Transcription of Dr. Jacey Goddard for the show Bodily Alignment #228
Dr. Lisa: My next guest is an individual who I have known both personally and professionally. She has been actually my doctor for a little while. This is Dr. Jacey Goddard who is a doctor of osteopathy at Freeport Osteopathic Health. She is a faculty preceptor at Maine Medical Center’s department of integrated medicine. She helped fixed almost pneumonia that I had earlier this fall. Thanks for coming to talk to me and thanks for fixing my lungs.
Dr. Jacey: Absolutely. I’m glad to be here.
Dr. Lisa: You do something that I find really quite fascinating. You help people almost realign their bodies so that they can more closely realign with their lives and their health and obtain a greater wellness by putting your hands in just the right places to put things back into alignment. Talk to me about that.
Dr. Jacey: That’s right. You actually said it maybe better than I would. We go to medical school and learn all the basics of medicine. In addition, when we go to osteopathic medical school, we learn how to use our hands to diagnose the bones, the muscles, the ligaments, the fascia, which is connected tissue of the body.
Beyond that, we actually learn to consider the organs, and the blood vessels, and the lymphatics and to try to help the body be in an optimal state so that things can flow and, like you said, things can be balanced and there isn’t too much tension in one part of the body or another.
Dr. Lisa: Guessing that when you chose to go to osteopathic medical school, it was a very conscious decision that there was something about that type of training that really resonated with you.
Dr. Jacey: That’s right. Actually, I would say that I stumbled across it because at the time I was weighing the decision to go to conventional medical school or maybe doing something more alternative, like naturopathic medicine, and I was interested in the concepts of Chinese medicine. It was actually the philosophy of osteopathy that really clinched it for me to make the decision.
That being that the philosophy looks at the structure and function of the person, that there’s a consideration of the whole person. Those kinds of concepts that just really resonated with me because I really felt I wanted to do what was going to help people, not just give them medicines and not really find the root of the problem.
I didn’t realized when I actually … I thought that the manipulation part might be a bonus, but I didn’t realize until I actually started learning some techniques. Actually, it was when somebody taught me that you can treat something like a sinus infection with your hands and to help the fluid strain. I actually had that treatment done on me. I was so blown away that I felt better within a few minutes that I really started to get excited and I wanted to be able to do that for people.
Dr. Lisa: That’s interesting because when I started doing acupuncture, one of the things that caused me to realize, “Hey, this really works.” Is actually using needles in the sinuses, and the knowledge that you don’t have to blast the sinuses with antibiotics that may or may not even work, because it may not even be a bacterial infection. But that you could somehow move things within the bones of the face, the hallows and the bones of the face and make people healthy again.
It’s interesting that the sinus is something that you found and I found as well. Also, when I was going through my training at Maine Medical Center, and I know that you precept with the integrated medicine program over there. There was a lot of work being done with babies who had been born and maybe they had had a traumatic escape through the birth canal and sometimes they needed to be realigned.
Also, with pregnant women who are having difficulties with their pelvises not quite being roomy enough. It was interesting because there was nothing I had to offer to these people. I didn’t have anything to offer these babies or these mothers, and then along came a very skilled osteopathic physician who was able to just do a little bit of this and a little bit of that and it really helped a lot.
Dr. Jacey: Yeah, and that’s actually one of the things that I think is underappreciated in osteopathic medicine. I think a lot of people don’t know that we can treat babies and that the treatment of babies is almost so gentle, you can’t really see much happening. I think a lot of people who haven’t seen it might be afraid that it’s hard on them or it could be dangerous to them. If you’ve ever seen someone treat a baby osteopathically, you pretty quickly find that babies start to just relax, their little fists open up and they respond so well because they are already pretty healthy.
Like you said, sometimes they had a tough passage through the birth canal and then there might be some tension in their neck that’s affecting their … It’s basically the nerves that affect the tongue and the swallowing mechanism. Those are some of the main things that we find in babies that have trouble latching and breastfeeding. It always breaks my heart when I meet someone that said, “Oh! I didn’t breastfeed because my baby wouldn’t latch.” That’s something that could very easily be treated.
