We have all experienced it: we go to the doctor with back complaints, she diagnoses the problem, gives us some medical advice on what activities to avoid, along with a prescription for painkillers. We take the painkillers, follow the advice, and after some time the problem disappears. Or so we think. Two months later, our back gives way again as we attempt to lift some heavy luggage, and are forced to launch ourselves in the vicious doctor-drugs-advice cycle all over again.

Getting rid of a physical injury can often be an uphill battle, unless you can find a way to eradicate the problem entirely. Osteopaths are effective in not only fighting the battle, but winning the war. The fundamental difference between a General Practitioner and a Osteopathic Doctor is that GPs merely treat the symptoms of an ailments, whereas osteopaths will look at the whole body in attempt to cure the cause of the problem. There are many other ways to distinguish an osteopath from a medical doctor:

1. Osteopaths are much more specialized that your local doctor. Since they have had special training in the musculoskeletal system, they are much more knowledgeable about how one part of the body can influence another. This gives then a diagnostic as well as therapeutic advantage over medical doctors, who simply have a general background knowledge in human anatomy.

2. Osteopaths also undergo something referred to as Osteopathic Manipulative Training (OMT). This is a special diagnosis technique using one’s hands. This technique stimulates the blood to flow to the target areas, serving as a much more natural way of diagnosing a disease.

3. Osteopaths also use their hands to manipulate the muscles in your body to cure the problem (not only to diagnose). Where Medical doctors will use recommend rest and prescribe anti-inflammatory medication, Osteopaths employ a much more natural approach. By loosening up muscle tensions and stimulating blood flow, they encourage the body to engage in its own healing processes, leading to the elimination of the problem entirely.

4. Osteopaths looks at history of the problem, while doctors deal with the symptoms at hand. If a patient has a problem with his knee, for instance, a medical doctor would take a patient’s history through means of laboratory-type procedure, such as blood tests and other physical examinations. An osteopath would acquire this same history by asking the patient whether the knee joints were stiff in the past, whether the pain becomes worse when the leg is placed in a different position, or if increase activity had worsened the problem in the past. By delving into a patient’s history, osteopathic doctors attempt to discover the root of the problem, and proceed to tackle it at the source.

The benefits of osteopathy are therefore numerous, but do they override the advantages of visiting your local GP? That is for you to decide. Depending on the nature of your ailment, you might even want to see both. The primary question you have to ask yourself whether your physical problem is a reoccurring one, and whether you want to treat the symptoms, or cure the disease.