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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.

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).

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.

When we haven’t been treating patients Peter and I have been working with a good friend, (and patient) Laurent, to create a series of short informational videos for exercising.

A key component of our patients’ recovery is their ability and willingness to undertake the rehabilitation exercises. We endeavour to keep these exercises to a minimum, nonetheless, they may amount to a half dozen different exercises – some of which may not be easily remembered.

Sharing exercise videos for patients is something that we have been wanting to do for a long time. We can discuss and demonstrate the exercises when we are with a patient but a video is also available online as a reminder in the future.

I am really excited about this, as I am convinced these videos will provide real support and encouragement to our patients, help them implement their rehab routine more successfully and hence speed up their recovery – watch this space!

Example video below – Neck and Shoulders / Neck Mobility:

Many thanks to Laurent for all your help.

Can we help? Bridge to Health are registered osteopaths in Ealing and Uxbridge. Learn more about what to expect on your first visit to the osteopath here.

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)

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.

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)

In our excitement we forgot to announce that our new clinic in Ealing has opened and saw its first patients on Tuesday this week!

In case you missed it our address and contact number for Ealing is:

Bridge to Health
Platinum 8 Studios
22, the Green
Ealing, London W5 5DA

Telephone: 020 8566 0767

We are just 3 minutes walk from the Broadway or 5 minutes from Ealing tube station.

So you can now book an appointment to see an osteopath in Ealing or in Uxbridge and we have a rota for Peter, Jessica and myself being in one clinic or the other.

It’s been a very busy time getting the second clinic open and we are looking forward to helping more patients in the coming months.