Keeping fit when you are flying off to the sun

As many of our patients prepare to fly off on holiday for a well-earned rest, the time seems right to publish a few handy tips to stay in good shape in spite of those flights. Our observation is that even those frequent air travellers amongst our patients seldom apply them!

The fact is that flying, especially long-haul, is a hazardous health pursuit! The atmosphere in the cabin is very dehydrated, the seat cramped, and the food not always the healthiest. However, you can counter these environmental effects by taking the following steps before and during your flight:

• Avoid too heavy a meal or any heavy drinking in the 24 hours before travelling – try and get a good night’s rest;
• On the day of travel, try and set your clock to the time of arrival, and start going through the day on arrival time – including meals;
• If you have any blood circulation problems (and even if you don’t) do consider wearing special compression socks or stockings only during the flight that favour blood circulation and lymphatic drainage;
• If you are luck enough to be travelling business class, do get that extra bottle of water once you have got through customs – some extra fruit (apples travel best) will also come in handy;
• Once settled in your plane seat, consider loosening all restricting clothes – undo your tie, loosen trouser belts, take off shoes;
• Even if your flight only lasts a couple of hours, get up a couple of times to walk down the aisles and stretch neck, shoulders, legs and back; on a longer haul flight keep doing this on an hourly basis;
• If you happen to be travelling with a good, thick hardback book, don’t just read it – stand on it with toes only, and then flex and stretch your ankles to encourage good blood circulation in your lower limbs;
• Refrain from alcohol during the flight – but never refuse a fruit juice or glass of water!
• If you board the plane during the night of your place of destination, try and get as much sleep as possible during the flight to synchronise with the arrival time;
• On the day of arrival, refrain from too heavy a meal and drinking sessions

We hope we don’t come over as real kill-joys, and that applying these tips help you enjoy your holiday all the more. Have a safe flight, and a thoroughly enjoyable holiday.

Newsletter: looking after your health in the workplace + Full Body MOT offer

Below are extracts from our July newsletter. If you would like to sign up (it’s free) for a monthly update including:

• Up to date news and features
• Our latest Special Offers
• Relevant Health Tips
• Clinic News

Click here to sign up to the Bridge to Health Newsletter.

Looking after your health in the workplace
Here in Uxbridge, we are surrounded by many large corporations. As a result we see a lot of workplace induced injuries.

Our corporate health program aims to prevent working days lost through musculoskeletal injury. We promote this in three ways:

• Corporate discounts ranging from 10-20% off our full treatment range
• Workshop-type presentations to your workforce highlighting some important tips to prevent injuries in the workplace
• In-house treatment days in your own office

To find out more about these services and to see if your company is entitled to a discount, contact the clinic directly.

Special Offer: Full Body MOT
Our monthly special offer helps you in your quest for good health. This month, we are offering a full health check to make sure you enjoy your summer to the full, especially if you are leaving on holiday. All too often our underlying weaknesses realise themselves when we are away. This happens for a number of reasons and finding medical help abroad can be a stressful process (take it from someone who suffered a serious spinal injury less than a year ago whilst 12,000 miles from home).

This is a complete health check to ensure your body is ‘firing on all cylinders!’. Your session includes:

• Cardiovascular assessment
• Respiratory assessment
• BMI/body fat % analysis
• Spinal health check
• Joint function testing
• Postural assessment

This one hour session will then include appropriate advice on lifestyle and injury prevention tips, plus relevant osteopathic treatment to ensure your body is working well and prevent risk of future dysfunction or injury.

This month, only £45 for the session.

You can also combine this with a full nutrition assessment and personalised diet plan for £90.

Marcus & Mathieu
Bridge to Health

What is repetitive strain injury?

Several of our patients are being treated for Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI for short) - most frequently tennis elbow and achilles tendonitis - and other patients often ask us about what lies behind RSI. Today’s post aims to provide some basic answers to these queries.

What is Repetitive Strain Injury?
Repetitive Stain Injury is an “umbrella diagnosis” that accounts for a wide range of musculoskeletal pain disorders as a result of overuse of the body. This is most often experienced in the arm due to occupational strain.

(Musculoskeletal = bones / muscles / tendons)

The pain is usually a sharp stabbing pain which initially comes on once the aggravating cause has ceased, however this may then go on to flair-up more often. There are many conditions that fall under this term such as Tennis elbow, Carpal tunnel, Thoracic outlet syndrome, Tendonitis and many more.

