Health does not demand symmetry. Your liver is on your right and your stomach is on your left, your kidneys are at different heights, you have one more lobe in your right lung than left. The human body is asymmetrical.
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Joints don’t “go out of place” without serious trauma and things like a mild scoliosis or leg length discrepancy are usually not causes of pain.
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Having a therapist identify that one leg is a few millimetres shorter than the other does not mean your “L4 has gone out” and you must have it manipulated “back into place”. What it does do is guide us to identify an increased area of tension – for example are you hiking up your right hip during gait because your right ankle or knee flexion is too stiff to clear the ground? Or maybe there is more tension in the soft tissues on that side of the body? Any small deviation from the midline will create a functional scoliosis to keep your eyes and vestibular system level, which isn’t cause for alarm, but a remarkable way the body compensates.
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Look at our paralympians! They certainly didn’t get to represent Australia on the world stage by being totally symmetrical. Being “out of place” may be easy language to understand, but it is out-dated and fear-mongering.
A tenet of osteopathy is that structure governs function; that anatomy and physiology are interrelated. What that means is that the tissue’s blood supply, nerve supply, tissue motility and joint mobility influence how the body functions, how predisposed it is to disease and how well it may heal when injured.
If you are anxious about your body, get checked out professionally from a therapist who understands the mechanics of the body. Don’t listen to reductionist diagnoses such as “your C6 is out” or “your pelvis is twisted”. All bodies are different and it is normal to be a little bit wonky, so yours is likely strong, healthy and normal. There are more interesting and complex reasons why we experience pain and discomfort, and by understanding them you can take control your own well-being.