Usually, just one or two visits. The earlier we see them, the better they respond. It’s just such … It’s so miraculous to me that something so simple and so gentle can have such a long lasting effect on their health. Similarly, with moms, to help prepare the birth canal and to help relax their body and optimize the structure of their pelvis so that the birth process goes easily.
Another thing that we can do is help sometimes, not always, depending on whether it’s right for the individual. Sometimes we can do a technique that, again, is very gentle, very non evasive to help a breach baby flip. Again, to me, that’s something that is so rewarding because it’s very gentle and it’s very safe and they can give that mother and that baby a normal birth process versus having to have a C-section.
Again, that’s something that people don’t know about, and I feel that just for the benefit of people to know that. It’s basically one of the reasons I was happy to be on the show because I think that’s important for people to know about.
Dr. Lisa: I’ve had patients too who … As children, who have had chronic ear infections and were put on antibiotic after antibiotic after antibiotic, or I’ve had patients with chronic headaches that were on very significant amounts of migraine medication. They’ve gone for osteopathic work and they haven’t … The kids didn’t need the tubes put in their ears, or the people with migraines didn’t need to keep taking their medicine.
There’s something interesting about the re-patterning that you’re able to do with people’s bodies so that they can be less impacted by these chronic problems.
Dr. Jacey: Definitely. Again, the pediatric population is one that I find … Doesn’t get the advantage of osteopathic manipulation that maybe the adults might … I’m not sure why that is. I suspect is lack of understanding of what we do and how gentle it is and how safe it is.
Babies or young kids with ear infections often respond very well to manipulation. They usually just need a few treatments to help loosen. It’s basically loosen up their neck and the base of their skull so that things can drain. It’s basically a very similar concept to the sinus issues.
Yes, absolutely with headaches or migraines. In my experience, a lot of what are termed migraines have a very large tension component. I think even the tension can contribute to what might be a vascular or blood vessel cause of a migraine. Patients respond very well to osteopathic treatment for headaches and migraines and it often prevents them from coming back. Usually, we can relieve a tension headache on the spot. I think more important is to try to prevent it from coming back and helping that person to have a less painful life really.
Dr. Lisa: In the time that I’ve spent coming to your office, I’ve enjoyed talking with you because you are open to all the different things that might contribute to someone’s life being off balance or someone’s body being off balance. You might give someone exercises to do when they go home. If they’re having issues with, maybe having neck pain after being at work for a certain number of hours. You’ll talk to them about bigger things such as, “How was your life feeling to you these days? How does this feel to you?”
I like that lot because so much of the time in medicine, we have a problem and we try to quick fix it, and you’re trying to really get to the underneath, the underbelly, the soft underbelly and work with that a little bit and give some solutions and be open minded as to what those solutions might be.
Dr. Jacey: Yes, definitely. It’s something that I’m constantly examining. Basically, how I’m taking care of my patients. I’m not sure, but I think perhaps not all osteopaths that do manipulation are quite as involved in digging deeper like I am. Sometimes I question it. I’m perhaps not an osteopathic manipulation purist.
Again, I am trying to find the cause of the problem and if it’s something they’re doing with posture at the computer which I find is increasingly common these days, or somebody that’s spending a lot of time in the car that’s putting a strain on their neck and back. Things like that. I feel like I’m doing a disservice if I’m not helping them to understand what’s causing the problem so that it’s prevented. I really don’t want to create a need for people to have to come to me. I’d rather really fix the problem or help them fix the problem.
I really like the idea of helping people to understand how to take care of themselves. I think sometimes people just want the quick fix, and it’s hard, and myself included. There are things that I need to do to manage my stress and check my posture and make sure I’m getting enough sleep and doing the things that are good for in my life.
Really, I think that that’s what makes us healthy is when we can learn how to really take good care of ourselves and prevent the problems down the road.
Dr. Lisa: There’s also some patients involved, not patients, like I am a patient. Some patients involved with allowing the body to heal itself. When I first went to see, I was going in for a knee issue and a shoulder issue and some of it was related to surgeries I had last year after my cancer diagnosis. More acutely, I was having a calf. It was something that I’d had long enough, so that if I was my own doctor, I might have prescribed antibiotics for myself.
