Why should one go to the Danto Osteopathic Clinic when they don’t have a pain complaint or perceived illness?
Recently, I had a person come to the office for their first visit whose primary concern was optimal health and thriving. He had occasional mid-back discomfort… and I have to use the term “discomfort” because he stated that he had “no pain.” To me, this indicated that he did not consider his discomfort as pain, which could mean either that he had a high pain tolerance or he had a very health-oriented predisposition. Related to the latter, there’s a whole field of practice called Neurolinguistic Programming that focuses upon using our descriptive verbalizations and thoughts to program our reality for more positive outcomes. Towards this end, I would encourage anyone with pain to think of their pains as “discomfort,” but I am sympathetic that this is often a difficult process. Regardless, we must all realize that what we perceive as discomfort or pain represents our body trying to communicate something to us in an urgent fashion. In my experience, when my patient’s communicate such things to me I listen very intently, which has earned me the nickname by some as “the body whisperer.’
After taking his initial history, I began the process of performing a physical examination (PE) integrated with Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment (OMT). Fascinatingly, through the PE and the judicious application of OMT, I found that he had several organs tugging on his musculoskeletal system through his connective tissue network. Yes, organs like liver, kidney, and lungs have both nerve and connective tissue connections with the musculoskeletal system. Specifically, he had ropey feeling muscles on either side of his spine at the 4th through 6th thoracic spine levels. The organs that relate to the nerves at these levels are the stomach and liver. With these clues and some others, I examined his stomach and liver and found that they had connective tissue restrictions limiting their motion.
I treated his stomach and liver, as well as the joints of his vertebrae and ribs that corresponded to his ropey muscles. In the past, I had found similarly ropey muscles, like his, responded best to acupuncture. However, when I went to re-examine his ropey muscles after treating his involved joints and his organs, I found that his muscles had softened and relaxed. It was a bit anti-climactic, but it was a powerful demonstration that the cause of the ropey, irritated muscles could be attributed to the dysfunctions found in his joints or the organs.
This example illustrates just one of the reasons I am continually amazed at the power of the human body to heal when the impediments to health are removed through the application of OMT and other similar healing treatments. An additional bonus was that he felt even better than when he had originally walked into the office. In other words, he had a concept of his body not working optimally and that was nagging at his mind just below his conscious awareness. At the conclusion of his visit, he recognized that a new level of thriving for his BODY had been achieved. It was significant enough that he felt the need to communicate it to me.
In conclusion, each visit to the Danto Osteopathic Clinic is an opportunity to achieve a better sense of thriving at some level reflected through one’s BODY, MIND & SPIRIT! In this case, our hero, aka the patient, had achieved a greater degree of BODY health, which may be reflected similarly through his MIND & SPIRIT. It is important for me to point out here that when I use the terms “health” and “healing” I am describing the process of improving one’s wholeness of being. Through acting as the conduit in his healing experience and by sharing his story with you through this article I believe we all may experience a sense of MIND & SPIRIT growth!