What is the cause?
When a movement or action is repeated over and over, the tissues of the body become overused and begin to break down. This leads to a build-up of inflammation as the body tries to repair the damage. Typical triggers are sporting injuries where an action is constantly repeated, for example running, swimming, serving a tennis ball can all trigger these conditions. Also, hobbies such as playing the guitar, fly-fishing, you name it! However, the most common cause of RSI in the modern age is overuse due to occupational strain and the biggest culprit of all is the computer keyboard - especially laptop computers.

How to fix/cure RSI
The most important element of the healing process is rest to allow the body to heal the tissue; however the dilemma faced by most patients is how to recover from an injury such as this when the causative factor is the one which puts food on the table. Other treatment methods are cryotherapy (using ice/cold water to help heal sprains) to reduce the inflammation and manual therapy such as osteopathy, physiotherapy and acupuncture.

Others methods involve applying a joint splint or forearm compression bandages to alleviate the pressure on the muscle insertion point.

How can I prevent Repetitive Strain Injury?
For many office-bound people, inevitably the bulk of the day is spent on a laptop but this needn’t be a guarantee that you will be affected by RSI.

• Seek advice on correct setup of your workstation, both at work and at home;
• Take regular breaks throughout the day, even if some are just 2 minute breaks, to stretch the arms, shoulders and back;
• Maintain good hydration at all time: you should be aiming for 1.5 to 2 litres of water each day. Tea and coffee are diuretics which lead to an increased expulsion of water from the body, leading to dehydration;
• Ensure a well balanced natural diet which avoids refined and processed foods and includes plenty of fruit and vegetable intake, as it is vital for promoting tissue health;
• Maintain good posture, this is important at all times but especially when at your desk as long periods in a poor position (typically slumped) will lead to poor circulation and nerve conduction and increase the risk of developing RSI;
• Ensure regular exercise, which is essential for muscle health, 30 minutes of walking a day is a great boost for circulation and will improve overall health in many ways;
• Seek good manual therapy, as it is a great way to keep muscles and joint moving correctly; a regular Osteopathic maintenance treatment will help.

If you have the symptons of RSI, don’t put off doing something about it. Bridge to Health Osteopathic Healthcare is based in Uxbridge, West London where we specialise in workplace based musculoskeletal complaints - visit our website at www.bridgetohealth.co.uk.

Newsletter: Extended opening hours, our new osteopath (in the making), + special offer

Below are extracts from our June newsletter. If you would like to sign up (it’s free) for a monthly update including:

• Up to date news and features
• Our latest Special Offers
• Relevant Health Tips
• Clinic News

Click here to sign up to the Bridge to Health Newsletter

Extended Opening Hours
Fitting in a treatment around a busy work schedule can be tricky, with that in mind we are now offering treatments from 8am - 8pm Monday to Friday and 9am - 2pm on Saturdays.

Our New Osteopath (in the making)
Congratulations to Mathieu who has recently had a new addition to his family.
Elizabeth was born on Saturday May 3rd, which takes his clan to four.

Special Offer - Deep Tissue Massage
This month we are offering a significant reduction on Sports Massage therapy.

Buy 3 sessions get 1 free

This is a great way to help prepare or recover for a sporting event, release tension from the muscles of the body, or simply aid relaxation by reducing stress and tension. Contact the clinic to book your first session.

Using hot/cold water and ice for burns, muscle sprains and migraines

One of the oldest, cheapest and most powerful remedies available to man is widely forgotten or misused today - we are referring here to hot and cold water, and treatments known as hydrotherapy.

As holistic osteopaths, we routinely prescribe hydrotherapy to support musculoskeletal treatment (treatment working on muscles and the skeleton): well used, water has a unique ability to stimulate the body’s tissues and healing mechanism.

At a very basic level, hot water attracts blood to the area to which it is applied, cold water draws blood away from the area.

A common misconception is the use of a hot bath or hot water bottle to calm an acute backache or joint sprain – whilst it may provide immediate relief, you will feel much worse shortly after, as the hot water draws more blood to already inflamed and congested tissues.

It is important to use hydrotherapy in a specific and reasoned manner – a few helpful examples include:

• For a kitchen low-grade burn, run the wound under cold water for 10-15 minutes, then apply a lightly-wrung cold water compress (e.g. flannel or tea-towel) for several hours thereafter.
• For any acute muscle strain or tear, or ankle sprain, apply a cold water compress or an ice-pack wrapped in a paper towel (frozen peas from the freezer will do as well) – apply for roughly 10 minutes every hour until the pain and inflammation abate. After a couple of days, the tissues can then be more actively treated by manual therapy.
• In the case of more chronically inflamed tissues, hot and cold applications are used to stimulate local blood circulation and tissue repair, and drain waste matter and toxins away from the affected area. Hot and cold packs can be used for localised applications, but a shower head is excellent over a larger area like the back. Apply hot source for one minute, cold for 30 seconds, and alternate 3 times, finishing with cold, then rubbing local area vigorously.

