After I posted how we use a gym ball to treat and provide pain relief to pregnant mums I met up with Vicky Warr, a young dynamic fitness instructor whose company, Beez Kneez, provides pregnant mums across West London a wide range of prenatal and post natal fitness programmes.

We had a good chat on such topics as managing good physical and mental health during and after pregnancy, good nutrition, and exercise teaching methods, during which I appreciated her caring, reflective and tonic approach to these subjects. Her website is clearly laid out with good information on Beez Knees classes and activities (including short videos) – www.beez-kneez.co.uk

I proposed to Vicky to visit one of her classes and provide the mums a tutorial on using a gym ball for good pelvic alignment, and involving their partners in giving them simple pain relief treatment during the last weeks of pregnancy. Do take a look at their fitness and nutrition programmes if you are concerned about remaining in good shape during and after pregnancy.

If you are just starting your third term of pregnancy, your baby’s weight becomes significantly more noticeable, and you will increasingly tend to experience lower back, pelvic and perineal pain or discomfort. These symptoms can be upsetting as they increase both your level of tiredness and tension (particularly if you are still working or looking after young children) and perhaps concern about a potentially more protracted and uncomfortable delivery.

This is where a gym ball may turn out to be a faithful ally. We recommend that our pregnant patients start using a gym ball as their main chair towards the end of the second term – for eating, working at the computer or even watching TV.

Sitting on the slightly unstable and mobile gym ball favours better seated posture, gently mobilises the pelvis and lower back, and helps massage and relax the perineal muscles.

We also tend to use a gym ball when treating pregnant mums (or mums to be), and we have devised a simple treatment routine that supportive partners can safely give during the final weeks of pregnancy, reducing spouse tension and pain from the neck to the pelvis. This has the cumulative benefits of involving Dads positively, providing tangible relief to the Mums, and further enhancing the couple’s relationship at an important stage of their partnership.

I developed this treatment routine to help my own wife with her third and fourth pregnancies. Her first two deliveries had been protracted and traumatic (our eldest child was delivered by emergency C-section), and in stark contrast, our last two children were born relatively peacefully at home. My wife asserts that this result is significantly owed to a combination of osteopathic treatment and her gym ball routine.

To find out more about osteopathic healthcare support during pregnancy and after delivery, do contact us – we are located in Uxbridge and opened a second osteopaths’ in Ealing last September.

Gym balls are very cheap (from less than £10) and can be found in the likes of Sports Direct and Argos. You might also find this post helpful: Reducing aches and pains during pregnancy (and how to speed up post-natal recovery)

I have been pondering lately about why it is that osteopathy seems to be such a useful tool for improving physical comfort and mobility; surely we are built to self-maintain in good health and working order? Yet most people seem to benefit greatly from treatment, whether they are physically active or not.

The answer is complex in detail, but simple in summary: lifestyle!

The truth of the matter is that we are living in a man-made environment, whereas we have spent millions of years evolving in the natural world. Our mind and body have been honed by nature to do one thing, whilst we are steadfastly determined to do something else entirely. Osteopathy respects this natural heritage, and tries to redress the balance somewhat.

What does this have to do with your stiff back?

Put simply, if you don’t use your body the way it was designed to work, it (i.e. you) will suffer. (Notice that I am distinguishing between your body and your self, which is a man-made distinction, and will be the subject of another blog in the near future). For example, human beings were not designed to sit in a chair all day, year upon year. I find it ironic that much is made of “the right way to sit”, whereas ultimately there is no right way; it’s a bit like saying “what’s the right way to hurt my body?”.

Many of the physical, stuctural problems that people encounter with their body is the result of the chair, but it is by no means the only culprit. I mention it here, because it is the accepted way most people spend a huge amount of their precious life, slouching in a chair, just like I am right now. Chairs are a fact of life, but the ill-effects of using them can be greatly moderated by what else you do with your body.

So what do you do about it?

