What Can Osteopathy Treat?

Osteopathy can effectively treat a wide variety of conditions and typically between one and three treatments are required. Below is a brief list of conditions we treat;

• Back & neck pain
• General joint pain
• Headaches / migraines
• Muscular aches and pains
• Sports injuries and rehabilitation
• Occupational over use syndromes
• Sciatica/nerve impingement
• Stress /Anxiety / Sleep disorders
• Pregnancy pains
• Unsettled babies
• And many more

'Stretches, some basic reminders

Hip or Butt:

This exercise is stretching the piriformis muscle in the hip region. You start on your hands and knees, bring one knee up under your chest on about the mid line. Lift the other knee a little and bring the foot of the forward knee around and try and get your lower leg as close as possible to being at right angles to your body. now slide your other leg and your whole body back and push back with your arms until you feel a good stretch in your buttock. Now for a bit of extra excitement you can go down on to your elbows and that really raises the bar on the stretch.

Hip Flexor:

With this stretch you are laying back on some thing that is strong enough to hold your body weight and high enough off the floor so that you can have your leg stretched backwards, like a table, off the edge of a deck or over some stairs. You lay back so that when you are lying down the crease between your butt and your thigh is on the edge of what you are lying on. you pull one knee in firmly towards your chest while your stretch buddy supports that knee but presses slowly and firmly down on the hanging leg with the other hand.

Zig Zag Twist:

This stretch is a great low back tonic. Lay on your back on the floor or your bed or on the edge of some thing if you need to get a bigger stretch. Bring one knee up and grab the out side of it with your opposite hand and just twist it over the top of you. You can do this your self or you can get some one to help. They put a hand on your chest, just below your shoulder, and the other on your knee. They stabilize the upper chest while putting pressure on your knee towards the floor. Feels good.

Shoulder:

This is the clock one. Where you stand with one foot close to the wall and the other more than a shoulder width apart and slightly forward so you are facing the wall a little. Raise your right arm, keep it straight and put it at the 1 o'clock position. Twist outwards until you can feel the pull on the muscles on the front of your chest and/or down your arm. Now gently lean forward and feel extra pull on these muscles. Repeat at the 2 and 3 o'clock positions for the right arm and then mirror image your body position with your left foot in and do the 11, 10 and 9 o'clock for the left arm.

Back Extension

Back extensions are fantastic and the easiest way to do them is to roll up a towel firmly, place it on the floor and lay back on it so that it is acroos the middle of your upper back, kind of across the lower shoulder blade area. Stretch your arms up above you and really feel the reversing of that forward slouch that we slip into. You can also place it length ways running up the length of your spine and do back stroke with your shoulders.

Inside Leg/Knee:

This is a great stretch if you have pain on the inside of your leg or knee. Sit on the floor or on your bed with your legs out straight and as far apart as you can put them. Now just gradually lean forward and see if you can get your elbows down onto the floor. Come up and put your legs a little further apart and lean forward again. You can also do this one standing up, just put your legs as far apart as you can and lean over and see how far you can go.

Knee Strengthening:

Lots of knee problems are solved by increasing the strength of our leg muscles. This move is a dynamic lunge where you take as bigger step forward as you are comfortable with and lower your body down as far as is comfortable. You keep your back and hind leg straight. Now come forward, push off with your front leg and swing the hind leg through as far as you can. Sink your body down and then come up and forward again. Do this as many times as you can and it will do wonders for your leg strength and knee stability.

Hand/Forearm:

These are for stretching the muscles of the fore arm. Commonly needed when we have an over use syndrome. For the muscles on the palm side come up to a desk, lean forward and place your palms flat on the desk with your fingers pointing back towards you. Then you gradually lean back and feel the pull in your arm or wrist, be gentle but firm. Now lift your palms but leave your fingers flat on the desk and lean back again, this gets a slightly different muscle group. For the muscles on the back of your fore arm come side on to the desk turn your palms backwards and then keep turning them so the palms are facing outwards. Now bend your wrists so the palms are facing upwards toward the roof and press the back of your hand down onto the desk top.

With both of these stretches when you can do one at a time the knuckles of the other hand that will really enhance the rehabilitation of these muscles.

Posture:

Posture, the dreaded P word. Posture is maintained by big muscles in your back not by your shoulders. So to correct it all we need to do is lift our chest. All you do is take a big breath in, shake the shoulders a little and then breath out but maintain the position that our big breath has put us into. That is the simple solution, of course it is a little more complex than that but it is an easy thing we can do during our every day activities that can keep us in a better physiological balance and better health.