Routine contrast (hot/cold) showers are an excellent form of whole-body revitalisation treatment. For the brave, whole body dry frictions, followed by a cold shower or bath, form a powerful routine treatment to boost the immune system. However, they must be avoided in the case of people whose immunity is already weak or run down.

A final thought for migraines, which are thought to be caused by excessive blood vessel constriction, followed by rebound dilation causing the migraine through increased cranial pressure. At this point, distraction hydrotherapy – using a hot water footbath combined with a cold head compress – can have a powerful effect in drawing blood away from the cranium, and thus reducing or shortening migraine symptoms.

Reducing aches and pains during pregnancy (and how to speed up post-natal recovery)

A number of our female patients are expecting babies. They tend to visit the clinic at a relatively advanced stage of the pregnancy, when the greater weight of the child is beginning to provoke lower back, pelvic or hip pain.

Beyond the first term, Osteopathy is a highly helpful form of pre-natal and post-natal therapy in reducing aches and pains as the pregnancy progresses, preparing the body for effective delivery and speeding up recovery after birth.

Many of our pregnant patients are active professionals or family carers, who often tend to pursue their existing active lifestyles regardless, and don’t make the necessary adjustments and concessions to their pregnancy until pain stops them in their tracks.

Thus during pregnancy, the support provided by holistic osteopathy needs to extend well beyond the gentle joint mobilisation, muscle stretching and soft tissue massage that patients expect to receive.

Right from the first session, it is important to assess the lifestyle factors that may cause upset and trigger pain: simple issues such as banning high heels for the duration, not carrying heavy weights on one arm or shoulder, how to get in and out of cars, and relying on legs rather than on the back to stoop low etc. all contribute to stave off the risk of injury during pregnancy.

We try and help our patients to be more aware of their posture and work ergonomics, both in the office and at home.

Our patients are encouraged to adopt a tailored range of simple and gentle physical exercises to address the factors causing pain and stiffness, and foster the postural alignment, muscle balance and tissue health that will support the remainder of the pregnancy and prepare for a positive and empowering delivery.

Relaxation, visualisation and breathing exercises are also routinely used in conjunction with the physical exercises, specifically in the weeks directly preceding delivery.

Surprisingly, an area often neglected in preserving good physical shape, limiting undue weight gain during pregnancy and looking after the baby-to-be is the patient’s diet. Detailed dietary assessment and sound nutritional advice provided early on really help to manage weight, optimise mother and baby body tissue health, and favour prompt recovery post-delivery.

In our experience, addressing this full range of concerns really helps our patients’ feel they are in charge of the process and can play a leading role in ensuring a healthier and more comfortable pregnancy, and a more straightforward delivery.

An added bonus to these treatments is that we often get to welcome older children and partners in our clinic; in so doing, we can assist in their active involvement in preparing for this very special event.

Last but not least, a classic pitfall following a safe delivery is that all the focus centres on the baby to the exclusion of the Mother’s post-natal aches and pains, which are then ignored until well-entrenched and chronic. Encouraging pregnant mums to actively plan for a few post-natal treatments really helps them rapidly reclaim their previous form.

Please contact us if you would like to discuss our range of treatments/support for pregnancy. Bridge to Health is based in Uxbridge, west London.

Treating injured marathon runners osteopathically

Over the first few months of practice in Uxbridge, we have treated quite a number of patients training for marathon events.

Some visit because they have sustained an injury in the course of training, others because they are seeking supportive physical treatment and general advice in the context of their preparation and recovery.

The priority with injured marathon athletes is to “fix the patient” so that they can get back to their training schedule as fast as possible, with minimal interruption; but also to ensure the weakness that caused the injury is remedied and postural imbalances are corrected.

In all cases, we provide osteopathic treatment alongside a broader range of tips and advice to ensure that our patients are fit on the day, but also continue remaining fitter and healthier thereafter.

