"Straighten the Stomach": Who are osteopaths and how can they harm
IN THE LAST SEVERAL YEARS, IT IS EVEN MORE FREQUENTLY HEARED TO RECOMMENDATIONS turn to an osteopath — not only for correcting posture or treating back pain, but also with almost any other problem. There are legends that osteopathy treats diseases of the stomach and intestines, eliminates allergies and "improves" the immune system. The "specialists" themselves tell patients about the worldwide conspiracy of pharmaceutical companies and that they do not teach osteopathy in medical schools specifically to make people more sick. Toxicologist and medical journalist Alexei Vodovozov figured out where osteopathy came from and how it could be dangerous.
Mark Twain recommends
Osteopathy, if based on the definition of the Russian Osteopathic Association, is "a holistic manual medical system for preventing, diagnosing, treating and rehabilitating the effects of somatic dysfunctions, resulting in impaired health, aimed at restoring the body's natural abilities for self-correction." Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to give up on the osteopaths hand and say - do not pay attention, this is just another variation on the topic of alternative medicine. The fact is that, in accordance with the order of the Ministry of Healthcare number 700n dated 10/07/2015, osteopathy is a legal medical specialty. And if homeopathy or bioresonance diagnostics can be safely called alternative, osteopathy is already quite official. True, she didn’t become more scientific.
Osteopaths claim that any pathology in the human body is due to some kind of dysfunction, consisting of three components: biomechanical, rhythmogenic and neural. With the existence of neural scientific medicine more or less agrees: in various diseases, the control, or regulation, of certain processes of the nervous system can indeed be violated. But the other two components are the wonders of parallel universes. Based on the osteopathic theory, in any dysfunction, there is a violation of compliance and balance of human body tissues (biomechanical component) and a violation of the production and transmission of some internal rhythms, about which nothing is known to evidence-based medicine (this is a rhythmogenic component). And if this composite dysfunction is corrected, the disease will recede; for example, you can "set" the stomach or make it more symmetrical than the bones of the skull, restoring the "micromotion of the brain."
"Orthodox" doctors practiced bloodletting and mercury treatment in the 19th century, which sometimes caused more harm to patients than the disease itself, so alternative people had rather strong positions
The osteopathic theory has a very specific author - the American physician Andrew Taylor Still - and the specific date of birth is 1874. It is noteworthy that at about the same time another inventor and dreamer - Daniel David Palmer - came up with chiropractic, and, according to their followers, these two trends should by no means be confused with each other. Although there is a lot in common - absolutely the same unscientific basis, only chiropractors still talk about some kind of innate intelligence, the flow of which can be interfered with by subluxation of the vertebrae, which should be fairly intensively repositioned.
Creator of osteopathy, Still was a doctor, a surgeon, and one of the founders of a private university that was quite well-known in the USA and affiliated with the United Methodist Church, Baker University. At the same time, he adhered to the idea that, in order to restore health, no intervention by a doctor is required - it is enough to help the body restore the “imbalance”, and he will do the rest. Within this paradigm, there were homeopaths, hydropaths, Thomsonians, and other alternatives of the 19th century. The “Orthodox” doctors of that time practiced bloodletting and mercury treatment, which sometimes caused more harm to patients than the disease itself, so alternative people had strong enough positions - if the patient was given homeopathic medicines or “treated” by osteopathy, the main help would be in the absence of additional harm. From the side it may look like an effective method of healing - without mercury, laxatives, opium and bloodletting.
Still had personal motives — his wife and three daughters died of meningitis; die of this disease in our days, and the XIX century medicine could not do anything. But he considered that it was necessary to create a new medicine that would be better and more effective. It is known that anatomy (that is, the structure of the body and each individual organ) and physiology (functions and processes) are interrelated: each part of the body is designed in such a way as to best perform a specific task. And Still decided that since the structure and function are interconnected, then quite light and unobtrusive external influences on the structure of the body, primarily on the musculoskeletal system (hence the "osteo", that is, the "bone" in the name), to transfer information to the internal organs , "commands" to restore impaired functions. In 1892, the first osteopathic school appeared, in which they began to train specialists of the "new medicine", in the same year Stell's fundamental work "Philosophy and Mechanical Principles of Osteopathy" was published.
Mark Twain, in 1909, speaking at the New York State Assembly, directly accused the doctors of simply being afraid that osteopaths, "really healing people," would simply destroy the business of "orthodox" medicine
Osteopathy met with organized and bitter resistance from the US medical community. The American Medical Association defined this course as a cult, and the ethical code of the association implied that a normal doctor could not voluntarily communicate with an osteopath. The effect was reversed, "oppressed and persecuted by official medicine" alternatives quickly gained bonus points.
Many politicians, public figures and famous personalities, such as writer Mark Twain, helped them with this. He believed in the effectiveness of the new technique, when the osteopath seemed to alleviate the symptoms of epilepsy of his daughter Jean, as well as the symptoms of chronic bronchitis of Twain himself. The argument "and it helped me" in the mouth of an outstanding man and a recognized master of the word sounded extremely convincing.
“Asking a doctor’s opinion on osteopathy is like asking Satan about Christianity,” Mark Twain quipped in 1901, and in 1909, speaking at the New York State Assembly, he directly accused the doctors of simply being afraid, that osteopaths, "really healing people," will simply destroy the business of "orthodox" medicine, which can do nothing except interfere with everything new. Familiar rhetoric - literally last year we observed it in Russia, when a memorandum on pseudoscience of homeopathy was issued.
