In the last couple of months, we have been thinking a lot about what therapies are complementary with Osteopathy–therapies with a holistic approach to the body, looking for the cause of the symptoms in order to bring your body back to a healthier state.
In Osteopathy school, we take a look at Traditional Chinese Medicine and learn how the different systems of the body are all related. TCM is excellent at making sense of how the body tries to adapt and keep you as healthy and pain-free as possible. We often mention details about this during treatments and talk about how we think it could be related to your discomfort.
TCM has developed it’s own tools over centuries to understand the causes of disease, to diagnose, and to understand physiology (how your body functions). For example: TCM Doctors don’t consider organs such as the heart, the lungs, the colon to be separate entities; instead, they are concerned with the delicate functional influences between these organs. These Doctors understand the link between organs and the rest of the body, the need for balanced machinery, and how the failure of one of these organs will influence the others. The main idea is to maintain the body in a state of health, not to cure specific diseases when their symptoms arise.
In particular, Traditional Chinese Medicine brings a level of expertise to treating hormonal imbalances, as well as supporting people who are experiencing low energy levels, and in helping people with depression.
Osteopathic Manual Therapists use Traditional Chinese Medicine as a diagnostic tool, but they do not understand it the way a Doctor trained in its use does. This is why we so excited to welcome Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctor Cheryl Lee to the Healthy By Nature team.