Luggage Damage

Here we go heading into summer and the holiday season.  So how much can you squeeze into your suitcase for that holiday and, more importantly, how heavy will it be once you’ve packed it?

The fact is that this is the time of year when osteopaths will be seeing patients with luggage induced injuries. If you don’t want to be one of those unlucky folk here are a few things to think about when it comes to surviving your holiday luggage.

How heavy? – Obviously the weight of your suitcase will determine how much potential damage it will cause when you come to lift it so try to keep it light. Let’s face it, most of us are guilty of packing too much stuff and we return home with somethings that never leave the case. Maybe even consider two bags instead of cramming everything into one. Of course the airlines would like this and I appreciate it’s not always possible.

Does it have wheels? – It’s a lot easier to wheel a heavy load than it is to lift it so opt for the suitcase with wheels. Also bear in mind you’ll probably still have to lift a suitcase at some point in any case to get up or down stairs, into the boot of a car or drag it off the airport conveyor belt.

Need a trolley? – If the airport or railway station has a luggage trolley it makes sense to use one to carry your load.

Pull or push? – Dragging a case behind you means walking slightly twisted which could put strain through both the shoulder and the spine. Pushing a case in front can be less of a strain on the body.

How high can you go? – You may be able to just lift your heavy suitcase off the floor but don’t assume you can get the same case above your head and into an overhead locker.

How long have you been sitting? – Whether it’s a couple of hours in the car or a long haul flight across the Atlantic bear in mind that you’ll be stiff at the end of the journey and therefore at more risk of injury when it comes to throwing luggage around. So don’t be in too much of a hurry to lift the suitcase out of the boot of the car after a long drive.

What’s the rush? – If you try to do something too quickly the chances are that you won’t do it properly so think about how you lift a huge suitcase and take your time.

Do you need help? – If it’s too heavy or too bulky don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Simply remember to view your luggage as a potential health hazard and be careful when you’re anywhere near it.

Beware Hair Twiddling

I like to think that osteopathy is a partnership approach to solving problems with both the Osteopath and the patient being involved in the process. So it’s always nice to hear that a patient has acted on their own initiative.

I’ve recently been treating a patient with a painful shoulder and she’s been making steady progress but I was surprised when she came to clinic and announced that she’d solved her shoulder problem by getting her hair cut short! She went on to explain that since a young child she had always had the unconscious habit of twiddling her hair with her right hand. When she wasn’t thinking about it whilst just sitting watching TV she’d fall in to the habit of fiddling with her hair.

It makes sense that when osteopaths start treating a patient with a particular problem not only do they have to come up with an idea as to what they are treating in the form of a diagnosis but we also like to think beyond that to figure out what caused the problem in the first place and what aggravates it. Most patients are looking for pain relief or better movement but unless the potential cause of the problem is identified it’ll happen again and again.

In the case of shoulder problems classic aggravating factors might be carrying a heavy shoulder bag, holding a young baby repeatedly over one shoulder or using a computer mouse for long hours. Of course an aggravating factor that I’ll now bear in mind is having long hair and twiddling it!

The thing is that with a lot of the aggravating factors that are associated with using the arm we have to remember that arms are quite heavy things. If you lift your arm above your head for a while it’s fine but leave it there for any length of time and things are going to ache and complain under the weight of the arm itself even if it’s not holding on to anything. So when folk sit at their busy, cluttered desk in front of the computer holding on to the mouse, unless the arm or wrist is resting on the desk the arm and the shoulder are going to get tired and they’re going tighten up and ache. And the same goes if you’re sitting in front of the TV twiddling your hair!

Stress and Feeling Old

“Every stress leaves an indelible scar, and the organism pays for its survival after a stressful situation by becoming a little older.”

~ Hans Selye

I think the majority of patients coming along to our clinic would relate to this quote from the endocrinologist Hans Selye. When you’re struck down with an episode of severe low back pain and every simple movement becomes a monumental task you feel like you’ve aged over night. Actually, it doesn’t even have to be a really bad pain to make you feel elderly. Tight achy muscles that reduce your flexibility and which make getting out of a seat hard work will make you feel old.