Masseur with a fake price tag
The American Medical Association struggled for a long time with osteopathy, but in the end it took the path of "you can not win - lead", allowing the osteopaths to become real doctors and recognizing the osteopathic schools as medical. Instead, the osteopaths managed to load all the responsibility for the patients - as it should be for licensed doctors. As a result, since the sixties, osteopaths in the United States have become family doctors, practicing some manual techniques.
This approach has gained momentum. Under the slogan “do what you want, but bear medical responsibility for the consequences of your actions”, osteopathy was legalized in 1993 in Great Britain, later in Canada, in France, Belgium, Germany, Australia, Switzerland, New Zealand, Portugal, Egypt and India. In all countries where osteopathy became official, approximately the same picture was observed: a part of osteopaths gradually moved to scientific rails, concentrating on various relaxation techniques, rehabilitation after injuries, and work with contractures (restriction of joint movements). In this case, they turned out to be veiled from the legal side - recommendations and guidelines, which were previously actively used by specialists of physical therapy, massage, sports medicine and other related specialties.
In fact, in a randomized controlled trial, osteopathic manipulations were not only ineffective, but also reduced the effectiveness of rehabilitation.
Briefly, one osteopath described the essence of the move: "A manual therapist is a massage therapist with a price tag lifted. An osteopath is a manual therapist with a price tag lifted." That is, a part of osteopathic adherents successfully merged with mainstream medicine, leaving only an attractive facade for particularly impressionable patients, for which they are ready to pay extra. An advantage of this approach is the presence of a medical education in an osteopath and the opportunity, if anything, to ask him through court as an ordinary doctor.
In the USSR, osteopaths began active work during the period of perestroika. The starting point is the lecture of the famous American osteopath Viola Freiman at the Turner Research Institute of Orthopedics and Traumatology in Leningrad in 1988. The author of this material was present at it - everything was stated very “tasty”, harmoniously and logically, and some Soviet doctors, not spoiled by alternative education, caught fire in the new idea, went to the USA to gain experience. The fact that in 1992, Frayman was accused of misbehaving for negligent and unprofessional treatment of a patient as a week-old baby, was of little interest to anyone: the seeds of weeds that fell on fertile soil began to boil over. As a result, by 1994, the first Russian non-state osteopathic school was established in St. Petersburg, in 2003 the Ministry of Health officially recognized osteopathy as a treatment method, in 2012, the documentation of the specialty began, which ended three years ago.
What is your evidence
As with any alternative method, even if legalized, osteopathy has major problems with an evidence base. The authors of one of the few scientific reviews on this topic concluded that "there is no clinically significant difference between osteopathic and other interventions to reduce pain and improve function in patients with chronic lower back pain." If we analyze the results of studies in which the effectiveness of osteopathic manipulations was shown, numerous design violations, errors in statistical processing of the results, or simply a misinterpretation of the data obtained are necessarily found. In one of the analyzes, it turned out that in a randomized controlled study, osteopathic manipulations were not only ineffective, but also reduced the effectiveness of rehabilitation, although the authors, of course, argued the opposite.
And even convinced osteopaths are increasingly saying that they lack well-conducted research. Otherwise, osteopaths are at risk of getting stuck in the wheels of history - after all, scientific medicine continues to evolve at an impressive pace.
There are contraindications
Hurt osteopathy, of course, can also. Directly, it is unlikely that the osteopaths are still not chiropractic chiropractors who are ready to “adjust” the vertebrae and twist the patient's head so that the vertebral artery is damaged and the stroke develops. Fortunately, osteopaths act much more cautiously - perhaps that is why they were legalized, and not chiropractors. And legalization, in turn, led to the fact that osteopaths got rid of the statement about the absence of contraindications. Previously, it was "possible for everyone without exceptions," now - "there are a lot of contraindications."
For example, the official website of the Russian Osteopathic Association provides an impressive list of contraindications: these are various infections, fever, diseases of the skin, blood, heart and lungs, benign and malignant tumors, and much more. A separate line refers to acute and subacute inflammatory diseases of the brain and spinal cord and its membranes - myelitis, meningitis, and others, which is especially interesting in the context of the birth of osteopathy as a method of miraculous healing, including meningitis.
If you want to contact an osteopath, first make sure that it is not contraindicated for you. Also ask about the presence of all the necessary documents such as a diploma and license. And, of course, keep in mind that there will be no miracles.
Mediated damage from osteopathy, as is usually the case in such cases, can be inflicted in two ways. The first is the diagnosis of a non-existent disease and its treatment for a considerable amount of money. A characteristic sign of a “divorce” can be considered the words of an osteopath about the need to correct a certain internal organ, correct the symmetry of the bones of the skull, restore some craniosacral rhythm. The second is a waste of time with a real-life disease, when the help of a specialist is needed. This mainly concerns diseases from the list of contraindications - if the osteopath does not bother to inform the patient about it.
If you have a burning desire to turn to an osteopath, first make sure that this is not contraindicated for you. Also ask about the presence of all the necessary documents such as a diploma and license. And, of course, keep in mind that there will be no miracles - you just can be helped to relax. If this is exactly what you need, you can turn to an osteopath, and in all other cases it is better to start with specialists with a more scientific background.
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