OSTEOPATHY
What we treat:
Back pain
Neck pain
Headaches
Trapped nerves
Sciatica and disc problems,
Arthritis pain and degeneration
Sports injury and muscle pain
Poor posture.
Back pain
Back pain can strike anywhere in your back and can stay in one spot or radiate into your legs, arms, neck and head or through to ‘the front’ and be taken for groin, abdominal or chest problems. This is often due to pressure on the nerves of the spine which then pass to all of the above areas. Back pain is very common, over 60% of the UK’s population will experience it at some time in their lives. The pain can vary from very mild background aches to severe and debilitating and can occur as acute short-lived episodes or as chronic pain suffered over a long time that can be both uncomfortable and very exhausting. Most people will get very ‘run down’ both physically and mentally by any long-term symptoms.
Why does back pain occur
There is always a reason for back pain; it may have been a single incident of trauma, or a build up of accumulated stress and strain over many years. Accumulated stress and strain can be from physical or mental and emotional causes but often from a bit of both. We have to remember that in the real world physical mental and emotional causes and effects all work together, such as blushing when we are embarrassed or hunching our shoulders when stressed.
To be most effective in our treatment we need to have a full understanding of the causes of your symptoms. We need to understand how the injury has arrived and how it has affected your body. If your injury is due to a habit of using your body incorrectly then we need to be able to modify that habit or whatever changes we make will be undone and long term improvement will be more difficult.
Don’t forget that the way you have led your life up to this point is what has brought you to this point. If you do not change the way you lead your life then you will end up at this point again and you may not want to. Often your body has reached the limits of its ability to cope with the combined effects of past injuries and traumas, any new demand can be the ‘final straw’. This is why picking up your sock can cause your back to seize up when you appeared to cope with concreting the garden path or going through your divorce! So during the course of osteopathic treatment it is often necessary to release the retained stresses from past injuries and traumas, sometimes called tissue memory, in order to effect a lasting change in the current problem.
Osteopathy and Patient Protection
Patients consulting an osteopath have the same safeguards and rights as when consulting a doctor or dentist. Osteopathy is an established system of diagnosis and treatment as recognised by the General Osteopathic Council as a distinct clinical discipline.
Under the Osteopaths Act of 1993 osteopathy was accorded statutory recognition and the title ‘osteopath’ is protected by law. In the UK it is now a criminal offence to describe oneself as an osteopath unless registered with the General Osteopathic Council (GOsC).
The GOsC regulates and develops the profession maintaining a statutory register of those entitled to practice. Practitioners on the Register meet the highest standards of safety and competence and have professional indemnity insurance.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION VISIT THE SITE OF THE GENERAL OSTEOPATHIC COUNCIL (GOsC) www.osteopathy.org.uk
