Charlotte's back pain

In the summer between my first and second years at the British School of Osteopathy I had an episode of horrendous acute low back pain. Here's the story:

I was playing in an evening football match, nothing untoward happened that I remember but afterwards my low back started to ache. As I was driving the pain was worsening every second and by the time I was home I could barely get out of the car. That night was the worst I've ever had - whether I was lying down, sitting or standing the pain was excruciating, like I had a knife in my lower back. 

As I was training to be an osteopath I sort of knew what to do: ice, gentle movement, anti inflammatory medication and ring first thing the next morning to get an appointment! Luckily I managed to get an appointment that day, so I shuffled into the osteopaths, unable to straighten up, and was diagnosed with acute inflammation of a couple of lumbar spine (low back) joints. The osteopath treated me and I could walk a little easier. It took a further 3 treatments to be completely better and back to football, but after every treatment there was a noticeable improvement. 

Looking back now having this episode very early on in my path into osteopathy was a great learning experience for me (don't get me wrong it was extremely painful at the time!). Firstly I was able to learn how the osteopath that I saw treated spinal joint inflammation and what advice he gave. Secondly, and more importantly, I learnt what it was like to be in intense pain; how horrible it was and how worrying. It has given me great sympathy for anyone that I treat who is pain!

80% of people will suffer low back pain at some point during their lives, I believe that because I am part of that percentage it helps me to treat and understand others. 

If you are struggling with pain and are looking for help please get in touch!

www.rockinghamforestosteopaths.co.uk

07977367222

Do you really need an MRI?

Recently I have noticed an increased number of patients asking me whether they need an MRI scan. Most of the time my answer is no, here is why:

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a way of picturing the inside of the body. The machine uses powerful magnets and radio waves to accurately image the body, it is able to distinguish between different tissues, so therefore will show any problems in the soft tissues of the body (unlike an x-ray). An MRI is excellent for showing what is physically there however it tells you nothing about how the body is actually functioning. 

This table shows that many 'pathologies' are actually a normal finding on MRI scans: 

Source:
W. Brinjikji et al, 2014. "Systematic Literature Review of Imaging Features of Spinal Degeneration in Asymptomatic Populations". AJNR Am J Neuroradiol. 2015 Apr; 36(4): 811–816.

These findings were taken from people with NO pain. A whopping 52% of people over the age of 30 show signs of intervertebral disc degeneration but have no pain, how can this be? 

The presence or absence of anything physical does not equal pain or no pain. This is due to the nervous system. Our bodies contain the most powerful computer in the world, that is capable of making us feel pain in the absence of a physical problem e.g. phantom limb pain and, conversely, we may feel no pain in the presence of physical damage e.g. the table above. 

This is possible because the nerves at the site of the 'damage' may or may not be sending signals to the brain telling it that there is a problem and the nerves in the brain may or may not be activated without stimulus from the site of 'damage'. 

Of course there are many people who do have pain and do have physical findings on an MRI. But what is much more important to me and most other osteopaths is how the person functions. We are able to tell this by taking a thorough case history, performing an examination and monitoring progress through a treatment plan. Therefore unless someone is showing signs that they may need surgery then most of the time I do not recommend that they need an MRI. 

Finally if you have had an MRI and it shows any of the findings above in the table remember that this does not mean that you have to live with the pain; if you improve your function and decrease the pain producing nerve signals to your brain then there is no reason why you cannot recover. There are many different types of therapists who could help you, including myself! 

So stop living with pain and get in touch!

Rockingham Forest Osteopaths

07977367222

Proprioceptive Deep Tendon Reflex

This year I have been lucky enough to be introduced to a phenomenal method of diagnosis and treatment called Proprioceptive Deep Tendon Reflex (P-DTR). The best way to describe P-DTR is functional neurology - it looks at how the brain is receiving information and it's response to the information in what it tells the body to do.

