Functional Medicine and Chiropractic Care: Root Cause Resolution With Dr. Theresa Osmer, DC

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Episode 37. Dr. Theresa Osmer is the founder of FLOW Chiropractic. Dr. Osmer received her Doctor of Chiropractic from National University of Health Sciences near Chicago, Illinois, in 2012. She has additional post-graduate training in prenatal and postpartum care, pediatrics, functional rehabilitation, ergonomics, athletic taping, and lifestyle medicine. Dr. Osmer also has the Webster Certification, Mercier Therapy certification, and has recently completed her training to become a Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner.

Born and raised in Michigan, Dr. Osmer grew up in Owosso and is the oldest of 5 girls! She attended Michigan State University for her Human Biology degree with a specialization in Bioethics and Humanities.

Following graduation, Dr. Osmer and her husband moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan. Outside of FLOW, Dr. Osmer is very involved in her Grand Rapids community with The Junior League of Grand Rapids and The Grand Rapids Community Foundation as a 100 New Philanthropist. In her free time, Dr. Osmer enjoys spending time with her family (including her Golden Retriever, Roubaix-Salsa, her nephew August, and her niece Savannah), cooking, and traveling. As a self-proclaimed “Mermaid,” Dr. Osmer is happiest in the water or on a beach!

You can connect with Theresa at her website FLOWChiro.com or on Instagram.

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Are You New Here?

Welcome! I’m so glad to have you. You might be wondering what this blog and podcast are all about.

We relate everything in this podcast back to motivation, but not the hustle and grind kind. Truly sustainable motivation that keeps you feeling energetic and engaged in your life for the long haul. We talk about why “I’m just not motivated” is a myth and why the TYPE of motivation you have is so important to fully understand. If you are ready to learn about motivation and respecting your body in an effective way so that you can live a life you truly love, you are in the right place.

Check out the Foundational Episodes of the Motivation Made Easy Podcast here!

Introduction: What is this podcast all about?
Episode 1: Want to Get & Stay Motivated? A Crash Course on Motivation, Weight Loss, and Health
Episode 2: How Dieting Steals Our Motivation
Episode 3: How To Get Motivated To Improve Your Health (Motivation 101)
Episode 4: How to Transform Health Fears Into Forward Progress

Are you ready to take that first step?

Are you sick of decision fatigue and feelings of overwhelm? You wake up feeling anxious, not sure what to eat or focus on in your day. Not exactly sure how to spend your time. Maybe you end up scrolling your phone or just jump into your emails, not really sure how to spend your time.

You finish your day focused on all the things you didn’t get done, frustrated and angry that you aren’t more focused on what truly matters. Maybe you felt that you weren’t present with your kids or loved ones? I know that’s the one that hurts me the MOST.

I think we have all been there.

If you are ready to start getting clear on what you should be spending your time on, what’s helpful, and what it’s, it first starts with clarifying your values.

The #1 strategy I hear over and over that is MOST HELPFUL in developing autonomous and sustainable motivation is to clarify your values. Have you done it yet? Or lately?

I, for one, do this regularly, particularly when I’m feeling a bit lost. And as a new entrepreneur, this happens quite often!

Grab the free guide at DrHondorp.com/goals, which will walk you through step by step a process to get started on clarifying what matters to you and what you should be focusing on at this season of your life. I promise you; it’s never too late to stop dieting and start truly living.

Chiropractic Care and Functional Medicine with Dr. Theresa Osmer, DC

I am so excited to bring you this conversation today. One of my goals is to help people move away from ineffective dieting strategies so they can stop the weight cycling roller coaster and actually spend time on things that are effective in improving their health.

I was introduced to Dr. Osmer during the middle of my second pregnancy. I was planning and hoping to have a vaginal birth after having an unplanned cesarean section for my first birth and was doing ALL THE THINGS to feel like I had controlled the things I could.

I’m not sure I’d ever have seen a chiropractor if this hadn’t happened to me, but I’m so grateful to have met Dr. Osmer. I learned SO much, and I’m still learning from her to this day.

In this interview, we cover:

What is chiropractic care? Is it legit?
Does it have to involve cracking?
Once you start going, will you always need to go?
What is functional medicine?
What are some of the common things standard medical care can miss and how can chiropractic care and functional medicine providers be useful to you?
And so much more!

What is Chiropractic Care? Is it Legit?

“I love the approach of taking a whole person, biopsychosocial model to really understand who that person is.”
Dr. Theresa Osmer, DC

I was one of the probably many skeptics about this question, but I can tell you after basically falling into chiropractic care, it 100% is legit.

There is a lot of misinformation and myths out there about chiropractic care and what it truly is. Can a chiropractor really help you? If you start seeing a chiropractor, will you ever be able to stop seeing them?

All of these questions are valid, and even Dr. Osmer had some of these doubts about this profession before she researched it. Dr. Osmer attended a research-driven chiropractic school that educated her on the scientific basis of the practice.

Chiropractic care encompasses working with a patient to reduce pain, regain mobility, and, ultimately, reestablish alignment within their body through physical adjustments.

Through Dr. Osmer’s education, she was able to bridge the gap between evidence, theory, and the experimental aspects of chiropractic care through research and implementing her knowledge in practice.

Like with many things in health, each individual case is different. Dr. Osmer stressed the importance of a practitioner being able to look at a patient as a whole person instead of just a diagnosis or collection of symptoms.

This is where chiropractic care can really shine. The chiropractor can build a connection with you and understand what your “normal” is. This allows them to better assist you when something hurts or seems off because they aren’t starting from square one.

What is Functional Medicine?

Functional medicine is root cause resolution. It allows the patient-provider relationship to dig deeper into the root cause of a diagnosis.

