Your body will do everything it can to keep your eyes level. It essentially achieves this by adding spinal curves and/or shortening various muscle groups. If a joint isn't working as well as it can do (e.g. through disease, postural adaptation or injury), another joint is forced to 'work harder'. This may work well for a time but this compensatory response can cause strain to the joints and muscles throughout the body and result in pain and discomfort. Osteopaths are therefore able to use techniques to affect one part of the body by treating another part. Addressing the problems that caused the body to compensate in the first place enables it to move freely and reduce the demands placed on the other joints and muscles in the body.
If structure alters, so will function. On one hand the motion through which a joint can move is obviously governed by the shape of the joint. On the other hand in a self-regulating mechanism such as the human body, adaptation and compensation to structural changes brought about by disease, injury or posture can takes place, but always at the expense of optimum function of the nerves, organs, blood vessels etc. This affects the body’s ability to receive nourishment and get rid of waste products.
When faced with challenges and disease, this is known as homeostasis. The word homeostasis is often used to describe the complex interplay of systems and processes involved in health maintenance. The hormonal, circulatory, lymphatic, nervous and musculo-skeletal systems, all interact in the maintenance and recovery of health. All of these mechanisms will function and succeed if the odds are not too heavily stacked against the body. Sometimes the problem is just too great for the body's own mechanisms to overcome. At times like these outside help can help swing things back in favour of the body.
There is a complex circular argument as to which is the most important tissue, blood vessels or nerves. It might be argued that although the supply of blood is essential to life, the nerves that regulate the vessels govern this supply. However, for a nerve to survive it need blood to nourish it.
The osteopath's role is to treat the area/s of dysfunction in order that the body can restore and perform its own homeostatic mechanisms effectively