One of the most common approaches when faced with back pain is that heat is used for symptom relief. Patients will run a warm bath, fill a hot water-bottle or apply the “deep heat” balm. They then tend to report short-term relief, followed by a relapse, or frequently, a worsening of the pain.

It boils down to this: if for any reason, a joint or joints in your back have become injured and inflamed, the muscles around that joint will tense up, partly as a natural reflex of the body to guard against further stress on these inflamed joints, and to prevent the resulting additional pain. Muscle tension in itself can increase the aching sensation, but may not tell the whole story.

Heat will cause the surrounding muscles to relax, creating an initial sense of wellbeing. However as they do relax, they can also leave the injured joints more exposed to stress, and if there is any inflammation, a hot pack will tend to encourage it, so should not be used persistently.

On balance, a more sensible remedial measure is to apply a cold pack (wrapped in kitchen roll to prevent frostbite) to the area causing pain, as this will tend to have a fairly powerful – if temporary – anti-inflammatory effect. Apply for 10-15 minutes, every hour or two.

Please spread the word, as awareness of this issue is not wide-spread.

Bridge to Health are registered osteopaths in Ealing and Uxbridge. If you have any questions regarding injury pain management, please email us (help@bridgetohealth.co.uk) or call either clinic – 020 8566 0767 (Ealing) or 01895 20050 (Uxbridge).

Now that we can refer to our exercise video library, I can share with you a short exercise sequence to follow at work/in the office that will take you less than 2 minutes to complete.

If performed every couple of hours (say 4 times a day) these exercises would probably largely curtail posture-induced pain and workplace injury. This is something we tend to teach it in our Posture Management Workshops that we deliver to local companies and organisations (found under the Employee Health section of our website).

Refer to the following exercises in the following sequence:

Exercise 1: Chin Tucks

Exercise 2: Neck Mobility

Exercise 4: Shoulder Mobility

Exercise 12: Pelvic Mobility

Exercise 9B: Thoracic Spine Mobility in a Wheely Chair

If you have any feedback or questions regarding these videos, or are interested in our local employee health programme, please contact us on 020 8566 0767 (Ealing) or 01895 2000 50 (Uxbridge), or by email at help@bridgetohealth.co.uk.

Many of our patients blame their aches and pains on their own bad postural habits; the implication is that if only they could maintain good posture in the chair at work, they would not encounter the same problems. Whilst good posture can help, it is part of a wider picture, and in most cases Osteopathic treatment is a very effective part of the solution. Here are ten reasons why:

1. There is no such thing as perfect chair posture; human beings are not designed to sit in chairs all day
2. A degree of objectivity is needed to evaluate the problem; this is very hard to do for yourself, and the trained eye of an Osteopath will quickly focus on the key issues
3. Assessment means that all related health problems may be identified at the same time, and treated appropriately in a structured and integrated manner
4. The result of sitting in chairs from schooldays onwards is that your body will have adapted e.g. certain joints will be stiffer; treatment can identify and modify those factors
5. Personalised exercise prescription can focus your efforts onto the most effective, relieving and restorative exercises for you as an individual
6. The first aim of treatment is to guide you back towards a sustainable state of relative comfort
7. Treatment is also aimed at improving your general health and mobility over the very long term
8. Consideration of lifestyle factors (such as work patterns or dietary habits) means that improvements are more likely to be sustained
9. It is common for patients to express surprise and delight that they are experiencing a state of physical ease and wellbeing they had forgotten was possible
10. The experience can equip you with the understanding and means to tackle similar health issues as and when they arise in the future

We’ve posted a few entries about posture at work – on a wide variety of topics such as

• what sort of bag is best for my back?
• Top tips for good posture at work (in the office)
• It’s just my posture … the slippery slope towards work related injury

I’ll post again in the next day or so some simple 2 minutes exercises that can help with good posture.

As you will know if you have received our newsletter, we have just launched our online exercise library. We hope that it will help not only our patients, but also the general public at large to implement body balance and posture enhancement exercises safely and effectively. Click on Exercises from the navigation bar at the top of the page to access the welcome page and videos.