Interestingly, although now-a-days  we commonly use the term ‘stress’ and are so used to describing work, lives, or situations as being ‘stressful’, Hans Selye first came up with the term in the 1930’s. ‘Stress’ is actually only about 80 years old! He came up with a model to describe the biological effects of stress on the body when he introduced his General Adaptation Syndrome in 1936.

We’re all surrounded by varying degrees of stress and our bodies are designed to react to stress.  In its purist form this is where the ‘fight or flight’ reaction kicks in when we’re faced with danger. We’re designed to run away from danger or fight back if we can’t run. Unfortunately it’s rarely as straight forward as that. Modern day stresses are not about running away from a tiger they’re more about low grade persist stress in the face of things like a bullying boss, an abusive partner, or financial insecurities.

It’s fair to say that a lot of patients that find themselves coming in to see us at Mulberry Osteopaths with some form of physical crisis will also have an ongoing stress factor in their lives. Stress will highlight the weak spots and make the body more vulnerable to injury. There’s never a good time for an acute episode of low back pain but don’t be surprised if it hits at the worst possible time when you’re moving house, you’ve just lost your job, or there’s a family bereavement.

As osteopaths part of our job is to work physically to help you on the road to feeling better and feeling less old but we also try to give you ideas as to why things have gone in to a meltdown moment. Recognising the stress factors is part of that process as well as possibly offering some advice as to how to cope with the stresses.

Yoga or Pilates?

There may still be a few folk out there amongst you that haven’t yet got into the swing of things on the exercise front for the New Year. Delaying that trip to the gym or exercise studio may even be a wise move as by now those New Years resolution people will be starting to fall by the wayside so creating more space.

It’s also possible that you’re simply not sure what sort of exercise to go for. Whatever it is you choose it has to be enjoyable.  There is no way you’ll keep it up week after week if you really don’t want to be there.

As an osteopath I am very keen to get my patients involved in their own recovery and that will include not just specific prescribed exercises but also encouragement to start or restart general exercise. I’ll often be asked whether I’d recommend Yoga or Pilates.  If you ask Google the same question you’ll get numerous articles full of ‘useful’ information and celebrity advice. If you want to get confused take a look through these:

 http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/Is-Yoga-or-Pilates-Better-for-You

http://www.active.com/fitness/articles/yoga-vs-pilates-which-one-is-right-for-you

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2007/sep/29/healthandwellbeing.fitness

http://www.chopra.com/ccl/whats-the-difference-between-yoga-and-pilates

As a huge generalisation I’ll often suggest that if you need to improve your flexibility go for yoga whereas if you’re looking for more strength and stability opt for the Pilates.  Having said that there are plenty of toning and strengthening poses used in yoga and Pilates will also help with your flexibility.  The bottom line is that if you get a good teacher and they manage to provide a good combination of exercises you’ll end up being a bit more bendy and a bit stronger regardless of what you call the class. And this is where we come back to the need to enjoy the exercise. If you like and trust the teacher you’ll enjoy it more.

Why not try both, have a test run and see which you like best and stick to that? Of course it may also be the case that neither yoga or Pilates is your cup of tea in which case pick something else . . .running, cycling, dancing, hillwalking, tennis, swimming.  The list is endless and if you do nothing else think about breathing! If you do it properly even breathing is an exercise and there is never an excuse not to breath.

The Archaeology of Osteopathy

I often use the concept of an archaeological dig when I’m treating patients.  When a new patient arrives at clinic for the first time, tells you the story of what happened to them, what brought them to me and what the problem is the digging begins.

More often than not there are a few things in a patients past medical history, in some cases there’s a huge list of stuff, all of which is relevant on some level. One of my jobs as an osteopath is to figure out what is the new stuff and how to untangle it from the old stuff.

Backed up with clues from what the patient has told me and what I feel under my fingers I get a sense of which tensions are fairly fresh and those that have been around a long, long time. I get an idea of which joints are a bit stiff because of recent strain or injury and which haven’t been moving for years. Tensions are layered on older tensions and new injuries are layered on old injuries.

