends years of in-depth study of anatomy,physiology,biochemistry,pathology,embryology, pharmacology and all body systems. The science of each of these disciplines is explored and analyzed both in the classroom and in the clinical setting. The Osteopath emerges from medical school a fully trained physician.

The Art

Meanwhile, alongside this intensive scientific training, the Osteopath spends many more hours learning to understand and feel the living, dynamic, functioning human body, and its living, breathing musculoskeletal, fascial and fluid systems. We are taught to have thinking, seeing, feeling, knowing fingers. We are encouraged to sit still and learn to respect the essential ebb and flow of the body's homeostatic mechanism (the system that maintains our body's health). We then work with that mechanism using a gentle, thorough hands-on treatment to balance structures that are disturbed or strained by injury or illness and to increase circulation to all areas of the body. That circulatory impulse allows nourishment and repair of body tissues and cleansing through the lymphatics of the byproducts of metabolism. Healing is thus permitted and enhanced.

This comprehensive approach is referred to as Cranial Osteopathy, because it includes the manipulation of the cerebrospinal fluid. This fluid bathes the brain in the cranium (head), the spine, and the sacrum (tailbone), and its circulatory force reverberates through all living tissue.

Advanced Training

As we Osteopaths learn to listen to our hands, we are usually attracted to a teacher or teachers with whom to "apprentice". The many layers of sensation to which we are exposed requires the patient, wise teachings of those who have gone before to lead us through and learn to interpret what we experience. As we grow in the art of cranial osteopathy, the potential for healing grows also.

This training is a lifelong inquiry into a deep ocean of study. Advanced training and experience have taught me that the answer to many chronic health problems
is best sought from within the patient's body. One of our basic principles is that the body is a self-healing mechanism with wisdom installed from the embryonic
beginning. An osteopathic physician seeks to reestablish the pattern of health and eliminate superimposed patterns of disease and dysfunction without exposing the patient to undue risk. So strong are the forces within that we can usually count on them to see us through both minor and major episodes in our journey through life. They inspire awe in those who study health.

Adults:

• Musculoskeletal conditions, especially
  those related to injury
• Head and face pain
• Chronic sinusitis
• Post-concussion syndrome
  (minor closed head injury)
• Noncardiogenic (not originating in the heart)
  chest pain
• Chronic abdominal and pelvic pain
• Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) syndrome
  (pain in the joint and muscles of the jaw)
• Anxiety, tension
• Carpal tunnel syndrome
  (nerve entrapment syndromes)
• Neuromuscular and rheumatic
  conditions, including fibromyalgia
  and arthritis
• Chronic lung disease (by increasing
  breathing capacity by freeing up
  muscles/fascia)
  

Women:

• Dysmenorrhea (painful menstruation),
  especially with low back pain
• Headaches, back pain, pelvic and
  sciatica pain in pregnant women
  

Children:

• Recurrent ear infections
• Headaches (chronic)
• Spasticity
• Learning / Behavioral disorders
  

Infants:

• Sucking and swallowing disorders
• Colic, irritability
• Positional plagiocephaly (flattened
  head from sleeping in one position)
• Club feet, in-toeing ("pigeon toed")
• Developmental delay