If you have any questions or feedback regarding these videos, please contact us on 020 8566 0767 (Ealing) or 01895 2000 50 (Uxbridge), or by email at help@bridgetohealth.co.uk. You can also post a comment here (at the bottom of this post).

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a condition affecting the junctional area between the wrist and the heel of the hand. This narrow space carries important nerves and tendons supplying the palm and fingers; when it becomes congested, there may be symptoms such as pain, numbness, tingling or weakness in the fingers or hand, or problems with manual dexterity. The congestion may be the result of a number of different general conditions involving fluid congestion, including pregnancy and rheumatoid arthritis, or it may be more local in nature. Careful evaluation of the cause needs to be made, as the appropriate treatment will vary accordingly.

Although Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a common finding, it is also often misdiagnosed, such as in cases of problems with the base of the neck, where the nerves that supply the hand exit from the spinal column, or general tightness and congestion in the forearm itself, which is frequently found in deskbound computer operators.

Treatment

Standard medical treatment includes splinting, steroid injections or in severe cases, surgery, but it is worth starting with physical therapy such as osteopathy, because the treatment will be based on careful evaluation and diagnosis, and may prevent the need to consider more invasive methods.

Can an osteopath help?

Mathieu, Jessica and I are registered osteopaths in Ealing and Uxbridge. Please call either clinic – 020 8566 0767 (Ealing) or 01895 20050 (Uxbridge) – to speak directly to one of us about your symptoms, whether we can help and the options available (no obligation – read more about what to expect on your first visit here).

We often hear this from patients when they first come to our Uxbridge or Ealing clinic, and although there are conditions where “it’s a muscle problem” is a reasonable (if limited) statement, there are far more instances where it really is not the case.

Muscles are the galley slaves of the body; they do the hard work, but do not make the decisions about what work is to be done or issue the orders, and they tend to work faithfully under whatever circumstances they encounter to the point of exhaustion and failure. Their persistent complaints (aches and pains) are usually the warning sign that something is wrong, i.e. muscle pain is the symptom, but the problem is wider, and the solution should accord with that.

A typical example would be where a patient has persistent neck and shoulder tension; massage may help, but the tightness returns, often because of restrictions in the vertebral joints around the base of the neck.

At the very least, more aspects of the musculoskeletal system will be involved. Muscles move bones like levers in relation to each other by articulating joints, and they must coordinate in a cascade of events for their effort to be synergistic with the whole. The nervous system performs this role of communication and coordination of action and movement, and the cardiovascular system takes care of the raw materials (such as oxygen and nutrients) and disposal needs of the muscles themselves. Any compromise in the function of any of these systems is likely to produce symptoms local to the site of action, i.e. the muscles. How a problem is defined will most likely tell you something about the practitioner – e.g. a massage therapist may tend to describe conditions in terms of muscles. As Abraham Maslow said

“If the only tool you use is a hammer, you are going to tend to hit things”.

How can an osteopath help?

It is the task of an Osteopath to strive to understand the processes involved in creating a condition of unease or pain, and introduce appropriate measures (such as treatment, exercise or nutrition) to relieve the symptoms and undo the causes.

In fact the Osteopath aims not only to provide symptom relief, but also to ensure that the patient is equipped to reduce the incidence and severity of recurrences as well. Or to put it another way, Osteopaths can help you keep your galley slaves happier and for longer.

Can we help you? We are registered osteopaths in Ealing and Uxbridge. Please do explore our website to see what we treat and learn more about us.

This month, Laurent has been working very hard getting our new informational exercise videos ready to publish. Most are now online at www.youtube.com/bridgetohealthvideo and we will shortly be adding a reference/index page to our website here so that we and our patients can quickly find their individually recommended exercises.

Each video is about 1 minute long – an example for Lower Back – Pelvis – Core Stability is below:

Stretching of lumbar and pelvic muscles
This exercise aims to enable a relaxing and healthy distraction of every joint from the lower back through to the ankle. It is as useful for athletes as it is for people suffering from osteo-arthritis.

Thank you again Laurent for all your help.

Can an osteopath help you? We are registered osteopaths in Ealing and Uxbridge. Please do explore our website to see what we treat and learn more about us.