Also, as my own doctor, I didn’t want to take antibiotics because I had this strong sense that it could be clear because it probably wasn’t a raging bacterial pneumonia. I went to see you for a few sessions and you really did help open up my rib cage so that my body could actually heal itself, as to breathe more deeply so that I could actually get the air to where it needed to go and the blood to where it needed to go. It took time, but it was worth it to me, because then I wasn’t left with the problems one gets associated with taking antibiotics unnecessarily.
It is patience. There’s some patience involved in this. How is that for you when you have to talk to people about the time it might to take to heal?
Dr. Jacey: Yeah, it does require patience. I think it’s good for us to practice patience because it’s really about feeling peace and not being pressured and not putting too much pressure on anyone and helping them to come to their own understanding of how to take care of themselves.
Really, again, like you were saying, if we hadn’t addressed that underlying issue, then you might have been left with a setup for another infection down the road. I think, really, it’s about helping people to understand better. I tend to talk to my patients a lot, because I feel it’s important to understand why we’re doing something. Why I’m doing it the way I’m doing it, and why I’m trying to engage the individual and doing their own part.
For example, a breathing technique to help to loosen up the rib cage or relax the body. I think that that comes from, really, the foundations of osteopathy. Dr. Andrew Taylor Still who basically discovered that the body is really already set up to heal itself and it just needs a little bit of help. If we can do that, it actually does help the body to do what it’s supposed to do in terms of blood flow and lymphatic flow and healing infections and things like that. I think education, I guess, would be the way that I deal with somebody who wants a real quick fix.
Dr. Lisa: What is the difference for people who are wondering between someone who has a D.O. degree or an osteopathic medical degree, and an M.D. degree, that would be in allopathic medical degree. What’s the difference in the training?
Dr. Jacey: In my understanding, it’s not that different. People who go to osteopathic medical school, just like people who go to a more conventional medical school have to have a four year college degree, then the medical school itself is also four years. The last two years are spent in clinical training. We learn the biochemistry, and we do anatomy dissections, and we do the pharmacology, and we do the histology.
Basically, it’s the same in terms of all the medical concepts. There’s an additional, usually, weekly osteopathic manipulation lecture and lab where you learn the background of a technique or an approach and then we go to a lab where you actually learn how to put your hands on your fellow, whatever, colleague, students. We learn to start to actually put your hands on people which I think that might be one difference that we end up with. We often feel a little bit more comfortable touching people just because we are strongly encouraged to touch each other when we go to medical school.
I think that the education is very similar. Obviously, I think there’s a normal variation amongst medical schools, all kinds of medical schools. I think there’s a variation. I think that the differences is that we get that manipulation part. We also get some of the osteopathic philosophy.
Frankly, it wasn’t as different as I thought when I ended up in medical school. I thought it would be more. I thought there would be a really strong emphasis on nutrition. I thought there might be some more alternative concepts introduced. Really, it wasn’t. It was actually pretty conventional standard medical school with the addition of the manipulation.
Dr. Lisa: Not all osteopathic physicians choose to practice osteopathic manipulative medicine. Some osteopathic physicians go on and get just standard training which enables them to become an internal medicine specialist or an orthopedic surgeon. You chose to do osteopathic manipulative medicine. Why did that call to you so much?
Dr. Jacey: That’s pretty easy. Again, it goes back to that … Really, those early days in medical school when I realized that I could really help somebody pretty quickly. It was so rewarding and so fulfilling. I think it really was about … I think it’s probably because of my own personal health struggles in my teens and growing up and finding that, really, there are a lot of medical problems that people have that doctors don’t know how to deal with. Having been looked at, “Well, you’re crazy. That problem is not real. There’s nothing that can be done about that.”
I found that incredibly frustrating, and I think that that’s basically one of the things that led me to the place where I am now where I love taking care of problems that nobody else can fix. I am so excited when somebody comes in and their doctors have told them that they think it’s all in their head and that there’s nothing that can be done.
I think it has to do with that for me personally. I love what I do because I really get to know my patients. I get to spend a little bit more time with them. I get to think medically. I get to be challenged to try to address different problems and try to think about problems in a new way. I feel really blessed to be doing what I’m doing because I really feel I’m actually helping people in a way that conventional medicine today doesn’t really get to the issue.
