Having children is such a wonderful experience right? Kisses, cuddles, being the absolute centre of someone’s universe . . . . . but it can take a toll on our bodies – for mums AND dads. The lifting and carrying of babies, wriggling toddlers, buggies, nappy bags, and all the paraphernalia. The sustained and repetitive postures as you feed, rock them to sleep or lie curled on the edge of…
Airports Miles of walking, often pulling heavy luggage, juggling trollies and children and buggies . . . the endless standing in queues. Remind me at what point we thought this was going to be a good idea? If you’ve already got a bad knee, ankle, foot or arm the miles of walking, lifting and getting banged by someone’s suitcase won’t help. Wear a bandage or a sling or take a…
In a world where we sit to work, sit to relax, sit to travel we should understand the impact that sitting has on us all. We weren’t designed to sit (or slouch!) so get moving!!
Sciatica, one of those wonderful medical terms which we now use in everyday conversation to cover a whole host of aches and pains. Real, true sciatica is only from problems in the disc L3 in your lower back and symptoms include: Pain in the buttocks or leg, often worse when sitting. Burning, tingling or “pins and needles” down the leg. Weakness, numbness, or difficulty moving the leg or foot. A…
Arthritis – such a common diagnosis for so many people and so many joints. But what is it? Arth – joint Itis – inflammation This can happen to any joint in the body –any point where 2 bones meet, and this includes each disc of the spine as well! Sometimes we are given more complicated names for specific joints or conditions: Osteoarthritis – when the cartilage within the joint has…
Aaaaah,Back to School time, depending on which side of the parenting fence you are on you are jumping for joy or sad for the end of summer. But whatever you feel about this time of year one thing never changes – kids grow! And that means new uniform and new school shoes. While the wrong size clothes might be annoying or irritating, the wrong size shoes can have a BIG…
I don’t think it will surprise anyone who’s met me or read my blog that in my opinion surgery is to be considered the last resort, the thing you do when you’ve tried everything else or things have got so bad there just isn’t another option. But if you are at that point then I think it’s important to get the BEST results possible. These points apply for all kind…
I’ve written a few times now about nerve pain and how it confuses treatment. The problems with nerve pain are: Identifying it Finding the root cause And this is why you can be having the best tennis/golfers elbow treatment, the best carpal tunnel treatment, the best knee and leg pain treatment with no effect. Because it’s actually a problem with the nerve supplying that area not that area itself. The…
“I have a vision . . . . a vision of your future . . . . . it’s a pain free future . . . . . ” Yes, yes, I know, it’s an old joke that I can predict your future with gait analysis. The studies show that it can predict your outcome after hip replacement surgery and now it turns out that it can predict your injury…
In the past I have jokingly referred to gait analysis as a way to predict the future. I can watch you walk, analyse your foot function and be pretty certain whether you will have hip, knee or ankle pain in the next decade. Foot function rarely alters, it gets worse but if you have high big toe impact at 18 the chances are you will continue to have high big…