Osteopathy

Case 1

Male in late 40s with a chronic knee pain of a 20-year duration following an injury in his 20s. The client had not been well managed at the time of the injury, and so had never been properly rehabilitated back to full function. At the time of presentation, scans showed that there was some wear and tear at the joint, but not to a degree that was out of the ordinary explaining the intensity of his symptoms. The initial consultation was to get a very detailed history of the initial knee trauma, and the circumstances that had led to him not getting the intervention that was indicated. Then we tracked the symptoms over the course of the next 20 years along with any intervention that he had had, and how he felt it about the efficacy of the treatment. We also looked at what he thought was wrong with his knee, and his own ideas and future projections as well as what he thought was the right course of action that he needed to take.

Working in this way, it became evident that there were some very understandable and powerful beliefs in place that were interfering with his capacity to progress his knee function. An example of these were “all or nothing” thinking where he pushed himself to exercise and then gave up in despair when the knee became aggravated. Another element was an unconscious belief that having not been helped in the past, this was likely to occur again in the future. This meant that every time his knee hurt, he had a litany of thoughts, feelings, beliefs and emotions that projected his past onto his future and helped to keep him stuck.

Part of the treatment was coaching around these areas, along with pain science education about the physiological nature of chronic pain. This gave the client tools to be able to interpret and grade his pain and make appropriate decisions about how to rest or challenge his knee. Over time this led to his being able to know how to stress his knee just to the point of change and improve his range, strength and endurance.

Additional elements we worked on were lymphatic drainage of the knee as well as dietary advice to support connective tissue health, nervous tissue health inflammation reduction. Once the client understood how to work with his newfound understanding, he was very self-motivated and able to work on his own with occasional check ins to ensure he was on track.

Case 2

Female in her 30s. Highly stressful work, self-employed and running various businesses. Presenting with chronic tension and restricted movement in her neck and shoulders, regular headaches and irritable bowel syndrome. She wanted to improve her health and wellbeing and had recently hired additional help in her business to help with the workload so now had time and energy to pay attention to this. With the initial consultation we looked at all the areas where I could assist with intervention, and where I could refer her to work with additional support to create an effective team that would keep her working efficiently whilst minimising stress. She decided to see me for digestive health, nervous system regulation practice and osteopathy, and to work with a business coach to help her manage her workload effectively. I collaborated with the business coach to feed forward my findings, especially around executive function deficits which the coach was then able to incorporate into their support of our client.