I visited Dr. Joe today hoping that he would read my MRI report and give me a road map to healing. Joe is a doctor of Osteopathy and he also practices yoga and acupuncture – making him an expert in Eastern and Western thinking.
Osteopathic Medicine is the science of dealing with natural forces in the body. This practice emphasizes that healing comes from within and that the role of the physician is to work with these natural forces using hands-on manipulation to restore structural balance where it has gone wonky.
Dr. Joe studied the MRI of my ruptured disk and whistled softly… wow that’s a big bad one. He compared my disk to the obligatory jelly donut and recounted at least two inspirational stories of patients who recovered miraculously from even uglier disk profiles. Nothing new so far, I muttered.
His probing fingers quickly discovered that my left SI joint was not as mobile as my right one and he was convinced that it may be contributing to the pain along with the dreaded L1/S5 disk. This confirmed my original suspicion and I started to pay attention. This guy is using his touch and instincts not just the MRI.
When I recounted that my spinal specialist ruled out the SI joint as the culprit because it didn’t show in the MRI, Dr. Joe chuckled and said: “let’s treat you not your MRI”. I really liked that idea.
After the information download, Dr. Joe had me lie on his massage table and started the hand-on manipulation part of the program. He placed his hand strategically under the rusty SI joint and started to talk to my wife Elizabeth across the table for what seemed to be an eternity, and at nearly $4/minute I was getting fidgety. After more minutes of nothing, he announced that he was done. Man that was some subtle shit.
The next day while on the yoga mat I was able to touch my toes for the first time in 3 months. The improvement was dramatic. I simply refused to believe that Dr. Joe’s invisible doings were responsible for the minor miracle. But I had to smile; maybe I will go back for the $5/minute follow up.