This is a very good question. As someone once said, a good question is difficult to answer, and a very good question may have no answer at all! The point I am making is that it is worth keeping an open mind to what might constitute an answer, because it can be a constant source of enrichment in your life. Many of the wisest souls in the world of health and welbeing have been driven to their understanding through extreme illness or disability; the Chinese character for ‘crisis’ also means ‘opportunity’. So your back ache could be the start of a new chapter of investigation, discovery and enrichment in your life. The most important thing you can do about it is to begin looking for health: investigate, experiment (within reason), and gradually you will begin to make a difference to your own health experience.

Whilst there can be no universal answer, there is a good chance that your back problems are going to improve with conservative treatment. There are always exceptions, and this is a good reason for seeking advice as to whether there is any cause for concern, but most back ache can be at least improved if not transformed by regular, focussed exercises. By that I do not mean a 30 minute run on concrete roads in an old pair of trainers. An osteopathic assessment will look at the structure of your back and the way it moves. Treatment is then designed to bring the structure back towards alignment and balance, and work on the mechanics of joint motion to create ease of function (i.e. movement). And as the musculoskeletal structure (i.e. your spine and limbs) begins to return to functioning in the way it was designed, there is commonly a corresponding sense of ease and wellbeing that patients often comment on as an unexpected bonus.

I am an osteopath in Ealing (and also Uxbridge twice a week) where I provide treatment and pain relief for back pain, neck or shoulder ache… Do get in touch if you have questions or want some advice whether osteopathy can help you.

Tomorrow (christmas eve) the Uxbridge clinic is open, but Ealing will be closed and both clinics are closed on Friday (25th), Saturday and Monday 28th.

Next week – if you need to see an osteopath in Ealing or an osteopath in Uxbridge appointments are available. Both clinics are:

• Open Tuesday 29th
• Open Wednesday 30th
• Open Thursday 31st December
• Closed Friday 1st and Saturday 2nd January
• Open as normal from Monday 4th.

Mathieu, Jessica and I wish everyone a merry christmas and a happy and healthy 2010. Thank you for your support.

As the cold rainy weather settles in, many of our patients in Ealing and Uxbridge are reporting epidemics of flu, colds and various upsets ravaging their families and colleagues at work.

So it seems like the right time of the year to offer some tips to boost your immune system. If you are feeling under the weather, or want to try and fight-off the colds this winter then our top 10 tips are as follows:

• Watch your diet
  Stuff yourself with as much seasonal fruit and raw or lightly cooked veg as you can; choose brown over white – for bread, pasta and rice; prefer grilled or poached oily fish (tuna, salmon) over red or white meat – and generally, eat less rather than more;
• Optimise your intake of natural minerals and vitamins
  by juicing 250-300 ml-worth of mixed fruit and veg. For example, combine apple, carrot, celery and a little grated ginger;

• Consider botanical immune boosters
  such as turmeric in curcumin form, echynacea, bromelain (found in pineapple stem), liquorice and co-enzyme Q10;

• Drink less caffeine and alcohol
  and, needless to say, tobacco and occupational drugs which threaten to overpower your waste elimination organs (liver, spleen and kidneys);
• Consider multi-vitamin supplements
  If you are feeling very depleted, or under pressure to recover, consider some good quality high potency multivitamins and minerals: Cytoplan or Lamberts are considered good brands; we’re not great fans of supplements, but sometimes there’s little choice;
• Ensure good fluid intake
  Aim for six to eight 200ml glasses of fluids per day: water and natural fruit-juices are in; tea, coffee, and high caffeine, fizzy drinks are out;
• Replenish your body with electrolytes
  If you have been suffering from vomiting or diarrhoea for any duration; 1 litre of homemade electrolytes can be made up by adding 1/3 L fresh apple juice, 2/3L water, 2 tea-spoonfuls or raw cane sugar of honey and 1 tea-spoonful of sea-salt – to be sipped within a day;
• Go for daily exercise and deep breathing
  Aim for a daily brisk 30-minutes walk in the fresh air – try for two to four 30-minutes sessions of light exercise a week, and invest in 200 bounces per day on a bouncer/mini-trampoline to stimulate your lymphatics!
• Treat yourself to manual therapy
  You’d expect us to say that but… a couple of sessions aiming at stimulating good blood and lymph flow, activating the waste elimination organs and encouraging good whole-body function is a sound investment this time of year;
• Get some decent rest - this is not a great season for regular partying (end of year excepted!) – aim for 7-8 hours of daily sleep, aiming to have retired to bed by 10 O’clock to give your body a chance to repair itself.

