What to expect during an osteopathic session
A comprehensive and individualized approach to assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of musculoskeletal conditions
Initial Assessment
Your first osteopathic session begins with a comprehensive assessment of your medical history, including any past injuries, surgeries, or current health concerns. Your practitioner will take the time to discuss your symptoms, lifestyle, and possible contributing factors to fully understand your needs. A detailed physical evaluation, including posture, range of motion, and tissue quality helps identify areas of tension, dysfunction, or restriction that may be affecting your overall well-being.
Personalized Hands-On Treatment
Osteopathic care uses a range of gentle manual techniques to improve mobility, reduce pain, and restore balance throughout the body. Depending on your specific condition, your practitioner may use soft tissue techniques, joint mobilization, stretching, craniosacral or visceral approaches, and gentle adjustments of the spine or other joints. Each treatment is individually tailored and adapted as your body responds to care.
Education and Self-Care Guidance
A key part of osteopathic care is helping you understand your condition and take an active role in your recovery. You’ll receive practical guidance on home care strategies — such as exercises, stretching routines, ergonomic adjustments, and lifestyle modifications. Your practitioner may also offer personalized advice on posture, nutrition, and stress management to support long-term health and prevent future discomfort.
Follow-Up and Collaborative Care
Depending on your progress, your practitioner may recommend follow-up sessions to monitor improvement and fine-tune your treatment plan. When appropriate, they may collaborate with other healthcare professionals — such as physicians, physiotherapists, or registered massage therapists, to ensure you receive well-coordinated and comprehensive care.
A Holistic Approach to Health
At our Downtown Vancouver osteopathy clinic, we view health as the balance of body, mind, and environment. Treatment goes beyond relieving physical symptoms, it aims to address emotional and lifestyle factors that may influence your well-being. Our goal is to support your overall health and empower you to feel your best in daily life.
Uncovering the Backbone of Osteopathy
Unheard Perspectives, Unmatched Insights :
In Osteopathy, you can find manual practitioners using different kind of approaches:
Structural: action direct on the structure we work on through high velocity low amplitude joint techniques HVLA, Muscular Energy Technique, Strain- Conterstrain…Historically, British osteopaths are well trained on these techniques.
Functional /Tissular: refers to indirect techniques on soft tissus, connective tissus Which can be associated with Cranio sacral system (membranes and cerebrospinal fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord) and the Visceral (addresses restrictions of mobility and motility of organs, adhesions of scar tissus). French Osteopathic Practitioners have a huge background on these techniques as Canadians and Brazilians Manual Practitioners in Osteopathy.
Evidence based Practice : The evidence for effectiveness of manual therapies is growing and becoming more robust. There is moderate and strong evidence for pain relief and improving function for low back, neck, shoulder disorders and headaches. Australian, New Zealander and Swiss osteopaths are focusing on this aspect.
In the US, the physicians trained in Osteopathy are called Osteopaths. In Canada, Osteopaths are the doctors trained in the US. The therapists graduated with a Masters are called Manual Practitioner in Osteopathy from Canadian perspectives in order to ensure the reliability of the profession while attempting to regulate the profession.
I personally navigate in between all these approaches in order to get the most accurate treatment depending on your condition.
External ressources:
Fasciae:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-E42_OCCGY
What to expect after an osteopathic session and the rebound effect
Discovering the Effects: Post-Osteopathic Session Insights
After an osteopathic session, you may experience a range of immediate and delayed effects as your body responds to treatment. Manipulations may cause inflammation, which serves as a foundation for healing the tissues. Here's what you might expect:
The goal of an osteopathic practitioner is to scan your body for areas of tension, fixations, and loss of mobility. Once these areas are located, your osteopath corrects these lesions using various techniques.
Osteopathy does not aim to mask a symptom by treating only the area of pain; instead, it seeks to restore overall mobility so that the body can use its self-healing function to return to its optimal health state and balance. In essence, we can say that the osteopath aims to release key areas to enable the body to free itself. In other words, after the osteopathic practitioner's work, it is your body's turn to work!
Generally, at the end of an osteopathy session, patients feel relief, liberation, or a sense of lightness, improved mobility, reduced pain, emotional shifts. However, it is possible that they may later experience side effects such as a resurgence of pain, muscle tension (similar to soreness), fatigue. This is known as the rebound effect, which corresponds to the effort your body makes to regain its health state.
The effects of osteopathic treatment may continue to unfold in the days following the session as your body continues to respond and adapt. You may notice further improvements in mobility, pain relief, and overall well-being over time.
Your osteopathic practitioner may provide recommendations for self-care practices to support your ongoing recovery and optimize the benefits of treatment while managing the pain. This may include exercises, stretches, lifestyle modifications, ergonomic adjustments, or other strategies to promote healing and prevent recurrence of symptoms. It's important to communicate any unusual or concerning symptoms with your osteopathic practitioner, as well as to follow any post-treatment instructions provided. If you experience persistent or severe discomfort after an osteopathic session, it's advisable to contact your osteopathic practitioner for guidance and follow-up care.
