Osteopathy and fibromyalgia

What fibromyalgia is like

Fibromyalgia combines widespread pain that has lasted for months, fatigue that rest does not fix, and sleep that no longer restores. Trouble with concentration and memory often comes with it, and nobody warns you about that part although it weighs as much as the pain.

The nervous system becomes over-reactive to pain signals, something called central sensitisation. Ordinary pressure, a bag strap, a hand resting a little too firmly, register as painful. The pain is not imagined. Its mechanism is simply different from that of a sprained ankle.

Something else comes up in almost every history I hear: years spent moving from one professional to the next, repeating the same account, trying one approach and then the next, often with no lasting result and sometimes without being believed. That exhaustion adds itself to the pain, and it explains the wariness with which some people come through my door. It is warranted.

If what you need first is help rather than a practitioner, the page on fibromyalgia resources in Montréal lists the associations, the 811 line and what the public system provides.

Do I need a diagnosis before booking?

No. Many people arrive here without one, sometimes after years of tests with no answer, sometimes with a name given to them last week.

Diagnosis belongs to your physician, not to me. I make no medical diagnosis and I do not dispute one that has been made. If your situation calls for a medical opinion you have not had yet, I will say so and point you towards it.

Why gentle matters more here

The osteopathy people picture, with brisk thrusts and cracking joints, is exactly what should not happen when touch already hurts. Too much pressure wakes the system up instead of settling it, and the person leaves worse than they arrived. Many have already had that session, and it is often the reason they never went back.

My practice runs the other way. Contact stays light, the pace is yours, and every movement is announced before it happens. You can stop the session at any point without explaining yourself.

Is osteopathy a treatment for fibromyalgia?

No. Osteopathy is not a treatment for fibromyalgia, and it does not replace your medical care. It is added to it, and that is all it claims to do.

Manual work addresses what has built up around the pain:

• areas of tension in the neck, the shoulders, the pelvis;
• the mobility of the rib cage and diaphragm, often restricted when breathing turns shallow;
• comfort in specific everyday movements, the ones you name at the start of the session.

What I do not do: promise improvement, set a number of sessions in advance, or ask you to stop anything in your current treatment. Decisions about your medication and your care belong to your physician.

A session when everything is sensitive

An adapted session starts with choosing a position you can hold: on your back, on your side with cushions, seated if lying down is too uncomfortable. Breaks are part of the session, not a sign it failed.

Concretely, the work goes mostly through the fascia, the sheets of tissue that connect muscles, joints and organs. Myofascial release techniques mean slow pressure, light stretching and sustained gentle traction. I often add cranial work and a rhythmic sequence of whole-body mobilisation, two approaches that ask little of the system.

What I reduce or leave aside when touch is painful: direct articular techniques and muscle energy work, which need your active participation and demand more of you. They come back if and when your tolerance allows.

Contact stays light, and I adapt what I do to what you can take that day rather than to a protocol. The appointment runs an hour like any other.

At the end, I leave you a few pointers for the week, matched to your energy rather than to a standard programme.

Do you actually know fibromyalgia?

Fibromyalgia is the subject of my graduating thesis, currently being written at the Institut d’enseignement de l’ostéopathie du Québec. That work is not finished, and I draw no promise of results from it.

The subject also explains the time I spend listening before I put my hands anywhere. What people describe of their own experience is the most useful material I have.

My background is set out on the about page, and the other reasons for consulting on the chronic conditions page.