My experience of going to an osteopath

Hi everyone,

 

I know this is a different post to what you guys are use to me posting. But I thought osteopathy is not something that everyone goes through. So why not talk about my experience with you. I know when I first booked my appointment I was so nervous about what to expect, as I had no idea what I was walking in to. So here is my experience and what you should expect.

 

Lets start with a little bit about why I was having osteopathy. I had it done about 1 month ago. I had been suffering with a bad back prior to the appointment and this had been going on for roughly a month. The pain had been so bad I had been sent home from work, suffered with dizziness and was on a strong dose of painkillers from the doctors. The pain was in the lower of my back.

Image: http://yourosteopathy.co.uk/osteopathy/

 So now we have what you should expect when you go to an osteopath. When you first get there they will sit you down and go through a consultation with you. During this they will find out any medical information, personal information and anything that will help them diagnose the problem. After they have finished following out the consultation they will most likely to ask you to remove certain items of clothing that block where they will be working. At this point they will leave the room allowing you time to undress. Once they come back in they then get down to finding out the problem. In my case we started by standing while she pressed my back in certain places and made me stretch. After this I was then asked to lay on the bed. Once you are on the bed they will carry out certain movements involving massage and manipulation of muscle tissue and bones. They may at some points brief you before they are about to do something, this is because they are about to "pop" something back into place. Once they have finished this they will then ask you to sit up slowly as you may feel dizzy after. At this point they will leave the room to allow you time to get dressed. Once they have returned to the room they will then discuss with you what they have diagnosed the problem to be.

This is likely to take more than one session. So once they have finished they will go on to advise you on seeing them again to check that everything has worked. I personally only had two sessions. But depending on the seriousness of your injury, you may be asked to come back more than once.

Now after all that your probably wondering what happens after. Once your first session is over it will leave you feeling slightly sore and a bit stiff. On this day it is advised that you do nothing. This is so that you allow your body time to repair. Having osteopathy done is an expensive treatment, so you don't want to ruin what has just been corrected. You are most likely to find that first week extremely painful. I know my first week after my first session, I felt worse than when I went in. But you just have to believe you body will repair itself. When you go for your second session you will be informed that you should wake with hardly any pain, if any. This is true. When she told me I thought I was going to have another week from hell at work because of the pain. I got up the next morning and there was nothing. 

The last thing I will leave you with is, as I mentioned above it is expensive. But do not let that get in your way, because it really does help. I waited a month before I went for mine, I would never do that again. 

Have you ever had to have any osteopathy done? If so let me know in the comments how you found it. I know this is a bit of a different post but I hope that you liked it. Leave me any feedback in the comments, I love hearing from you. 

Love
Zoe x