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Osteopathy as preventive care


 

Most often people come to osteopath to cure a disease, to remove a symptom, to ease a pain. And this is understandable.

 

But curing is an indirect effect of osteopathy, the direct one is prophylaxis. Testing thoroughly the human organism osteopath reveals zones of tension and inhibition. Zones of tension are the places where symptoms of a disease can evolve; and the organism tries to cope with them on its own. Zones of inhibition are the places where symptoms of a disease are evolving as well but the organism has given up on it. He lacks resources to correct these zones. Osteopath influences the organism launching some reflexes that attract sanogenetic (self-recovering) [see Note 1] powers of the organism to the zone of tension. Besides, the direction of influence suggests to the organism how to employ these powers optimally.  Afterwards, osteopath gives an opportunity to the organism to cope with the zone of tension by its own. Doing so he follows the main rule of osteopathy – “Find, fix, escape”. As a result, in the organism some extra powers are released to be engaged in zones of inhibition. So after treatment it’s not the symptoms of disease that go away (pain, inflammation, etc, that often turn out to be manifestations of zones of inhibition) but zones of tension which could become symptoms in the future. If it gives the organism power to cope with current symptoms, and a therapeutic effect emerges.

 

Besides, being preventive care osteopathy keeps fidelity to Hippocrates’ rule: “Noli nocere”, that is “Don’t do harm”. The more regularly a person visits osteopath, the fewer diseases he will get in the future. Especially, it concerns children.

 

Note 1. The mechanism of sanogenesis is reverse to the process of pathogenesis. Pathogenesis is development of a disease; sanogenesis is regress of a disease. The constituents of sanogenesis are: compensation, immunity, regeneration, restitution.

To make these terms clear let’s consider the case of kidney damage (for instance, of infectious origin). First, the mechanism of compensation joins in – the other kidney functions two-times more active. Then, comes the turn of immunity – the infectious agent is being killed and the tissues damaged by him are being removed. On the third stage there’s regeneration responsible for the growth and development of new tissues in the place of the damaged ones. And in the end, at the stage of restitution, the compensatory kidney turns back to its normal functioning and the recovered kidney starts little by little to operate in full effort. Take notice, all this the organism does on his own, unaided. It remains not to impede it but to add some power for the faster and milder result. This is what osteopathy aimed at.

 

Note 2. Zones of tension and inhibition. This is not something brand new, discovered by osteopathy. These are just the phases of inflammation well-known to the medicine from long ago. Inflammation includes three phases: acute inflammation, fibrosis and sclerosis. Acute inflammation is an active phase; the organism strives and it can be helped (this is the zone of tension). In the stage of fibrosis a gradual reorganization of tissues happens; here the process is still reversible. The beginning of fibroses is nearer to the tension and the end of this process – to the inhibition. Sclerosis is transformation of any living tissue to the rigid conjunctive tissue. And this definitely characterizes the zone of inhibition.