Theo loves pirates but hates being sick, so his mom brought him to see if we could help with the chronic bronchitis he was experiencing every winter. Over the general questions we ask every patient, I noticed that he also had eczema on and off and seemed to get bloated inconsistently.
All of those symptoms could seem unrelated and irrelevant because of their irregularity, but for an Osteopathic therapist, these start to make us think. Here is why:
The body can clean itself when exposed to undesired elements from our diet or our environment. Six systems, or organs, will eliminate these elements from our body, and they are known as “emunctories”:
- The liver
- The intestines
- The kidneys
- The lungs
- The skin
Problems can occur when too much waste accumulates in these organs of elimination. They become saturated and try to pass the work to the next one. When this process is unsuccessful, it creates inflammation and chronic conditions in those organs.
For example: Theo’s intestines are regularly inflamed (he’s bloated), which weakens his immune system and can irritate the lungs (he has chronic bronchitis), which unresolved for a while can create a skin condition (he has eczema), and likely a few other linked factors (this is a simplification of the mechanism). All of the systems are then aggravating each other in a vicious cycle. The Osteopathic treatment for Theo involved some visceral Osteopathy–treatments of these organs–and helping his body to function better structurally (his spine, diaphragm….)
We could make a list of all the symptoms related to the saturation of those elimination systems from headache to low energy, bad digestion to skin problems, but I think the lesson to learn from this is that the body works as a whole: no part or system is independent from the others, and as patients, it’s important to keep in mind the unity of your body when experiencing symptoms, because that way, you will get closer to figuring out the root cause of them.
So, like Theo, you can feel better and get back to enjoying pirates again.