The brain is receiving information 24hrs a day from nerve cells called receptors. We have receptors for every type of stimulus that we can perceive e.g. pain, heat, scratch, stretch, vibration. When we injure ourselves we affect specific receptor cells, which in turn give information of the injury to the brain which creates a response e.g. move away from a painful stimulus. Often once the receptor has been switched on it doesn't switch back off, therefore the brain still thinks there is an injury that it needs to protect, even after many many years the brain will still protect an injury! 

The human body will create compensations to deal with injury, for example if you pull a muscle on the inside of your leg the muscles on the outside, above, below, other leg or even seemingly unrelated muscles will contract more or less to avoid moving through the injury. Over time these compensations and adaptations can lead to problems and pain in areas close or far from the original injury. 

P-DTR enables a practitioner to find these receptor problems and fix them. This is why it is so powerful; if you can treat the exact nerve cell that has caused an issue to develop then the problem will not come back. The most difficult thing, however, is finding the exact receptor cell(s) at the heart of the issue. And having only just scratched the surface in my training of P-DTR I am beginning to realise that anything can cause anything! 

Here is an example of a lady that I saw recently:
She came in with left sided neck/shoulder pain that had started for no particular reason a few weeks previously. She had a history of recurrent neck pain but it was usually on the other side. Using P-DTR testing I found that her left Levator Scapulae (muscle attaching from the shoulder blade to neck) was hypertonic, meaning that it didn't weaken normally (all muscles should be able to be strong and weak on certain stimuli). Further testing showed that it didn't weaken by using stimuli to the muscle itself; the cause of hypertonicity was coming from elsewhere. 

After going through her medical history again, she mentioned some previous dental work, this lead me to test her jaw in relation to the Levator Scapulae... sure enough providing the right stimulus to her jaw enabled the Levator Scapulae to relax. Using P-DTR protocol I fixed the receptor dysfunction in the jaw and her neck pain decreased! 

Cases like this make me marvel at the ability of the nervous system. I am only at the beginning of my P-DTR training but am already getting some brilliant results - I can't wait to possess more tools to help more people quickly, efficiently and for good!

If you want to experience or know more about the endless possibilities of P-DTR contact me on Facebook or call 07977367222.

New year, new you?

At this stage in January many peoples new years resolutions are beginning to wane. Here are my top tips on becoming the healthier you that you are striving to be:

1) Diets don't work (in the long term)! The whole idea of a diet is flawed: eat differently or barely anything at all for a set period of time and you will lose weight, yes correct, however when most people finish their diet they go back to what they used to eat and will quickly put the weight back on. 

If you want the weight to stay off then you need to make achievable long term changes to what you eat, don't tell yourself you will never eat chocolate again; that will never happen (not for me anyway!). Try to eat meals that are going to fill you up until the next meal, and if you do get peckish swap fruit and nuts for crisps and chocolate. At breakfast change from sugary cereals to slow releasing carbs (e.g. porridge) or protein (e.g. eggs). Finally don't eat too late at night - a recent 'Trust me, I'm a doctor' episode on BBC2 found that the later you eat the longer your blood sugar and fat levels stay elevated for. 

2) Look at labels. You have probably heard this a lot over recent years but studying labels gives you a lot of control over what you are putting into your body. Have a look at the ingredient list, not just the nutritional information on the front, it can be really interesting and sometimes scary what the manufacturers put in our food. Also be aware that the fat in 'reduced fat' products is often replaced with sugar. 

3) Pick a type of exercise that you like. If you enjoy a particular activity you are more likely to continue to do it in the long term. When you start your chosen exercise don't expect that you will be as good at it as when you last did it 5 years ago, you most likely won't be and then you will be bitterly disappointed or your body will complain and pick up an injury. Both of which may cause you to give it up. Finally, at this time of year, picking an outdoor sport is really difficult to keep up; you have to be supremely motivated to go out for a run when it's windy, rainy and freezing cold. It will be far easier to start in the spring when the weather picks up (hopefully) and the daylight lengthens, then you get the bug and next winter you won't care about the rain! 

4) If you pick up an injury doing your new sport get it treated quickly, don't just try to ignore it. This will get you back to doing what you love more quickly and will prevent the injury turning into something worse further down the line.  

Here's to a happy, healthy 2016!