And they flew

My daughter came home from school with this wonderful little piece of writing. This was in a handout about leaving school (yes I live in changing times) but it made me think too of all of the brave souls who have leapt into my world at work. It is a leap of faith to decide to do something about your pain, and then once you're through the door again and again I and my colleagues ask you to come to the edge. "Trust my knowledge and understanding, my hands, my exercises, TRUST ME" We always hope that we work in partnership with our patients, we keep up to date and extend our knowledge but it is they who must decide to 'come to the edge'

To all of you who have accepted hands on treatment, revisited GPs, listened to explanations about pain, done exercises and taken up exercise, changed their work stations and practiced such things as mindful body awareness and relaxation THANK YOU. We cannot leap with you, but we can give you the information about safety equipment (and in-flight entertainment).

Nature's cure

An interesting National Geographic article, This is Your Brain on Nature and accompanying video, explore the positive health and societal benefits associated with experiencing and connecting to the natural world. As they point out, “Science is proving what we’ve always known intuitively: nature does good things to the human brain—it makes us healthier, happier, and smarter.” Importantly, they mention that positive health benefits do not necessitate full emersion into untouched nature, but can be gained from engaging with the more natural elements of an urban environment and even exposure to images of the natural world. (taken from NOIjam July 27th 2017)

Those clever people at NOI (Nuero Orthopaedic Institute) are suggesting that maybe prescribed home exercise may work even better if done in an environment that makes you feel happy, so for example perhaps we shuld talk about 'garden exercise', 'beach exercise', park exercise'. Not feasible due to the great British weather, location or embarrassment? The good news is that even looking out of the window at something natural or looking at a picture of ntature can be effective inpositively influencing your brain.

I've been doing my daily pre-work stetching in my sunroom at home, usually to the accompaniment of the sound of rain. Do you know what? It feels good.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/shantel-irwin/bringing-local-communitie_b_18233698.html

This came in from arthritis action. if you suffer from arthritis why not check them out www.arthritisaction.org.uk

Entrance to site

The sewerage treatment works along the road (Barkers Haugh..such a great name, any ideas where it came from?) is having a makeover. As a result there are road works going on in the lane at the turn off to the Practice. It may be easier to access the site from the first turning after Crook Hall and then driving in front of the AEP to get to us.

By the way, whilst it's not so very glamorous to have the sewerage treatment works as a neighbour it does mean that our road is kept clear of ice and snow. I endeavor to keep the entrance and car park clear too. I had to take 10 minutes out of a clinic session last Thursday in that sudden dump of snow in order to spread grit. Apologies to those who had to wait whilst I shovelled but it was a job that had to be done, and the 1st time I've ever had to stop mid clinic because of the weather.

Pleae take care on the ice, it is possibly better to miss a run/cycle/ walk due to poor surface rather than have an accident and miss several months?

Seasons Greetings

We close for Christmas onFriday 21st December. Any problems or concerns, Please phone the normal number and you will be transferred through to Sian. If necessary an Appointment can be arranged between now and the 2nd Jan when we get back to normal hours.

We wish you a Happy and Symptom free holiday. Try tokeep the good habits and exercises going. It's harder when we're out of routines. And if you do forget for a few days don't despair just pick up the pieces again when you can!

New Year, New You (here we go again)

"Happy New Year", it's an interesting phrase. With happiness must come the knowledge of sadness just as we enjoy the sunshine more after rain. No-one lives a life of total happiness, but we can look to find moments of joy, often, wonderfully these moments crop up uninvited, and sometimes the pursiot of happiness can make us sadder as we seek the unobtainable.

It is the time of year when the Press tells us we should be bettering ourselves, and why not? The starting again in January, writing 01 for each days date gives us an opportunity to reassess. But we need to be kind to our bodies and minds. Let's not go battering into our resolutions of more exercise, less food, get this done, that learned because we've been led to believe it will make us happy. Let's do all of these things in order to nurture our wonderful bodies and minds because we want to, and let's do them in such a way as to promote a feeling of satisfaction not despair. Maybe then we can start being more aware of random feelings of joy.

If you have found this web-site because your New Year resolution to exercise more has resulted in musculo-skeletal pain, or if your resolution is to deal with a long term discomfort, or any other reason we will be delighted to help you find your own way to achieve your goals. We will listen to you carefully, you are the expert as to what you are feeling. If we think we can help you we will offer hands on treatment and advice according to our knowledge and experience, but you will not be pressured to accept it. We will not hand out 'one size fits all exercise sheets', we will tailor exercise according to your wishes, needs and past experience. We will try to help you achieve your resolutions, but perhaps more importantly we will try to work out HOW those resolutions might be.

Saw this and thought of you

Common back pain myths

Osteopath Anna Roberts, takes a closer look at some of the common myths around back pain, find out more below:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/familyhealth/common-back-pain-myths-you-need-to-stop-believing/ar-AAmjJJl

CLINIC CLOSED THURSDAY 1st MARCH

Our apologies, Liz has been unable to get into the practice today Thursday 1st March. Please stay at home in the warm. We will be in touch on Monday.

CLINIC CLOSED UNTIL MONDAY

Please accept our apologies. We have made the decision to close the clinic until Monday due to travel difficulties caused by the wind and snow. Please stay safe.

walking the walk

Well don't tell anyone. I'm doing the couch to 5k running programme after years of denial due to arthritic knees and feet. I decided that it was time to put my money where my mouth is and do the 'valued activity'. I've spent plenty of time working on mobility and hip stability but was still making excuses. You know the ones; I haven't got time, I need good footwear but it will be a waste of money if I really don't find the running to be enjoyable, every one will laugh at me..... So how's it going? Well thanks. Some runs are harder than others, my knees are certainly no worse and my feet getting over the shock. I haven't heard anyone laughing and now I don't care if I do. I definitely have more energy in the evenings and I am enjoying the time I'm spending purely on me, for me. For info, I'm using the NHS app. Jo Whiley accompanies me at the start of each week with empathy and encouragement. Some runs I do with Michael Johnson because he's too scarey to let down. Maybe I'll see you out there sometime?

The Doctor who gave up drugs

This television programme was on a couple of months ago and is now unavailable so I can't guide you to watch it. The premise was whether a TV Doctor (seen on CBBC and Trust Me I'm a Doctor) could encourage people to be less dependant on drugs such as pain killers, anti-depressants and anti-biotics. Also he wanted to show that Type 2 diabetes and cholesterol could also be tackled with changes in life style.

Of course there is nothing new, probably along with every other Osteopath in the country I was shouting at the television" YES WE KNOW EXERCISE IS THE SINGLE MOST PROVEN FORM OF THERAPY FOR MOST MUSCULOSKELETAL CONDITIONS AND '21st CENTURY DISEASE" but it's not easy to change our lifestyles. The thing that resonated from the programme was the fact that we all need help and encouragement to stay on track. It's easy for a health practitioner to give advise, and we all intend to follow this advise, but life, preconceptions, disbelief all get in the way and good intentions get forgotten. (Cue my Mother's saying that "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions")

The answer of course is help, encouragement and reward. We at Dunelm Osteopaths are looking into ways to improve our patients' and our own physical and mental health.

In the meantime...go onto You Tube and look up 23 1/2 hours by Dr Mike Evans

Welcome back Mark

We are delighted that Mark is back working at Dunelm Osteopaths after a break due to ill health. We've missed him as have his regular patients.

Now all we need is the building work at Milburngate to be finished and all will be well.