Has anyone had any experience of/with osteopathy?

I have not personally but I can tell you that as a branch of medicine, it's getting closer and closer to allopathic medicine in the US every year. Fewer and fewer osteopathic graduates are using osteopathic manipulative techniques after they graduate, and most D.O.'s are in practice indistinguishable from M.D.'s. While most medical professionals respect osteopathic physicians, most also view OMM as being on about the level of homeopathy and voodoo in terms of validity.

Does osteopathic manipulative medicine work? Well, that depends how you define "work." Decades of scientific study have produced only mild results supportive of it having any effect at all. As far as I know, there is no scientific evidence that OMM does what it is proclaimed to do. However, some people do report being "cured" by having their bones cracked by an OMM specialist. IMO this has to do with how patients like being touched by their doctors, and feeling like they have had something done to them during their visit.

Well this is the whole basis of my question.
I was/am interested in getting into osteopathy, but have been in two minds since discovering the ,what some people would term, pseudoscience behind it.
I think the whole idea of treating the individual in a holistic manner appeals to me, treating the root cause as opposed to the symptoms which is more of the allopathic route.

Now being a 4year course, one obvoiusly has researched it thouroughly before jumping in. As you stated in the quote, there are camps of people who say that the philosophies used are akin to practices such as homeopathy and various other complementary therapies, And that the basis is formed on psedoscience. I was also a little shocked to find that this is also true for chiropractic.
The phiosophies are essentially based on the fact that the body has a propensity to heal itself and general wear and tear, misalignments in our biomechanic setup give rise to illnesses which can bascically be rectified by palpation (manual therapy)
The main beef that arises from the opposing camp is that the very things they treat "osteopathic lesions" cannot be proved with any scientific certainty.

Hence the reason for my first question. I wondered if anyone had any first hand experience with such therapies and their thoughts on the experience!

Coming from someone who has had osteopathic treatment,albeit just for back pains,i can say that it solved my problem.

15 years ago i was suffering from quite bad lower back pain.Initially my doctor prescribed painkillers.As the pain grew over 6 months and the pain killers were becoming ineffective,he referred me to my local bone cruncher.There were a few elements of pain to endure but on the whole very comfortable.

To say the least,since then i have had no further trouble.That was just after 3 sessions.

Whether you feel it has any validity or not,or you believe its just people who like being "touched" to satiate a feeling of medical satisfaction,in my case it was a positive experience.

Thanks for the reply man.
This is what im hearing. I have been asking similar questions on a few osteopath forums and they tend to reply with similar answers. Ask the patients if it works!

Theres part of me that scruntinises the actual mechanisms at work, but then there is also a part of me that acknowledges the fact that, of course the other side of the fence is going to belittle a form of treatment that doesnt require the practioner to dose the patients with whatever "wonderdrug" the big pharma is pushing at the time.

To be honest i was quite thankful that my doctor referred me.I'm not one to take prescribed drugs at all if i can help it,especially painkillers.

I know there is a somewhat pseudoscience quality to it like some other therapies,but then different people respond to different techniques.

Yeah, i know. Its like accupuncture and other stuff in that ilk.
But like you say, i certainly think there is an increasing number of people who would initially want to try a form of alternative therapies as opposed to going straight to the Drs