Fortunately, an osteopath regularly receives expressions of gratitude. This is pleasant for the patient, but also for the osteopath. A positive outcome of a treatment increases the likelihood that the patient will recommend the practice and bring our work to the attention of others.
I will always respond to a word of thanks with a compliment to the patient. To be honest, an osteopath merely initiates a recovery process, but the patient still performs the actual healing from within. Of course, the circumstances must be favorable for this. The patient must be open to our approach, pay attention to proper nutrition and balanced exercise, monitor their body weight, and preferably avoid certain negative factors, such as excessive smoking, alcohol consumption, and drugs.
Subsequently, a patient almost always asks how long the complaint will stay away. My answer is usually: “With a bit of luck, forever.” Once the body has made progress, it will try to maintain it, because that situation is more favorable to the body and closer to how humans were originally intended to be. However, something may cross our path again that causes the body to relapse. For example, a new blow or fall on the head, food poisoning, or a lung infection.
The following incident demonstrates that this is indeed how it works.
On February 26, I saw a 16-year-old girl with a complaint that had existed for three years. That is a different story, but her mother told me that the complaint for which she had visited at the age of seven had remained absent ever since. At that time, it concerned a chronic cough resulting from a trachea affected by fungi.
After three treatments back then, she already showed a clear recovery. It was only three years later that the complaint flared up once more, after she had contracted another fungal infection in a poorly ventilated holiday cottage. After two more treatments, the symptoms disappeared again.
As mentioned: sometimes you need a little luck. Hopefully, she will now get back on track quickly as well.
