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Meet Dr Sarah Varmalis - our Senior Osteopath!
Sarah gained her Osteopathy qualifications from Victoria University over a 5 year period, including her Bachelor and Masters degrees. She graduated at the end of 2018, and has been practicing full time since 2019. What inspired you to become an Osteopath? In the early years of high school, my mother’s leg kept collapsing out from under her when she went to stand. This consistently occurred when she was getting out of bed, and initially, she simply put a chair nearby to catch herself. Then one day, it happened while getting out of the car onto Burwood Highway. She was OK after that incident, and nothing happened, but it scared her to the point that she went to her GP, who gave her medication which did absolutely nothing. Then my aunt suggested that she see an Osteopath. With no other idea, my mother did. In her words, he asked a series of questions, then traced a line of pain down her leg and declared “You're not going to believe it but it's your little toe!”. After one treatment, and being given a series of simple exercises my mother has never had that trouble again. Having grown up with stories like Lord of the Rings, The Sword of Shannara, The Belgarid series and Harry Potter, that sounded like magic to me and I wanted it. So I pursued Osteopathy as a career option throughout high school. What types of conditions do you love to treat? In this post-COVID world, I have found a lot of people have lingering tension throughout their respiratory system. I have had great results helping alleviate some of the long COVID symptoms such as breathlessness and fatigue, and have helped reduce asthmatic episodes in a variety of patients. I have assisted with some incontinence issues with both female and male patients working through the bladder in a non-invasive manual therapy perspective and have also assisted those suffering from constipation with training received from the Barral Institute. I have had great results with headache and migraine patients using a combination of Counterstrain, Barral, and Cranial techniques to relieve the pressure throughout the head and neck. As someone with EDS (Ehler-danlos syndrome; a connective tissue disorder leading to increased levels of mobility throughout the whole system), I enjoy treating through their system with techniques that I have found work for me, focusing on the vascular and fascial systems. Sarah is available: Monday 8am - 5pm Tuesday 8am - 2:30pm Wednesday 8am - 5pm Thursday 8am - 6pm Friday 8am - 1pm |