Dr. Lisa: With the way that you’ve chosen to practice medicine has been a little bit of a risk for you. You just opened up a new practice in Freeport, bright, beautiful, big windows, but it was a big move. You came down originally from a little bit further up in the state where you had been working with a family practice residency. You worked with another doctor in this area, and now you are in an office with your husband who is also an osteopathic physician. It’s a leap. You’re in charge of your own space. You’re in charge of your own practice. Tell me what that’s been like for you.
Dr. Jacey: Yeah. It really has been a challenge. I was in Bangor at the residency program at Eastern Maine Medical Center, family medicine residency. I’ve been there for 11 years and I just knew it was time to spread my wings. I really started reaching out and looking out.
Frankly, I wanted to get under somebody else’s wing. I really wanted somebody else to run the business. I really wanted somebody else to do the math and the numbers and the books and deal with the insurance, because it’s a really scary thing. Fortunately, when I took over the practice from another D.O. who was moving out of the area, they basically got me started.
It was a leap of faith, and it was really challenging. I think it was something that I needed to go through, and it’s worth it. I had a college student shadowing. We had a college student shadowing us yesterday and we were just talking about how it is to run your own business. He said, “Is it worth it?” I have to say, “Absolutely. It’s absolutely worth it.” Because I’m able to spend … If I really need to spend more time with somebody, I can.
Yeah, it’s a pain. Yes, it’s scary. Yes, it’s complicated. You move your change of address and you’ve got a 10 page form you’ve got to fill out for Medicare. It’s, “This is crazy.” But it’s really worth it. When that person comes back and then they say, “My pain went from an eight to a two.” and they’re feeling they can get back to work again. It makes it all worthwhile.
It’s a learning process, and I think all of us osteopathic physicians in the State of Maine, there are a lot of us actually. I think we’re all feeling it. It’s a struggle. We’re not in it for the money, because if we were doing it for the money, we would absolutely be doing something else. It’s because I think we really feel that it’s good for our patients. It’s worth it.
Dr. Lisa: It’s been an interesting time in medicine. You and I both were trained around the same time and we’ve been in medicine around the same number of years. It doesn’t look the way it did when we first went to medical school. How has that felt to you?
Dr. Jacey: I guess it’s frustrating and it’s scary, but I keep thinking that. I hear it from our patients, it’s, “My doctors don’t spend time with me.” I try to say to them, “It’s not really your doctor’s fault. It’s because they work for a big company, and because somebody is paying the bills and they’ve got to see a certain number of patients to pay the bills. The patients feel like the doctors are the ones that don’t care. I don’t think that’s it.
I think probably across the country, physicians are very disenchanted and frustrated that they can’t really take care of the patients in the way they want to. I think it’s a system issue. It’s not each individual doctor is bad. It’s not that at all. I think most really care and most really want to help people.
I keep hoping that it just becomes more clear to patients and healthcare administrators, and maybe the government as an entirety, and the insurance companies that, really, if we can invest a little bit of time and help people understand how to take care of themselves. We won’t be putting out the fires. We won’t be spending the money on all the medications that are so expensive. We won’t have the need to be in the hospital as much.
Maybe when you think about it, there’s a lot of money to be made from the pharmaceutical industry and visits to the hospital. I guess I’m an i“dealist and I’m hopeful that somehow people are going to work to make that better as a whole.
Dr. Lisa: Jacey, how can people find out about the work that you do at the Freeport Osteopathic health practice that you run?
Dr. Jacey: We have our website, it’s relatively simply, but it does list what we do and what our training entailed and our board certification and things like that. It’s at www.freeportosteopathic.com. Again, there are a lot of us out there doing manipulation. Most of us have pretty busy practices, but I’m not here to advertise for myself. I’m really here because I think that I want people to know about osteopathy, because it’s something that can really help people.
Dr. Lisa: I encourage anyone who’s listening who hasn’t had a chance to experience osteopathic medicine to really look into it and consider whether it might be a good fit for them, because I certainly have found it has been a good fit for me and also for other patients that I’ve recommended it to.
Today, we’ve been speaking with Dr. Jacey Goddard who is a doctor of osteopathy at Freeport Osteopathic Health, and also a faculty preceptor at Maine Medical Center’s Department of Integrative Medicine.
I think you’ve represented your profession well, and I thank you for the work that you’re doing and for being here today.
Dr. Jacey: Thanks so much. I really had a fun time talking to you.