One of the most frequent grumbles that we receive from patients is how quick their treatment appointment was. Our answer is usually that you are not paying for the chiropractors time, you are paying for their expertise, experience and the treatment.

Our job as chiropractors is very often detective work as we look at the whole patient and their lifestyle to try to find the root cause of their pain/complaint. So does clothing and fashion have a role to play in aggravating pain?

So many choices! How do you make a decision that is best for your needs? It can be tempting to go with whoever can fit you for an appointment the soonest, pain can make you impatient. But in the long run it would be more advisable to do a bit of research and chose the practitioner who you think that you will gel with the most.

Many questions are asked all the time so I have collated the answers here

Following on from the previous blog about the relationship between tight hips and lower back pain I thought I’d take a quick look at why so many people who are hypermobile experience pain also. It seems unfair –being stiff can cause pain but being very flexible can also cause pain.

Now that summer has well and truly arrived (hurrah!), we are noticing a seasonal trend in clinic - more people are attending for advice and treatment of lower back pain relating to recent increase in exercise. On physical examination we are finding that, very often, this lower back pain is closely related to tight hips that have been caused but a long winter of reduced activity.

Some impressive poetry by a lovely lady.

Most people respond very well to chiropractic treatment alone and are very happy for this to be the only change that they make. Many of our patients seek out and benefit from signposting and advice on exercise, diet, and supplements too. This is a natural progression on the road to optimal neuromuscular skeletal health.

To bathe before or after treatment? Does it matter, what are the benefits?

Standing and walking on 2 legs are far more difficult activities than you might imagine, so difficult in fact that humans are the only mammals that do it exclusively. A complex interaction between the brain, the nerves in the spine and the muscles and joints of the pelvis and legs is required to keep us upright. Even after millennia of adaptation and evolution walking is essentially not much more complicated than a controlled sequence of falls in a desired direction.

Did you know that by the end of winter, 87% of people have below optimum vitamin D levels in their systems? Factors such as obesity, older age and having darker skin tones can boost that number to 100%.

Even early risers can feel daunted by getting up in the morning if they have lower back pain. Not only can it be tricky to get out of bed but tasks that are usually simple, like putting on socks, need great planning to perform.Normally this pain/ stiffness eases off within half an hour or so of getting moving but it can lead people to wonder why it happens? In this blog entry I’d like to look at this in some depth and come up with some solutions to the problem.

TLDR - If you are struggling to function without a lot of pain management throughout the day then probably not. If you are coping and your work can make reasonable adjustments then it is worth considering. Keeping active and not dwelling on your discomfort will help. Communicate with your health care provider and your workplace for advise relevant to your situation.

In short this is your body’s position sense – the nerves that tell your brain where your body is in the world.

The perceived wisdom is that having a very high body mass index (BMI) causes joint problems, such as osteoarthritis, and increases pain. It is true that there is a lot of evidence that people who are overweight or obese have increased incidences of osteoarthritis than those who have a lower BMI. There are some good reasons for this (see below). However what is not true that increased BMI putting additional stress on weight bearing joints causes wear and tear. Joints don't wear out with increased use. In fact the opposite is true - the more you use a healthy joint the better it adapts, strengthens and repairs.

Some low cost tips for staying cool in a heat wave

When you have reached the point in your treatment plan where you have achieved the goals that you set out initially - usually calmed down the pain and returned to activities that you love

We’ve all experienced random pain across our bodies. Or maybe experienced a weird twitching somewhere? Often we can’t explain why it’s happened. Luckily these little zaps and twitches don’t usually indicate an issue. Rather, it’s your nervous system running required background maintenance.

Small observations can reveal so much and help build a picture of why you’ve come to visit us. Like a tree that grew on a windy clifftop with solid roots and stubborn branches, your adaptations and postural changes only make you stronger.

“Slipped” or herniated disc is one of those diagnosis that no one wants to hear, it sounds scary and permanent. Dr Google can be blamed for most of the catastrophizing about slipped discs. Modern imaging, amazing as it is, is contributing to patients worst fears about back pain. Often confirming disc injuries when in reality the discs are not always the problem.

When chiropractors start to work with the nervous system, muscles, fascia, ligaments, tendons and joints we sometimes unravel injuries from years ago. We may therefore shed layers of protective spasm or tension at each visit. This is a little like peeling away the layers of the onion in order to get to and understand the whole picture of what is going on with your body

As the treatment course progresses it is common for the type of pain experienced to change. This is partly a result of our body's healing response to treatment and also because the perception of pain changes as knowledge increases.

Pain is a protection mechanism not an indicator of damage. For various reasons your brain may decide that you are at risk and in order to protect you from harm will give you pain. How we experience that pain depends of many factors.

The degree of pain that we experience is not equal to the amount of damage that we have sustained. In fact the degree of pain experienced is an indicator of the degree of risk that we feel. This means that we can manage and reduce pain by analysing and evaluating our environmental, physical, social and psychological risks.

One of the most common pieces of advice that anyone in pain is given is to use ice or heat applied directly to the area. Treating pain with hot and cold can be extremely effective for a number of different conditions and injuries, and easily affordable.

Regular movement is key to comfort, especially if you’re stuck in one position for too long. If you find yourself in discomfort or pain, you should move every half an hour to an hour. Just a few minutes of movement can reduce pain and stiffness.

Postural variations are common and not normally a sign of anything other than lack of movement, general body deconditioning, poor health or stress.