We hope these tips don’t come over too much like a one way ticket to boot camp. On the upside, using them may just allow you to reach the end of the year in top form to fully enjoy Christmas and new year celebrations.

With our best wishes of good health!

Can we help? This is our blog highlighting what we at Bridge to Health do. If you want a friendly chat with an osteopath – please contact us at Uxbridge Osteopaths / Ealing Osteopaths.

This was a question from a patient who was concerned that he might have something seriously wrong with his neck because the clinical treatment alone was not enough to maintain relief of his symptoms. As an osteopath, it is an interesting statement because it points to a fundamental misconception of what constitutes

“doing something to your neck”.

For the patient, sitting in a chair at work 5 days a week was a natural way of life, and not something he expected to result in too many consequences. In terms of biomechanics, that starts to look suspect on many levels, not least in terms of the moulding effect on posture. There is an old saying,

“of all the inventions of Man, nothing is as cruel as the chair”.

What happens to your neck when you sit down is this.

When you sit, you lose the natural inward curve of your low back; the result is that your upper body and head is tilted forward, and therefore you will pull your head back to level your gaze. The modern preference for eye-level screens will exacerbate this unless you maintain the curve in your low back; similarly, leaning forward will exaggerate it. The net effect is that the back of your neck is compressed, much as if you were stood looking at the night sky, or painting a ceiling for hours at a time. The difference in these activities may seem significant to you, but as far as your body is concerned, you are squashing the base of your neck whichever way.

This means that over time, the region around the base of your neck will tighten, and movement will be reduced due to joint compression. Taken over days, weeks, months and years, the effects become more ingrained in the body structure, and you lose the ability to move freely.

Osteopathic treatment can help to counteract the long-term consequences of deskwork, but prescribed exercises will play a big part; without restoring adequate everyday motion to an area, your body will tend to trade off mobility for stability.

The stiffening that my patient was experiencing is a natural economy of needs that your body performs: where motion is used, it will tend to be maintained; where it is not used, it will be discarded. There is truth in that other old saying “use it or lose it”.

I am a registered osteopath in Ealing, and neck pain and back pain are just two complaints/conditions/injuries that we treat. If you have any questions or need some advice, please do contact us. (The Ealing clinic is on The Green, literally a four minute walk from Ealing Broadway).

Most of our office-based patients come to us complaining of a similar set of injuries typically induced by the sedentary lifestyle that goes with working at a desk, and the poor postural habits we acquire in that environment.

Once the pain and other symptoms have been addressed, the focus of patient care switches to the prevention of similar occurences in the future. Ever in quest of the magic bullet, many patients ask us whether acquiring good working posture will address the problem.

Inevitably, the answer is… both yes and no!

Unquestionably, learning and applying the basic components of good desk-based posture – as outlined in an earlier post – Top tips for better posture at work (in the office) – is pivotal to injury prevention.

But we also have to acknowledge some fundamental truths: namely, that we were not designed and equipped to work for hours at a time at a desk (no more than to drive for hours in a car or totter around on 3-inch heels carrying a briefcase crammed with laptops and documents…).

Effective workplace injury prevention involves addressing a much wider range of issues including:

1. desk and office-based exercises at regular intervals during the working day
2. daily home exercise to counter some of the stresses inherent to desk-related postural imbalances
3. nutrition and hydration habits at home and work
4. sound lifting and carrying ergonomics (some advice posted here)
5. regular and effective relaxation/recovery routines
6. good sleeping habits and posture

All of which combine to provide a more comprehensive insurance against posture and stress-related injuries in the future. It is with this in mind that we designed our Workplace Injury Prevention Workshop, which aims to train office workers, increase awareness and reduce the risk and cost of postural and repetitive strain injuries. If we can help your organisation – please get in touch (we are osteopaths based in Ealing and Uxbridge)