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What to Expect During Your First D.O. Appointment

Visiting a D.O. (doctor of osteopathic medicine) is a bit different from what you might be accustomed to. Sure, you know that she or he is a medical doctor with all the credentials, accreditations, and degrees as an M.D., but there is still a bit of that alternative medicine flair that seems to surround this practitioner. It might put your ill at ease when it comes to visiting the D.O. for the very first time.

Knowing what to expect during your first D.O. appointment is a great way of taking the nervousness out of the encounter and also preparing yourself for what lies ahead. In addition to the foregoing, by being more at ease, you are actually going to help your osteopathic practitioner with getting to know you, finding out information about you, and even learning from the way you carry yourself whether or not there might be some medical issues that you are not even aware of.

First of, it is important to clear your schedule for the D.O. appointment. The average appointment lasts about 30 to 45 minutes, which is a far cry from the 10 to 15 minutes an M.D. will spend with you. Additionally, when you add the time spent in the waiting room - just like M.D.s, some D.O.s run further behind than others - you might find that this appointment could take up a couple of hours of your time.

Secondly, keep in mind that the treatment with an osteopath is not accomplished in one setting. Instead, there will most likely be multiple treatments, spaced days or even weeks apart. Since the D.O. uses the hands-on approach of diagnosing and also gently manipulating your musculoskeletal system, there are times when the results of the treatments cannot be accurately gauged until a bit of time has elapsed, thus there is the spacing between appointments.

Patients may be somewhat surprised at first when the D.O. will ask them to partially disrobe and then demonstrate a number of movements. If you remember that osteopathy rests on the belief that a lot of pain and symptoms can be traced back to an improperly compressed spinal cord, there is the need for seeing your average range of motion, ability to make fluid movements, and also the differences in movement on your right and left sides. During or after such movements the D.O. may gently probe your spine and muscles to identify any issues that readily apparent.

Another tool quite often applied by the D.O. is the use of the x-ray. They make it obvious in black and white whether there are apparent problems in the spinal column or in any of the joints and bones. In addition to the foregoing, the D.O. may also order some lab work to be done, to measure certain markers in your blood. They, too, provide a piece of the puzzle that is your overall picture of health. Although slow to prescribe medications, it is imperative to realize that when deemed necessary, the osteopath will indeed suggest medicines to help cure ailments, lessen symptoms, and also prevent recurrences of problems.