This advice covers a broad range of topics, including:

• Holistic osteopathic treatment to ensure not only lower limb fitness, but also optimal neck, shoulder and rib cage function, and core strength for peak performance;
• Deep tissue massage routines in the run-up and recovery phase of the run;
• Warming up and warming down routines;
• Input on a well-balanced running schedule that takes into account the athlete’s general health and fitness at the outset;
• Advice on fitness training to achieve the right balance of cardio-pulmonary fitness, musculoskeletal strength, flexibility, endurance and balance;
• Dietary advice to ensure that the right balance of nutrients is taken to deliver top performance and recover from the effort;
• The imnportance of adequate hydration before, during and after the run;
• Use of cryotherapy and contrast hydrotherapy to preserve and enhance muscle and organ health;

We have detailed this advice in a handy tips help sheet for our patients and other friends who are preparing for this great test of physical and mental endurance. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us (contact details here) if you would like us to email you a copy.

Choosing premises for our osteopathic practice in Uxbridge

Why did we choose Fitness First?

We chose to set up our first osteopathic clinic in Uxbridge, and having decided on the town, the next step was to identify suitable premises for our clinic.

We started with a systematic search for treatment rooms within a three mile radius of the town centre, focusing on existing healthcare units (GP practices, dentists, chemists), fitness clubs and leisure centres.

Unfortunately, the flipside of Uxbridge being a dynamic commercial centre is that appropriate premises – defined as a couple of treatment spaces, a reception area and kitchen / WC – is very hard to come by.

Two ”perfect spaces” for a couple of treatment rooms and a reception area caught our interest at first. However, the first, perfectly located on the High Street, was helpfully perched at the top of an almost vertical flight of stairs (perfect for acute lower backs…); the second was located in Stockley Park, and although the space was perfect in every respect, the prospect of treating aching, stressed-out executives necks and shoulders all day - as opposed to genuine mixed population practice – did not appeal.

Eventually, we settled on a treatment suite in the Fitness First Health Centre, it would be a great first step into the local market. Fitness First has an established reputation as market leader in the health and fitness industry, with an obvious target population for an osteopathic clinic. Further, they are serious about promoting and supporting in-house business partners.

The Uxbridge Fitness First gym had an established in-house alternative therapy clinic, but nothing competing with the treatment approach of osteopathy. It is also well located on the high street, and is less than a five minute walk from the Uxbridge Metropolitan and Piccadilly tube station.

Fitness First has over 2,500 active members, providing an entrenched pool of potential patients, and the location and layout of the clinic is professional and welcoming to outside patients.

Finally, Fitness First offers its on-site therapists free gym membership, which is not just a good opportunity for us to maintain our levels of fitness, but also an ideal way to meet potential patients in an informal setting.

What is Osteopathy? What can an osteopath treat?

I first came across osteopathy as I was recovering from a rather unpleasant accident which produced a badly prolapsed lumbo-sacral disc, and resulted in an orthopaedic operation called a discectomy. I had been warned that my recovery prospects were not good, but my encounter with osteopathy changed all that. A decade and a half later, when I decided on a career change and screened the full range of health professions, osteopathy again came out tops.

Osteopathy is a manual therapy which aims to diagnose and treat a wide range of physical conditions causing pain, stiffness, weakness or malfunction throughout the body. Although osteopathy is mainly known for dealing with spinal pain, the range of conditions successfully treated covers a much wider range of musculoskeletal and organic diseases, including

• Headaches and migraines
• Whiplash injuries
• Neck and shoulder tension (known as the office syndrome…)
• Frozen shoulder
• Asthma
• Arthritis, of both degenerative and inflammatory source
• Digestive complaints – e.g. irritable bowel syndrome
• Sciatic pain
• Pre and post-natal pain
• Sports injuries – e.g. tendonitis, muscle strains etc.

Osteopathy is distinctive in its focus on looking at the patient as a whole: it takes into account how the whole body moves and adjusts to pain, it is interested in the patient’s diet, exercise and lifestyle, all of which are factored into the diagnosis and treatment process. Further, using essentially only hands and brain, the osteopath will work with the patient to facilitate good structural alignment, tissue health and organ function that will alleviate pain, prevent symptom re-occurrence and foster a return to stable long-term health.

It is because of its holistic approach, and the stringent clinical standards required of osteopaths by the General Osteopathic Council, that I firmly believe in the healing power of good osteopathic treatment.

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog about two osteopaths in Uxbridge.  We decided to set up a new osteopathic clinic / practice a couple of years ago, and last October it finally became reality when Bridge to Health opened its doors to its first patient. We have our website - www.bridgetohealth.co.uk - to help promote our services, but if we can get to grips with blogging, we hope that these pages will help us contribute and publish useful information for healthy living - with an obvious bias around osteopathy - as well as give background about us, and what Bridge to Health is up to for our patients/potential patients and corporate clients.

And so for our next post…