How We (or is it just me?) Think

Two cases I want to share with you so that you can get an idea where it is I am now in the development/training in becoming an Osteopathic Thinker.  I am hoping that I am not the only doctor to think this way.  I am in my fifteenth year, so any new young DOs hoping to achieve near miraculous instantaneous results, you cannot think like a conventional doctor!  If this helps you to get there faster, great.  Keep digging on!

Several weeks ago I saw a new complicated but rather easy case.  I was really excited to help her figure out the puzzle of her.  She flew in from out of state to visit family and her family wanted me to consult her.  She has been having hip pain which is affecting her gait for the last year.  In the last several months her her right shoulder has been acting up.  Orthopedic doctors evaluated and recommended pain pills and a conservative watch and wait approach.  Two years ago, she had a partial right kidney resection for cancer.  She was born with wacky kidneys.  The left kidney is small.  The right kidney was a “superkidney.”  Her kidney doctors explained that the right kidney was compensating for the sluggish little left one.  I thought that explains the cancer.  All her life, the big one has been trained to overwork; it became so used to that pace of overworking that it tried to grow more kidney. The surgery completely threw her out of balance.  It yanked her left hip high (what i call the intubated left hip) and got it stuck.  So for the last year she has been walking around on imbalanced hips.  Her posture was also affected by the intubation.  So she has been bearing her weightload inefficiently forward and on the right for two years.  Now, her shoulder is becoming unhappy.  You can read about consequences of the intubated neck and left hip in my book, Osteopathy for Children, for a more detailed explanation.  I treated her and after an hour, she got up and walked looser, lighter and freer.  They were very impressed.  I wasn’t.  I have been doing this for years.  I do tell new patients that by the time they walk out of their first visit, they will know whether they want to come back or not.

During the visit, I surmised that the kidneys were disrupted in their development.  I suggested that her mother must have fallen when she was pregnant with her and did not know it, about 1 month, 4 weeks gestation.  The next day, she called me and her mother confirmed that that was the case.  She was thrown off a horse before she even knew she was pregnant. With this information confirmed, her kidneys can be saved.  I gave her names of several DOs in her area.  I hope her new doctor uses this info as I would.

The other patient is new by a few days but fortunately her mother came with her.  She has a large 8 cm ovarian cyst that the doctors insist must be removed.  Two years ago, she had surgery to the same side to remove a smaller cyst.  They told her that it was an easy procedure, that she would be up and about in 1 week (probably because she is young).  She said it took her two months to get out of bed. She was also born with a smaller left ovary and that the right ovary was perhaps overcompensating for the left.  I asked the mother if she fell when she was pregnant with her.  The answer is yes.  At 7 months, she slipped down two steps and fell on her belly.

Do you recognize the conventional approach pattern here?  She had a horrible recovery for a smaller cyst.  Don’t you think she’s going to keep making cysts?  They will cut each time after the fact and load her up with birth control to try to regulate and prevent their formation.  Isn’t that insane?  I like our approach better.  Get the truama out of the body.  How about that?

I hope that these two cases, however dissimilar, have demonstrated to you the common link of traumatic causation in one’s formation.  All your medical problems, from an osteopathic standpoint are connected and linked to events that have happened to your physical body.  Once you are tired of being sliced and diced and picked apart by the conventional medical system and you are ready to hear something else that can explain how you became you, that is the first step on the path to healing.

 

Heavy Legs II

Ok guys, hold on.  This one is gonna be a long one.

It seems that by far, human beings suffer from this the most and conventional medicine has been unable to address it to the satisfaction of the sufferers.

Once again, the reason you suffer the heavy legs syndrome is there is stiffness and tension in the deep muscles of the pelvis.  In anatomy 101 in medical school, we call this the “pelvic bowl.”  Just think of the walls of this bowl lined with muscles.  Because of a recent or past injury in adulthood, this bowl is distorted.  The muscular tensions are out of balance.  There will be a tighter side that, for most of the time, you will not be aware.  It is stiffer and is the apparent “stronger” side.  Most patients will complain of the other side.  This tends to be the side that is “looser” and “weaker.”   The chronic problem side is really the squeaky wheel that is hoping to get the oil.  It is freer, so it is doing all the work of supporting your truncal weight load, moving you forward in space against the downward drag of gravity.  That is a lot of work!  Over time, it becomes overworked; You go to the doctor and the xray is negative or maybe the cartilage looks worn and you are told that it is arthritis from age and “wear and tear.”  There is not very much to be done.  You are offered a pain pill or a cartilage supplement.

Finally, age and more trauma take a toll.  It hurts to move and so you are less likely to move.  But you have to eat and some of you really want to eat (in an attempt to self treat and stretch) and so you gain weight.  More weight distorts the pelvic imbalance.  Then it is all downhill from here.  Now, picture your guts and intestines plopped in this bowl.  For the women, imagine your reproductive organs in the mix.  All those imbalanced tensions begin pulling here and there on your insides.  It is an unusual patient who does not have bowel problems with those heavy legs.

On your slow heavy walk towards death (hey, aren’t we all heading there?), maybe you start to have problems regulating your salt and water balance.  Your hands may, but mostly your feet start to swell.  Then it gets really bad.  At this point, it doesn’t matter what changes you make to diet and exercise, you are King Sysiphus daily rolling that stone uphill, getting near the top, only to have in roll back down.

In a prior comment, someone suggested that in addition to confirming your suffering, I should help provide answers for what you can do for yourself.  I responded, “??<*&X#$%&, huh?”  How can I guide you safely, in a matter of a few paragraphs, to treat all your old past accumulated injuries?  It cannot be done.

I have found that patients who are open-minded, willing to learn and still seeking are willing to read my book, Osteopathy for Children, available on Amazon.com.  This cheap easy to read, digestable book will help you understand my thinking on the mechanical human body.   Why should you read a book about treatment for children?  ….because it is a primer, Book One, on the philosophy of how we think about treating the human body and undoing all past old injuries.  At the end of the book, I give away a few of my newest and safest exercises for you to free yourself up, somewhat.  Book Three is actually the book you want.  I intend for it to be a big gigantic encyclopedia of how to treat yourself with specific exercises.   But I cannot do it on my own.  The demand would have to be there to make it worthwhile for the publisher to invest their time on it.

In short, you can relieve a little bit of that heaviness by treating the pelvis. It is in the book.  You also need to read the section on pillows and neck exercises.  If we correct the tensions from above to help you be more “plumb” and in line with your posture, those pelvic exercises will be easier and relief more apparent.  Good luck.