Medicine can be complex, and although the standard dogma of established medicine and the NHS is diagnosis first and targeted treatment afterwards, there are other ways of treating the problem as can be experienced at our osteopath in Chalfont. If a patient with an unknown condition is responsive to treatment, it is highly likely that they did have the condition which the treatment is known to resolve.
With most medical conditions, this would be inappropriate because of side effects and risks associated with treating. If everybody who reported to a GP surgery with potential cancer symptoms was simply immediately given chemotherapy, this would result in a lot of people who did not have cancer receiving a drug therapy which is highly toxic and has extremely unpleasant side effects. Therefore, any potential cancer patients are carefully screened to confirm that they have a developing tumour before engaging in such a radical treatment with harsh side effects.
When treatment is non-invasive, with little or no side effects there is a much greater willingness to use treatment as a diagnostic tool, you can even see this during GP consultations where vitamin deficiencies will be treated rather than tested for, based on the correlation of symptoms. Performing blood work in order to test for a vitamin C deficiency rather than simply immediately taking a vitamin C supplement is considered unnecessary in terms of cost and a delay in receiving care. If vitamin C consumption held a risk to any subgroup of patients or was particularly costly this option would not be pursued. Manual lymphatic drainage, due to its non-invasive nature, is suitable for use in differential diagnostics for the symptoms of chronic fatigue.
Manual lymphatic drainage at our osteopath in Chalfont is a valid implementation of CSF drainage techniques. In the event that the techniques are ineffective at relieving symptoms, they still provide a benefit for the patient, in eliminating one potential cause of their symptoms, allowing diagnostics to continue to attempt to find the cause of their ailment.
First to do no harm
Probably the most famous line of the Hippocratic oath ‘first to do no harm’- this has always been a big part of osteopathy and is particularly important to manual lymphatic drainage. The firm but gentle manipulations of lymphatic vessels of the cervical region which are central to the perrin technique are non-invasive and have been shown repeatedly in studies to not be harmful to any patient group including pregnant and high-risk individuals.
If you have any further questions about manual lymphatic drainage, wish to try out for yourself or would like to make some enquiries on behalf of family members feel free to get in contact with our osteopath in Chalfont. We are happy to receive patients with no prior diagnosis and pride ourselves on having an open minded perspective on patient care. We aim to reduce the barriers to receiving care and ensuring that as many people as possible can enjoy the benefits of manual lymphatic drainage.
If you do have a diagnosis of fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome, we have a substantial track record in helping people with these conditions manage the symptoms and can help to get back to your everyday life. We hope to hear from you soon.