She was 61 and she was in considerable pain. (This is generally why people attend my clinic, to be fair.)
Her lower back, her groin, and her waterworks were all giving her pain. As well as her right knee.
Readers, you know my methods by now. And I didn’t think this was going to be an open and shut case.
I put on my deerstalker, metaphorically speaking, and listened to her story.
Aged 16, she’d fallen off her horse and broken her back in two places. (She had slight scoliosis as a result.)
When I examined her, I found that she had flat feet, her right leg was laterally rotated, and her sacrum was fixated; there was also a lot of tension in the dura - the membrane that surrounds and protects the brain and spinal cord. Her pubis was out of whack, her lumbar sacrum was restricted and so was her sacroiliac.
(As I said, not an open and shut case…)
Sometimes, things can be fixed very simply and quickly; sometimes they can’t. There was complexity here that was going to take time.
5 treatments later, her back pain had lifted, as had the pain in her groin and her right knee. I’d mobilised the ligament that keeps the bladder in place and released the tension there, so her waterworks were sorted; I’d also mobilised her sacrum and reduced the tension on her spinal cord.
We kept going, though - things still weren’t right. I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me – sometimes, I get a sense for that sort of thing.
By treatment number 8, she still had some stiffness in her lower back, but there was no further restriction: she shouldn’t still be experiencing stiffness.
Determined, I did my thing again. I don’t give up.
The issue was with her face. Yes, you read that right. HER FACE.
I used my craniosacral technique and found that her bottom jaw was grossly misaligned. And I sorted it.
She came back for the ninth time. She was totally pain-free and feeling more mobile than she’d felt in many years. There was a spring in her step and a lightness in her face that hadn’t been there before.
I revisited my patient’s jaw, and on examination, noticed that her upper jaw was further over to the left than it should have been.
When I queried this, wondering if she knew when this might have occurred, she told me that her dad had punched her in the face when she was 11 years old; her face had swollen up hugely. That was the start of years of physical abuse.
The body doesn’t forget, even if the mind and the psyche can. Trauma can lie there, quietly wreaking havoc, long after the trauma event is officially over and done with, or seems to be.
NOW she’s pain-free. Moving forwards, her best self. The way she should be.
Osteopathy. There for you, even when you’re not fully aware you need it.
Think you might benefit from a check-up?
Find me in my bright new space at 341 Barlow Moor Road, Chorlton, M21 7QH.
Call me on 0161 881 6482.
I've got you.