Seeing an osteopath is about so much more than getting help with a bad back. Although, of course, back problems are one of the things that your osteopath can help you with. Our aim with this list is to show you all the other reasons that you or someone you know could do with booking an osteopath appointment today.
1. Pain Relief Without Pills
Access to pain-relieving medications is something that we can easily take for granted. We’re not saying that painkillers like paracetamol and anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen don’t have their place. However, they are often used to mask symptoms or used long-term which is not advisable. Osteopathy can often get to the root cause of your pain and can ease or in many cases cure it.
Key ways that osteopathy can provide pain relief include relieving muscle tension, realigning the musculoskeletal system and increasing blood flow which in turn stimulates your body’s own natural healing processes such as delivering oxygen and nutrients to the affected areas.
2. Posture
Ever played Jenga?
If we see our bodies like these stacks of bricks, with weight being shifted, and transferred to the blocks below, or to one side. It’s easy to see how one little problem can affect the whole stack or in our case the whole body.
Modern life is tough on our postures, lots of sitting down combined with an unhealthy dose of hunching over laptops or phones and lack of exercise mean that increasingly excess connective tissues are created restricting movement and bones take the strain due to lack of the postural muscles.
Good posture not only reduces pain associated with muscle tension and loss of shock absorption in the spine but is the cornerstone of all health affecting breathing, digestion, sleep and movement.
Osteopathy helps improve posture, leading to better all-round health.
3. Prevention
Many of us don’t think twice about taking our car for a service to help prevent problems from surfacing and nipping any niggles in the bud before they become costly or irreversible. Yet we don’t always do the same for our bodies!
Regular osteopathy treatments mean that any problems can be identified quickly and often sorted out before they even begin to cause you pain or knock-on effects in other parts of your body.
The regular release of tension that you hold in your muscles not only helps your body but your mind too. It helps you feel more relaxed, eases anxiety and improves your sleep. This combined with improved digestion (another benefit of osteopathy) and therefore better nutrient absorption makes for better overall function and wellness.
4. Performance and Pre/Post-Event
Seeing an osteopath regularly and before events can boost your performance. Not only does it improve circulation, which improves the flow of blood and oxygen to your hard-working muscles, it does so whatever the sport or activity. Osteopathy supports your joint health and improves your range of motion. It can also help identify, treat and even prevent those injuries that can crop up when you are training hard.
Post-event, seeing an osteopath will aid and speed up your recovery and spot and treat any injuries sustained during your event.
5. Pregnancy
Your body goes through a huge number of changes in a short space of time when pregnant. Aches and pains are common as extra pressure is put on joints through weight gain and ligaments loosening due to the pregnancy hormone relaxin which can cause muscle pain and spasms.
Osteopathy is an effective and safe treatment that can help alleviate discomfort throughout pregnancy.
6. Post Natal
The birthing process, however it happens for you, puts enormous strain on the body. Osteopathy helps to realign areas of the body which pregnancy and birthing your baby might have moved, especially the hips, pelvis and lower back. However, depending on positions, other parts of your body may have taken on excess strain or been injured, such as the knees or shoulders.
Furthermore, following the birth of your baby, different strains can take their toll, especially as the pregnancy hormones are still flushing through your body making ligaments and muscles more lax.
Holding and feeding your baby means working different muscles and putting pressure on different joints and this in combination with lack of sleep can mean injuries are more common at this time.
A visit to the osteopath will reduce stress, relieve pain and treat musculoskeletal problems associated with birth and being a new mum.
7. Post Injury
Osteopathic treatment can help speed recovery from injury and limit further complications from the pressures and strains placed on other parts of the body while the injury heals.
Gentle massage, manipulation and counterstrain techniques among the other methods used by your osteopath improve circulation leading to faster healing, and relief from pain and associated muscle tension.
When there has been serious and traumatic injury cranial osteopathy is a gentler technique which is also known to help heal body trauma from old injuries as well as more recent ones.
8. Post Operation
Treatment from one of our osteopaths can help you to recover from your surgery faster. Gentle counterstrain techniques, muscle energy techniques, massage and manipulation increases blood flow to the affected area and help increase the range of movement. It can help you to restore motor function and balance and increase strength. Some of the most common surgeries that people use osteopathy to help them recover from include knee and hip surgery.
9. Promote Relaxation
The world we live in can be a stressful one. Too little time outside, financial strain and the problems of the wider world are just some of the reasons we all need to find ways to relax and destress.
Osteopathy uses counterstrain techniques and massage to release the stress and tension that we store in our muscles. This can bring a huge sense of emotional release as well as make us feel physically more relaxed.
Following osteopathic treatment, you will be likely to experience better sleep, relief of stress and tension-related headaches, less anxiety and a reduction of the symptoms of depression as well as an increased feeling of being in control.
10. Persistent Problems
One of the most common chronic conditions that osteopaths treat is arthritis. Manipulation and massage of the joints affected can help to reduce inflammation, restore range of movement and ease the pain associated with arthritis. It also crucially helps you to keep moving which not only helps with arthritis but helps with your overall health too.
Pick Your Appointment
Whatever the reason for your osteopathy consultation and treatment you can use our handy appointment scheduler to book an appointment at a time to suit you at our popular South London therapy centre.
Our team of highly qualified and friendly osteopaths provide services at a variety of times including evenings and weekends to ensure no one misses out.