Pys Headache and Pain Clinic

Bios

• How I Became an Osteopathic Manual Therapist

  Michael Pys Bio

  My introduction to the world of manual therapy was not an accident. My father was a nurse/manual therapist/massage therapist without an education, who worked in a local hospital and learned the art of manipulation from his friends. He knew how to help people with pain and headaches. He really enjoyed his work. Growing up, I never thought about becoming a doctor, nor did I have any desire to practice any kind of therapy, but I was amazed at how happy it made my father to successfully treat his patients. I helped him sometimes with treatments, and he really liked that I was there with him. Whenever there was an opportunity, he took me on house calls. Very proudly, he told me that one day I would become much better than him, because I have a good hands and a good touch. In 1990, I moved to the United States and eventually met my future wife. I shared with her my father�s dream that someday I would become a manual therapist. We got married, and I worked in a night club. But I realized that it was not the life for me. So, I went into college to improve my English and decided to start massage therapy school. In 1996, I had just graduated from the Chicago School of Massage Therapy, and I went on a house call to Glencoe, a nice suburb north of Chicago. My client was 50-year-old woman with a long history of severe headaches, whose daughter had given her a gift certificate for a massage for her birthday. After the massage, her headaches were much improved. In fact, she asked me to come to her house five more times in the next two weeks for massages. Her neurologist called me in about month and congratulated me the good results. In next six months, the neurologist referred many patients to me, with great results. A year later, she suggested that I learn as much as possible about upper body treatment for headaches. During the next three years, I took as many continuing education classes as I could at the Upplager Institute (cranio-sacral therapy), the St. John Pain Relief Institute, and the McKenzie Institute. My treatments results for pain and headaches become much better, and I became very busy. But something was still missing in my practice. I saw that other providers, such as Doctors of Osteopathy, also had good results using their techniques to help pain and headache patients. I decided to go to the Osteopathic Collage of Ontario, and it changed my life. Using osteopathic manual therapy (OMT), my results with headache patients became almost uniformly successful, and my back and neck related treatments improved as well. I learned from Dr. Steve Sanet, an American-trained osteopathic physician. He told me, “You need to practice and use OMT with every patient.” I observed him doing things that I could not explain. It was obvious to me that he had his feet on the ground with regard to the fundamental science. In the blink of an eye, Dr. Sanet inspired me to practice osteopathic therapy as I do now. After graduation, I did my internship, became even more highly motivated, and treated practically everyone from friends to patients to nurses and co-workers. The bigger the patient�s problem, the more I enjoyed it. By the time I completed my internship, I already had a patient base of people who knew me and wanted me to treat and care for them. I told them, “If you have a pain, headache, or migraine, call me right away, and I will do my best to see you that day. If you are not better after treatment, I will not take your money.” Part of my practice is older people with “chronic arthritis,” and part is younger people with “poor posture,” who are overworked, underpaid, and stressed. In my “arthritis” patients, I see back, neck, shoulder, and hip pain�things you commonly think of as being treated with manipulation. Then there are the “poor posture” types, who are usually younger, mostly women, between the ages of 20 and 60. I also see some children with headaches, a lot of patients with headaches and migraines, and middle-aged women with severe neurological pain�fibromyalgia, neck, lower back, and shoulder pain. People who show up at my door have often run out of other options and hope that I can help. I always tell them that if we see some improvement after a few treatments, then I will continue. Otherwise, I will not. Very often, I find it is possible to do something to improve their lives. My headache/migraine patients love me, as they almost always do better after my treatments.