In short, the answer is yes. Dr. Lopez practices osteopathy and applies its body-wide principles to the head if it is applicable. However, Dr. Lopez treats the whole body from head to toe and does not limit himself to any particular body part or region. The term “cranial osteopath” is often used by the public to differentiate osteopathic practitioners who work on the head from practitioners who do not. Note that osteopathic physicians who extend osteopathic principles to the head do not necessarily refer to themselves as “cranial osteopaths” as much as they would refer to themselves as “spine osteopaths” or “shoulder osteopaths.” Cranial treatments are used to help alleviate headaches, neck pain, back pain, sinus congestion, and many other problems.

How Should I Feel After OMT?

Many patients want to know how they should expect to feel after they have had osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT). This is a difficult question to answer because everyone comes in with different problems and different body types. In this article I will describe the most common ways people feel immediately after and a day or two after OMT from Dr. Lopez. Every osteopathic practitioner has different styles so responses vary.

Immediately after a treatment, there is also a wide range of ways people can feel from “no change” to “completely better.”The most common responses that patients describe after OMT is feeling “light,” “floating,” “relaxed,” “limber,” “open,” and other similar feelings. This is a result of a powerful endorphin release that has taken place when the appropriate pains and tensions have been released.  Patients should not drive immediately after feeling like this. Other times, patients feel a significant improvement in their pain if they did not get full resolution immediately after OMT. Rarely, patients will not feel different or only a small change. The reasons for this can vary but if a patient does not have any response after a few visits, then it may warrant further workup.

It is a normal response for patients to experience things still “shifting and changing” for several days after osteopathic manipulative treatment. Generally, the OMT works by starting the healing process in the body and then the treatment may continue to work for several days or even weeks after the visit. Therefore, sometimes those who did not experience a significant change immediately after the OMT, experience a delayed response. In addition, it can also be a normal response to experience soreness ranging from mild to intense for a day or two after the visit. Although most patients do not describe it, soreness is common as the body adapts and adjusts to the changes that have taken place. Even a “flare up” of symptoms can be a normal experience although this is not very common, it does happen after OMT. I believe this type of response is more common with aggressive treatments involving thrusting, which I generally do not use.

I generally advise my patients to drink a lot of water for the next 24 hours after OMT to ensure that the body is properly hydrated. This may enhance the body’s ability to “flush out” any toxins released and may help prevent the soreness experienced after OMT. It is important to allow your body to fully assimilate the changes that have taken place after OMT. Your osteopathic practitioner may recommend returning in a week or two, on average, to give your body enough time for the OMT to finish doing its work. If you experience any adverse effects from the treatment, please let your osteopathic practitioner. They can help determine what the next course of action should be.

“Dr Lopez relieved the pain and tension in my neck with just a couple treatments. I had been experiencing tightness in my upper shoulders for years and after just a couple treatments with him that tension had reduced drastically. He also showed me techniques I could do myself to help if I was unable to see him. I highly recommend him to anyone suffering from any types of chronic pain.” Ugochi A. 

Perhaps you are happy treating your pain with whatever treatment method you are doing now. You may be completely happy with your chiropractor, massage therapist, or other bodyworker for your pain relief. Regardless of what you are doing, you should feel like you are improving. Are you getting the same exact treatment each and every time you go to your practitioner with nothing changing overall? Are you waiting for something to change suddenly from getting the same exact treatment? Is this not the definition of “insanity”? Maybe you feel that is the best that can be done for you. Maybe you feel temporary relief is the best there is, but there is more.

Is osteopathic manipulative medicine right for you?

With osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT), each treatment is customized not just from person to person but also from visit to visit. If a treatment is not working, then this means the underlying cause is not being addressed. Osteopathic manipulative treatment should involve evaluating and treating structures that others do not consider or even sometimes know exist to get to the underlying cause. Osteopathic physicians study living dynamic anatomy with their hands every day. They should understand the body better than any other type of practitioner there is. Appropriately performed osteopathic manipulative treatment is used to treat all the tissues of the body from muscles, organs, ligaments, tendons, nerves, joints, bones and more. If you want to experience long lasting pain relief and improved health, then you should try OMT. You would be insane not to.

Want to try osteopathy? Call (212) 226-6264 or schedule your appointment online to try OMT

The short answer is “no.” Osteopathic physicians that perform osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) work on every tissue in the body (fascia, viscera, muscles, ligaments, tendons, bones, cartilage, etc…). Sometimes people have the misperception that osteopathic physicians specialize and treat only bones or bone pain. This is likely due to the name “osteopath” but it is an incorrect assumption. Osteopathic physicians use a holistic approach and consider all the tissues of the body beyond the bones.

People come in to see osteopathic practitioners for many problems beyond pain. Osteopathic manipulative treatment is used to enhance and maximize health. Read what can be treated and helped by an osteopathic physician here.

Osteopathic physicians generally have a reputation for being “more holistic” than allopathic physicians. An allopathic physician once told me that they do comprehensive physical exams too so that they too are “holistic.” The understanding that osteopathic physicians are more “holistic” because they perform a more detailed physical exam is inaccurate. The truth is most osteopathic physicians are not necessarily more “holistic” in their approach or do more physical exams. What makes an osteopathic physician “holistic” is their putting into practice osteopathic principles. An osteopathic physician who does not do this is not necessarily more holistic than an allopathic physician.

The second osteopathic principle states that “the body is a unit with health comprising of mind, body, and spirit.” What this principle is saying is that the body functions as one unit. So that means that parts in the body do not function in isolation to the others. Therefore if one affects one part of the body, one affects the “whole” part of the body. There are many who believe this concept philosophically, but osteopathic physicians put this concept into practice regularly if they apply osteopathic principles. An example of this is someone who has low back pain. Upon doing a comprehensive musculoskeletal exam, one could use those clues to determine where the underlying cause of this low back pain may be. Sometimes, the problem will be in the low back but more often than not, it’s elsewhere. The pain could be from a dural strain in the head, visceral strain, or a dysfunction in a little toe. The job of the doctor is to address the underlying problem, even if it is not a structural. The osteopathic physician who is more “holistic” than their allopathic counterpart is the one who studies the human body and has come to understand some of the relationships of the seemingly unrelated parts of the body.