June 10, 2021
An interview with Christine Dixon Osteopath and Athletic Therapist at Prairie Therapy.
For the full interview please listen to the most recent CM Group- Free Lunch Podcast, Episode 55 “Health & Wealth Mini-Series - Your Body!”
Colin and Blair: Christine, tell us your story. How did you end up where you are today?
Christine: I was born and raised in Regina and grew up playing Volleyball. I was really into sports, played every season I could and loved it. I loved the team atmosphere. I loved the team mentality. And I loved being around like minded people that wanted to better themselves, that rolled with me into university where I pursued an athletic therapy career. I finished my fourth year of the program at Calgary, that’s what brought me out this way. I started out practicing as an athletic therapist and just felt a bit frustrated, if it was a normal ankle sprain that walked through the door, no problem, I felt like I could textbook follow the rehabilitation plan and get that person fixed right up. But if there was anything more, anything chronic, any medical conditions involved, anything a bit more complex, I felt limited. There wasn't a plan in the textbook for me to follow, and I wasn't sure exactly where to go with it. I felt there was more to the body and more I could do as a practitioner with my hands to do better for that person. I looked at going back to school and I wasn't quite sure what that meant for me. So I started doing some research on the same health field, but a different career path within it, I looked at everything, becoming a doctor, becoming a sport doc, a surgeon, a Chiro, a naturopath, and none of it really fit. I really wanted to be hands on with my patients and make that relationship with them. An old professor mentioned osteopathy and I'd never heard of it, like many of us, I wasn't quite sure what it was. And I did the old Google that night and the next day I wrote my application. It was everything that I thought I wanted and I didn't know there was a career out there for me.
Colin and Blair: And you got into this field because of what I would call models versus reality. And this is something we talk about in the investment world all the time, that on paper things should work out just the way they are. Just like you mentioned, treating an ankle sprain is pretty straightforward as long as that's all it is. But the reality is there's something underlying that is causing the issue that you can't see.
Christine: Absolutely. That's exactly it. So a lot of the time, if somebody sprained ankle, great, it can be a straight forward ankle sprain. But if you have an old back injury and you're in a cast for six weeks, maybe you're on crutches, it's going to hurt your back, and so it was the ankle sprain I could fix, but then I couldn't quite figure out what was going on up in the back. We had to unpeel the layers of the injury to find out where it was going. We take a full approach to the body, every time it's a head to toe assessment, we want the whole picture before we start.
Colin and Blair: What's the difference between a physiotherapist and an osteopath?
Christine: We all have our little categories that we put into and a lot of it is very similar. When you go see a physio, typically, they use some form of modality, they'll use an ice machine or ultrasound or heat or acupuncture. When you come and see me, it's just my hands moving your body around to get you in a position, we don't use any modalities. It's just hands on therapy. And then I would say I typically describe the differences as we do the normal muscle bone, joint ligament stuff that physio would do or a massage therapist, then we add in a few extra layers like visceral manipulation. If there's been any problems in the digestive system, in the reproductive organs at all, in the lungs, the heart, we can move the organs around minimally to get them to function better and to relieve stress off of the system. Typically, physiotherapists and chiros, don't do visceral manipulation and the extra one that we add is cranial psychotherapy. It’s good for the basic metabolic functions of the body. Your brain is telling your body, hey, it's time to go to bed, let's shut off the brain, let's get into sleep and let's have a deep sleep and rest for the next day. So it was your brain sending your body the signals to function.
Colin and Blair: You brought up a really critical word there, stress. The reason we wanted to do this miniseries is to talk about stress, the stress in investing, because investing is full of stress if you let it. It sounds like there's a real link between the body and stress and sort of like any ailments,
Christine: We are huge believers that anything we go through in the day, emotionally, physically, stress, it takes a toll on your body. When you have a stressful reaction in your life, your body's going to have to react to that. A lot of the time when people are in a stressful environment, they are so stressed right now, particularly because your body's able to produce the hormones and produce what you need to get through that time. And then you had a big role when you come out of that and you go, oh, man, last week was really tough, I'm feeling pretty wiped like my body just can't cope this week. I'm so tired and so lethargic and I just can't get my body out of this funk that I was in from all the stress that I put myself through. Osteopathic methods can help with that. We can really help your system balance out your nervous system so that you can cope with things better. I typically tell a really stressed out patient that you're going to still have the stress that flies in day to day, but your reaction to it will lessen. You won't be as quick to judge, quick to misfire, quick to react. You'll just be able to cope with things a lot easier if we can balance out your nervous system.
For more questions and answers with Christine Dixon please refer to our Podcast.
Stay safe, stay happy, stay well!
-The CM Group