Osteopathy and Immune Support: Nurturing Your Health During Cold and Flu Season

As the leaves turn and the temperature drops, cold and flu season brings with it the

inevitable onslaught of coughs, sniffles, and sore throats. While this time of year can be challenging, there are numerous ways to strengthen your body's defenses against these common ailments. In this blog post, we'll explore how osteopathy, a holistic approach to healthcare, may indirectly support your immune system this winter.

Stress Reduction: A Foundation for Wellness

Chronic stress can weaken the immune system, leaving you more susceptible to infections. Osteopathic treatment can help reduce stress by easing tight joints, relaxing tense muscles and promoting a sense of well-being. A stress-free body is better equipped to fend off illnesses, making osteopathy a valuable tool for immune support.

Enhancing Circulation: Nourishing Your Immune System

Osteopathic techniques aim to improve blood circulation throughout the body. This enhanced circulation ensures that vital nutrients and immune cells are delivered efficiently and ready to combat infections. By optimizing blood flow, osteopathy contributes to a more effective immune response.

Nurturing the Lymphatic System

The lymphatic system is integral to immune function. It helps remove waste and toxins from the body while transporting immune cells to the regions that need them. Some osteopathic techniques are designed to target the lymphatic system, potentially enhancing its performance and bolstering your immune defenses.

Pain Reduction: Fostering a Stronger Immune System

Pain and discomfort can contribute to heightened stress levels thereby weakening your immune system. Osteopathy can alleviate pain associated with musculoskeletal issues, ultimately enhancing your overall well-being. With less pain to worry about, your immune system can more easily focus on its vital tasks.

Balance and Homeostasis: The Osteopathic Approach

Osteopathy is grounded in the principle of balance and homeostasis. A balanced body is believed to have a more robust immune system, ready to fight off infections and maintain overall health. The aim of every treatment is to restore harmony in your body so it can function optimally.

While the primary focus of osteopathy is on musculoskeletal health, there's growing interest in how it may indirectly support the immune system. By reducing stress, enhancing circulation, supporting the lymphatic system, and alleviating pain, osteopathy contributes to overall well-being, making your body more resilient in the face of seasonal illnesses.

It's crucial to remember that scientific evidence supporting these claims is limited, and osteopathy should not replace proven immune-boosting practices such as regular hand washing and vaccination when appropriate. It’s well known that maintaining a healthy lifestyle, including a balanced diet, regular exercise and proper sleep are also crucial.

If you're considering osteopathic treatments or have specific health concerns related to cold and flu season, book yourself in for a session at Bloom. I can provide personalized guidance to help you nurture your immune system and maintain your health throughout the year. With osteopathy on your side you can keep well, stay balanced and embrace this cold and flu season with confidence.

How Can Osteopathy Help Babies with Reflux?

Spit up is a staple in the first weeks of newborn life. It’s why you panic and rush to find a towel to throw over their shoulder when your friends wear good clothes to meet your bundle of joy. When food backs up from the throat or the stomach into the mouth it can lead to wet burping or vomiting after or between feeds. This is known as gastroesophageal reflux. As a baby’s digestive system starts to get the hang of feeding this messy business usually starts to fade, but if it happens frequently enough a baby may become constantly fussy or start to refuse to eat altogether. This can make life with baby stressful and difficult for the whole family.

There are a few things that have to go right to get what we put in our mouths from point A to B. You and I have munched on and swallowed hundreds of thousands of tasty food morsels in our lifetime. We’ve been diligently training the muscles of our digestive tract to deal with the food we put in our mouths quickly and efficiently for years. The newborn body hasn’t had nearly as much time as we have to master this process. It takes awhile to smoothly coordinate the muscles of the throat that move food from the mouth to the stomach, and when it doesn’t go as planned it can end in reflux. When food does make it beyond the throat, it relies on a valve to keep it contained in the stomach. Pressure differences between the throat and the gut play an important role in holding the stomach valve closed. The balance of these pressures is often thrown off by hungry little humans who guzzle in air when they fuel up. The southernly influence of gravity helps to keep the valve closed too, but for young babies who live a mostly horizontal life the Earth’s pull can’t always lend a hand. If the valve between the throat and the stomach is pushed open out of turn, food is more likely to back up into the mouth during this part of the process too. For all of these reasons, it’s no wonder that the digestive system can be so glitchy in the first few weeks on the job. Now imagine trying to work it all out in a body that’s tight and tense from twisting its way through pregnancy and birth. You’d be cranky too!

The good news is that most infants outgrow reflux by their first birthday. It often resolves as the the digestive tract matures and your little one spends more time upright. That being said, I wouldn’t wish a year of raising an inconsolable baby that refuses to eat on my worst enemy. Osteopathic treatment helps babies work out the kinks of feeding quicker by engaging with what we know about their anatomy and physiology. The digestive system starts in the mouth and travels through the neck, rib cage, and abdomen before making its grand finale in the pelvis. All of the parts are connected, and they rely on each other to do the job they’re designed for.

A relaxed head and neck powers the throat muscles and helps to coordinate the contractions that push food south. The balance of pressures that holds the stomach valve closed is influenced by how freely the rib cage and diaphragm move. And a smooth transition to the vertical world depends on the health of the entire system. Identifying these patterns takes us to the end of the story, but to understand where it all came from we must also look to the birth. The dance a baby performs on its way out of the pelvis gives us clues that helps piece everything together. When I see a baby with reflux I use this story to guide treatment, using light soft tissue release and gentle stretching to ease tension in the areas that need it. This holistic approach makes digestion as effortless as possible so food stays the course and keeps reflux at bay. All of this relaxation creates calming comfort in the body that translates to less fuss around meal time too. When it comes to babies reflux happens, but osteopathy is here to make life at home a little happier for everyone.

My Back is Sore. Should I Take a Break from Weight Lifting?

You finally built the ultimate home gym and found a program that you love enough to stick too. You’re feeling strong and healthy, and you’re even fitting into the ‘one day’ jeans you keep hidden away in your closet. Then you wake up one morning and notice your back is a little sore. It’s almost time for your next workout but your back is bothering you more and more. Now you’re worried. Is it safe to train? Maybe you should rest and let things heal instead. You don’t want to lose all the momentum you’ve built with your program, but you don’t want to make your back worse either.

If this story sounds all too familiar, you’re in the right place. I’m going to let you in on a little secret that I share with all of my clients when they find themselves in this exact predicament.

Drumroll please…

Ready for it?

Here it is -

Lift those weights! Pull, push, squat and lunge!

If strength training is part of your normal routine, keep doing it.

Unless your symptoms are caused by serious tissue or neurological damage, which is rare, movement and exercise are among the most effective treatments for back pain. That includes you, kettlebells.

Whether we meet virtually or in-person, determining whether or not a serious condition is causing your pain is always the first step. Your back might feel sore when you lift, but we usually find that this is a reflection of how sensitive the tissues are rather than how damaged they are. As you continue to workout they often become less and less sensitive. That means you can keep making gains and feel safe doing it (fist bump!).

So keep those ‘one day’ jeans handy because they’re not going back into storage anytime soon!