Why You Should Keep Up With Your Health Regime

28 Sep 2023

Most people in our community are self conscious enough to know when they could use some good body work/manual therapy.  If you have an ache or pain you know you have professionals of your choice to fall back on. Usually people consider osteopathic or chiropractic adjustments , massage treatments, acupuncture or naturopathic work etc. In a situation with strains, aches and acute pains, sessions with your practitioners are usually consistent and grouped together to help alleviate the issue as soon as possible. After the pain has subsided, time flies by (just like our summer seemed to), and we often wait until our body speaks up and demands some attention before booking the next treatment. We then say the common phrase ” sorry, I should not have waited this long to book”. (I use the pronoun “We” as I have fallen into that pattern as well.) In this blog I will touch on why you should to keep up with your health regime.

Reasons to keep up with your health regime- Everything is connected

From an alignment perspective, if you are not standing or sitting straight, you can be straining your joints and ligaments. This in turn can create muscle discomfort and also stress your body’s organs and soft tissue. For example, if you have a spasm in your back, the nerves coming from that area in your spine may become agitated or inhibited. This can affect the function of an organ, such as your colon. The colon may spasm which in turn can restrict the motion of that part of the back that it is attached to and create more muscle tension now in that area of the back. This can affect your alignment creating more overall tension. I could also go into bowel syndromes from the colon now not functioning fully at its best. The cycle can go on and on with more pieces adding in. The essence is that old phrase “everything is connected”.

Hopefully from this example, you can appreciate how many parts of your body can be involved in a health concern you are experiencing . 

This cycle may also happen in reverse. For example, you could have eaten something wrong or caught a ‘bug’ at some point. The colon in turn jumps into that same cycle of becoming spasmed and tightens the area around it, creating possible back pain.

The bonus of a multidisciplinary clinic

The term “everything is connected” highlights the bonus of having a multi-practitioner clinic to address these concerns. For example, massage and chiropractic work well together to help re-establish body alignment. In the example with the colon, a naturopathic doctor can help to see what is needed for the colon and related issues, where osteopathy can do ‘bodywork’ directly with the colon itself. With multiple practitioners at play, we can address the issue from a number of different angles, which may result in faster healing!

Osteopathy

In osteopathy, considerable time is spent checking and rechecking how different parts of the body are affecting each other. This allows us to know which areas to further assess, treat and in what priority. More people are becoming aware that manual osteopaths work with all parts of the body including alignment. Lesser known is the visceral manipulation part which helps encourage our organs to be less restricted and have better innervation and circulation — thus optimizing the health of the organ. This is a great part of being a team, as it is helpful to know if clients are seeing other practitioners which can tell me what is already being looked after. I can then focus on the body with an osteopathic perspective.

Conclusion

The timing for appointments is going to be different for everyone. Look at what timing works best for you. You know yourself and what you have or have not done in the past. If you are saying the phrase again of ‘waiting too long’, this will give you a proactive sense of timing to maintain your body and a session frequency that works best for you. Ideally, you don’t want to hit the “I’ve waited too long” stage. 

Have you waited to long to get in to see someone? Or have you been putting off the follow up treatment you know you need? Here is you sign to book!

Book an appointment with us at Natural Choice Medical Clinic in Guelph!

Stewart Hope, DOMP