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In treating a patient, Bob generally uses both Oriental medicine and American osteopathic techniques. He has found they work better together than individually. The manual techniques and philosophy behind osteopathy are natural partners to Oriental medicine. At the same time, Oriental medicine works on very different principles from Western medicine.
Oriental Medicine has been practiced throughout Asia and especially China for some 2,500 years, effectively treating both acute and chronic health conditions. Western minds may have trouble grasping how Oriental medicine works since we are so used to how our doctors typically approach a health problem. In some ways, however, the principles of Oriental medicine aren't so foreign to our thinking. Western medicine sees disease and injury in terms of infection or damaged tissues, while Oriental medicine sees the same condition in terms of balance. We may not be accustomed to seeing our bodies in those terms, but balance is universally understood.
The forces of nature in balance
We are all aware of what nature looks like when it's in balance and when it's not. For example, think of a drought, when our environment is too dry. The ground becomes rock hard and crops start dying from a lack of moisture in the soil. When we get too much rain, other problems are created. With everything so wet, seeds rot instead of sprouting, or crops mold and are ruined. In a balanced situation, we have short, regular rains, plenty of sunshine, and everything is lush. The very same thinking is applied in Chinese medicine. Looking at the body's organs, a practitioner will detect too much moisture, too much dryness, too much heat or too much cold. Just as in nature, these conditions create health problems.
As another example, think of a car which needs a front end alignment. What is happening to that car as it hurtles down the highway? The tires wear unevenly, the frame shakes. Maybe the car pulls to one side. Gradually, the car is being damaged by its lack of balance. Similarly, a body which has been injured through a fall or other accident may now be unbalanced. This lack of balance will gradually make itself felt throughout the body.
Techniques to restore balance
After assessing the body, the practitioner goes about restoring balance to the body through the use of various therapies. These may be used alone or in combination. Among therapies that may come into use are: Acupuncture, bodywork, herbology and dietary changes. Bob decides on a customized course of treatment based on the individual situation, his goal being to restore a natural balance of forces. When the body has regained balance, the symptoms produced by the imbalance begin to clear up. Patients sometimes notice a change right away -- from the moment they get off the treatment table -- and sometimes not for days or weeks. But like any medicine, the treatment is "circulating" in the body and its effects begin to be felt as balance is restored.
Ancient history counts!
When a patient comes in for treatment, the first thing Bob Clickner will do is take a detailed history of illnesses and injuries. Even something that happened long ago may be playing a major role in a person's health today. Bob explains, "I address the current complaint by gathering a detailed injury and surgical history going back to childhood. I then treat to give the body a chance to let go of holding patterns and tissue memories from these injuries that are limiting natural movement and structural tone. This usually improves or resolves the original complaint and other issues as well." Bodywork is usually Bob's tool of choice for resolving structural complaints. If he feels that a person's constitution is weak, however, he will often include acupuncture and herbs to strengthen it. Strengthening, or "tonifying" the body, allows it to heal more quickly than if he used bodywork on its own. |
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Sleuthing as a team
Sometimes in chronic cases the answers come easily, and sometimes not. A patient may not come away from a consultation with a solution or a clear understanding of what the underlying problem may be. Instead, he or she may leave with a set of diet recommendations, a detoxification program, and/or an herbal protocol to follow. Bob does his best to explain his theories on why he'd like to try an approach. The patient is encouraged to follow through as diligently as possible with this "homework" and then return for a follow-up at which point Bob and the patient, as a team, decide if the approach is working or needs to be modified.
Using the concept of "The Primary Lesion"
In osteopathic medicine, there is a concept known as "the primary lesion". What this means is that there is one problem underlying all others, and if it is treated the other problems will disappear and not return. For instance, a patient may have a problem with his knee that many people have tried to treat but the pain always comes back. That means no one has treated the primary lesion. Maybe this patient finally sees a practioner who discovers that the patient long ago fell hard on his tailbone. The practitioner treats this old injury and the knee pain vanishes, never to return.
Bob Clickner always tries to find your deepest health problems and treat those, not just the area of the body that is speaking up. If he finds and treats those deepest issues, the problems you are coming in for will most likely clear up for good. If those problems persist, Bob will assume he has not yet found the deepest problem -- the primary lesion -- and keep looking. But the bottom line is this: treatment should resolve or at least significantly reduce the problem you're coming in for without constant maintenance.
Your "Bowstring": the missing key?
Another concept Bob borrows from the osteopathic tradition is the "bowstring theory", which visualizes the back or the body as a bow and the front as a bowstring. The bow is controlled by the bowstring -- when the bowstring is pulled, the bow bends, and when it is released the bow relaxes back into its original curve. The bowstring theory maintains that any change to the soft tissues of the body (the throat, chest muscles, abdomen) affects the back (head, neck, shoulders, spine). When a body has been stressed, for example during a car accident or from years of tension, the tissues of the front of the body (the bowstring) will spasm and assume a shortened attitude. They pull on the skeletal structure (the bow) and sooner or later begin to cause changes to it, often accompanied by restricted movement and pain.
A back, neck or shoulder problem might be treated repeatedly with short term relief achieved, but the problem usually does not lie in the region being treated -- it lies in the bowstring, the tissues of the front of the body, which were traumatized during the injury. Treatment relaxes the affected tissues, allowing them to stop spasming and pulling the skeleton out of alignment. Once the bowstring is addressed, the skeletal problems a patient is experiencing finally have a chance to truly resolve. Treating the bowstring is a simple yet little known solution to many musculoskeletal problems.
Making Treatment Work for You
Bob wants your experience to be a positive and successful one. Please feel free to ask all the questions you have and discuss elements of your treatment. Share your hunches, intuition, hesitations and preferences. Bob tries to offer patients a lot of options and ideas so they can choose what fits them best, since patients often instinctively know what they need, better than anyone else. Offering acupuncture, bodywork, herbology and dietary recommendations in Charlottesville, Virginia.
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