I've suffered from migraines of one sort or another for around forty years. Acupuncture kept them at bay when we were in France, but it didn't seem to be working back in the UK Our GP recommended cranial osteopathy, as a result of which I went along to Richard Whitworth, who has a practice at the Falaise gym in Hastings.
I've been going to osteopaths for years as well, so know a bit about them. Richard, however, is the first one to tackle my posture in an integrated fashion. His colleagues have a tendency to treat the back in isolation: the first time I saw him, however, he said that part of the problem was the way I walked. Unknown to myself, I point the left foot forward but the right foot slightly angled to the right. This, he said, tilts the body, develops the muscles in the buttocks in a lopsided fashion, which throws the back out. The body then compensates in order to ensure that the eyes are horizontal. (Yerwhat? Read on....)
According to Richard, when man moved from four legs to two it was in order to be more efficient as a hunter-gatherer. Running on two legs meant you could move faster and catch your prey more easily. In order to judge distance, however, while engaged in this hunting and gathering, the eyes needed to be horizontal.
And there you have it. If you walk lopsided the body will be crooked, imposing strains further up, which ricochet into the neck and up into the skull. Wow. It just shows that some things never change.
Antony Mair
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