If you have a history of hypertension, the functional medicine approach addresses WHY you are experiencing hypertension instead of focusing on the treatment (i.e., medication) right off the bat.

A functional medicine practitioner might assess other aspects in your life and health that could be contributing to hypertension, such as stress, dietary, or environmental factors.

Functional medicine practitioners work with the physician to hopefully improve the patient’s symptoms and possibly wean them off their medication if their symptoms improve.

People, especially women with autoimmune diseases, can benefit from seeing a functional medicine practitioner because patients often go undiagnosed until it’s too late and they experience a flare-up.

A functional medicine practitioner can work with a patient to deduce the root cause of their symptoms and create a treatment plan from there.

What are We Missing in Standard Medical Care Only?

The answer sadly is a LOT. Standard medical care is essential but only so much can be done in a 30-minute check-up with your primary care physician.

It can be difficult to get the medical attention and detail needed from such a short visit.

We cover a few examples here.

Improving Pregnancy and Birth Outcomes

We cover some examples, like improving sciatica and other pain during pregnancy and birth outcomes.

The Webster Technique is what Dr. Osmer uses and used on me with great results immediately and at my eventual birth. This technique helps to create alignment for the birthing mother through physical adjustments.

Dr. Osmer is also certified in Mercier Therapy, which focuses on manipulating the internal pelvic organs to promote mobility, blood flow to that area, and restoration of function to the pelvic organs.

Reducing Infertility and Optimizing Care in the Pre-Natal Period

There is also evidence of improving issues with infertility and optimizing care in the prenatal period.

Many women are told that to have a healthy pregnancy, they must lose weight. When women are told this, their first instinct is to start restriction and working out more.

There seems to not be enough support and education for women to make them aware of the other options to have healthy pregnancies besides dieting.

Dr. Osmer explains that the best pregnancy diet is paying attention to your body and eating what makes you feel good.

If there are signs of insulin resistance or other issues, the practitioner can work with the patient to add beneficial things into their diet instead of coming from a restriction perspective.

Making Sure Nothing is Missed

Dr. Osmer talks about the frequency of conditions like autoimmune conditions and thyroid concerns that are missed in standard medical care.

Autoimmune diseases often go undiagnosed due to inconsistent symptoms that don’t perfectly fit into the mold physicians associate with a particular disease.

This can cause delaying of treatment and even dismissal of symptoms until eventually; a nasty flare-up can occur.

Dr. Osmer talks about catching this early and how much easier it is to “stop the train” before someone is in a full-blown autoimmune state.

Ways that Chiropractic Care & Functional Medicine Can Help You

“Prevention is so much more valuable to us than being reactive when something is already hurting.”
Dr. Theresa Osmer, DC

Chiropractic care and training is rooted in science. The scientific method is skeptical at it’s core. And this is 100% me. I think things are quack science until proven otherwise, and Dr. Osmer quickly proved this to be very, very false. Their training using the bio-psycho-social model and looks at your symptoms as a whole. You don’t get addicted to it, and you don’t need to go the rest of your life. Like any medical care, it can be tailored to your needs at a given time.
Functional medicine is about root cause resolution. Because of standard medical cares limited time for visits and increasing pressures for external outcomes, there is often less and less time for your providers to get to know you as a person. Additionally, care becomes piece meal. You see this person for your heart, this for your fertility and reproduction, and someone else for your back pain. Functional medicine and chiropractic providers can provide whole person care and alternatives you never considered. They also can help discover things that might be missed in standard care. One common example is thyroid concerns and autoimmune conditions.
Standard medical care 100% has it’s place, but it misses the mark A LOT, particularly for women. The more I learn, the more concerned I am with how infrequently we are getting great evidence-based solutions out into the world. I wouldn’t have known about any of this had I not gone down DEEP into the world of birth outcomes in attempt to have a safe vaginal birth after Caesarean.
Standard medical care and chiropractic care and functional medicine can be a complement to one another. Like anything there is a balance here. I will always be a big fan of standard medicine treatments in many ways. I had a Caesarean section surgery for my first birth, and although I think it probably could have been avoided, I also think that given the scenario at the time, and in many cases it absolutely can be a life saving surgery. But we have to look at the data. The standard rates of Cesarean births in the United States is around 1 in 3 (Anath et al., 2017) and this rate has gone up 68% between 1979 and 2010. That article explains this trend in terms of increases in obesity and hypertension, which is incredibly frustrating because like SO many things, correlation does NOT imply cause. This is another example of standard medical care failing women, and I was definitely in that category. For my second birth, I switched to a midwife practice and their cesarean section rate is 92%. Provider plays a major role in this, yet we often blame patient factors.
Providers should always support your autonomy. No matter what, informed consent and autonomy support is the #1 ethical care of any provider. So often women are told that they should not do something with their care or their body, and this is so often not only psychologically harmful, but physically harmful.
You may need to do a bit of digging to get the best solution to your problems. There may be solutions to your concerns that you had no idea existed. There are many techniques and certifications in this field that no one knows about. I never would have known about the Webster technique and the evidence it has behind it in terms of improving pain during pregnancy and improving birth outcomes. I very much wish I’d had known about this before my first birth, and truly believe I might have had a very different birth experience, maybe even avoiding a C-section.
Find providers who are lifelong learner. I know I want a provider who is doing what Dr. Osmer is, staying up on the literature and research and constantly learning. Because the reality is, the ways we think about health and wellness are not only outdated, many times they are many times not evidence-based (just look at the weight management field as an example!). There are effective interventions out there that can make you feel empowered and good in your body, you just need to know where to look.

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References

Anath, (2017). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5501955/