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You do not need a referral. If you are in fairly good health, you do not need medical clearance before scheduling an osteopathic appointment.
If you have been diagnosed with a condition or recent injury and you see a physician or nurse practitioner for regular visits, it is a good idea to ask for medical clearance to see a manual therapy practitioner. Copies of medical reports and/or diagnostic images may be helpful to inform treatment. You are welcome to bring in a copy which will be kept confidential in your file.
In your appointment, I will be motion testing different parts of the body and using palpation to assess body tissues. You will mostly be laying still, but I will ask you to take deep breaths and to gently engage certain muscles throughout the treatment. What I am doing may feel like stretching, compressing, or rocking/oscillating. At no point should the treatment be painful, although sometimes it can feel like a very deep stretch. Please let me know if you experience pain and I can adapt what I am doing. As I work through the body, I will be moving you into different positions, depending on what your body can do.
For your initial new patient appointment, you will need to fill out and return the online Health history and Consent form.
Please come to your appointment wearing comfortable, loose fitting clothes.
Please arrive early for your appointment. If you are late, you will only have the remaining time for your assessment and treatment.
When you are new to my care, the usual schedule of appointments that you can expect will be:
Once a week for 3-4 weeks
Once every other week for the next 2 months
Once every 3-4 weeks
Once every season for maintenance, if you choose to do so
Often people with recent injuries or pain improve in 3-8 sessions. For people with pain that has been an issue for a long time or people with chronic illness, it takes longer to bring about improvement. There may be initial improvement within 6-12 sessions with progressive improvements happening over a longer period of time.
The initial booking appointment is 60 minutes. You have the choice of booking a 30 minute, 45 minute or 60 minute follow up appointment. This is the time allotted for initial check in, post treatment discussion and time for payment, not just treatment time. I treat according to what your body requires, so I may recommend a particular length of time according to individual needs.
Immediately after treatment, you should take it easy. No strenuous activity. Your body needs time to process the changes made. It takes about 1-3 days for your body to integrate the treatment and adapt to the changes made. The treatment may stimulate parts of your body that have been under-performing or not keeping up on their part of things. These parts may get “cranky” and cause you to experience some muscle soreness for a few days. This is normal.
Good ways to take care of yourself after a treatment include:
Light walk, bike or swim to get general range of motion activity and circulation going
Hydrate – give your cells water!
Heat or warm bath, especially if you experience sore muscles
Sleep – be mindful of your body’s needs
Manual osteopathic practitioners who are part of recognized associations have a billing number which allows their services to be submitted to insurance companies. Please check with your benefits provider to confirm your coverage for osteopathic care. Once payment has been received after the treatment, a receipt will be emailed to you to submit for reimbursement. At this time, I do not offer direct billing. This may be an option in the future.
You can pay for services with credit card, debit, cash or e-transfer, done in the office at your appointment.
Please give more than 24 hours notice to cancel your appointment. You may be charged if you cancel within 24 hours of your scheduled appointment time.
You are responsible to pay for missed appointments. You may obtain a receipt for a missed appointment, but it is not eligible to be submitted for benefits reimbursement.
Yes! When you make an account through the osteorhythm.noterro.com booking webpage, you can sign up for appointment reminders via email and/or text message.
Examples of emergency cases include acute or chronic flare up of muscle strains or a fall that does not involve the possibility of a fracture. You can reach out to me via email at osteorhythm@gmail.com to see about scheduling last minute appointments. Leave me details about what’s going on and I will call you back when I am able. If you experience sharp, sudden or unexplained pain anywhere in the body, have had a car accident, sports injury or head trauma, please seek medical attention first to be evaluated before seeing me.
Yes! Osteopathic treatment in pregnancy can help your body adapt to the transformations occurring. Many of the common physiological challenges such as back pain, hip pain, digestive complaints, and circulatory issues can be alleviated with treatment. Osteopathy can also help to optimize the environment for baby development and positioning. The ideal time to start treatment is the second trimester.
During the postpartum period, osteopathic treatments can help to reduce musculoskeletal issues that come from adaptation to caring for baby and restore your body back to balance.
Yes! Even kids and babies develop areas of restriction and congestion in their tissues. For babies, these can contribute to reflux, gas pain, limitations in head/neck motion, and breastfeeding difficulties. For kids, osteopathy can help relieve various discomforts, alleviate soft tissue tensions that may be influencing mobility, posture and coordination as well as address musculoskeletal imbalances that may impact optimal growth and development