The effects of fluid flow on body composition following one treatment.
A healthy body requires normal circulation of fluids. This includes blood, lymph, and cerebrospinal fluid. This is an absolute and one of the guiding principles of osteopathy.
The fluidic vessels must deliver and remove waste products in perfect time every single second of every single day.
Any form of obstruction, compression, or stasis will lead to tissue damage.
Examples of obstruction include vertebral misalignments, cranial bone displacement, and dysfunctional peripheral joints to name a few. When a bone has moved positions, we must consider the surrounding tissues and how they will synchronistically be affected. A bone positioned outside of its normal physiology will undeniably lead to muscle guarding, spasm, and brace, which then causes more compression to surrounding vessels.
What’s The Result?
Stasis of fluids in the area and a vicious cycle of dysfunction. As pain increases in the area, so too does the guard and brace, leading to more compression, more stasis, and ultimately more pain. And we haven’t even included the nerves in this picture yet
! Over time, even just a few weeks, this leads to reduced health of the tissues and the beginning of global dysfunction as compensations begin to arise.
Fluids are life. Without blood, for example, we would cease to be. This is why we must assess and address the body as a whole and treat the primary lesions first. In order for the treatment to be effective, we need blood and CSF to reach the sites and furthermore we need effective drainage out of the site.
When we see dramatic before and afters such as this one withonly two weeks between treatments, we can rest assured we have successfully reduced obstructions thereby allowing free flow of fluids in and out of the area. A body lacking in vital fluids can look like a weight problem when in fact it is an obstructions problem. In this case, the horse suffered from multiple segments of spinal compression including severe dysfunction in the SI joint which were both treated in the one session.
This is just one example of the primary importance of assessing the whole body before applying treatment. Treat smarter not harder.