Getting an idea of what came first, how one old injury may have influenced a newer problem and which problem is freshest is important for a number of reasons.  For a start the newer stuff should be easier to resolve as it’s not so imbedded into the structure of the body and we can normally give an indication as to how soon we would expect to see a change in a condition with treatment.

However, whilst we’re on our archaeological dig through the tension layers in the body we’ll often uncover stuff that has been sitting quietly in the background unnoticed.  It may be an old injury that was never fully resolved or part of a postural pattern that’s been around for a long time.  Whilst this silent problem may have been happily minding it’s own business for years there’s a chance that osteopathic treatment may disturb it. If that’s the case, as a patient it’s as well to be warned that this might happen.  It’s all very well going along to have one problem treated only to find that it seems to trigger another problem.

Also if the old problem was in some way related to the newer injury then to avoid a recurrence the older archaeology has to be accessed.

Let it go, let it go

Those of you with children of a certain age will be well aware of the impact of the Disney film Frozen and how it has encouraged bursting in to song with ‘Let it go, let it go’. It’s scary to admit that it’s even had an impact on my osteopathy as I often seem to find the tune running through my head during treatment sessions!

It never fails to amaze me how much tension some folk can hold in their body and be totally unaware of it. I’ll sometimes try to trigger some awareness of this by asking a patient that is lying on my treatment table to relax fully whilst I lift an arm or leg in the air. I’ll then let go the limb and see what happens. Of course a nicely relaxed arm or leg will flop back to the table but it’s not unusual to find that many limbs stay exactly where I put them. As far as the patient on the treatment table is concerned they are completely relaxed despite the fact that their arm is amazingly suspended in mid-air as if held up with invisible puppet strings. This is when the Frozen tune filters it’s way into my head as I think ‘Let it go, let it go’.

Given that the patient in this situation is actively trying to relax, if that’s not a contradiction in terms, imagine what’s going on when they’re not relaxing.  I’m sure most of us have experienced the effect of shoulders rising up towards the ears after sitting in front of a computer, especially if there’s an element of stress thrown in to the mix.  There are many people whose heads are permanently sucked in towards their shoulders with no awareness that it’s happening.

In this situation often the first signs of awareness will be a stiff neck and even a headache and this is where the osteopath comes.  Stage one is to encourage the body to ‘let it go’ with some hands-on treatment.  Stage two has to involve some degree of encouragement to get the patient to ‘let it go’ mentally which has to involve becoming aware that it’s happening. Osteopaths can’t do this alone, it has to be a partnership with the patient to achieve lasting results.

So please forgive your osteopath if he or she starts humming a song from Frozen during a quiet part of your treatment.  You could argue that it’s a good sign that they’re focusing hard on one of the goals of the treatment.

You Know It’s Good For You

This time of year we have a recipe that comes out at home which we simply call ‘The Mixture’. It consists of crushed garlic bulbs (as many as you like), the juice of half a lemon, a dollop of good honey, all topped up with warm water. It has to mature over a couple of hours and then it’s ready to combat the coughs, colds, and snots.  This is essential weaponry against the lurgy, especially in a household that has kids all too keen to share their secretions. It tastes horrible but as it passes over the tongue and down the back of the throat you just know it’s good for you.

That’s sometimes what bodywork, including osteopathy, is like. When an experienced therapist hits one of those bits that’s really sore you know that it hurts but you also just know it’s good for you.  Those fingers and thumbs can become like guided missiles searching through the knots and tensions tracking down trigger points, tender points, problem spots.

That’s not to say that osteopathy should be painful.  I struggle with the idea of a ‘good pain’. If you’re on the receiving end of a treatment and you’re in pain I would say that the pain is telling you they should stop. There’s a difference between pain and discomfort, although when a therapists hits one of those good spots it can be a bit of a fine line. However, if I sense a patient is tensing up beneath my fingers I know I’ve crossed the line in to pain and I need to take the pressure off.

Most of the soft tissue work I do on patients is aimed at creating space around an area and encouraging the body to release or let go of whatever it is that’s being naturally protected. Pain or injury naturally makes us tense up to protect the area that has been damaged. When it’s appropriate to do so, releasing that protective spasm and tightness will aid recovery. However, inflicting more pain is not the way forward. Working just deep enough to encourage the tissues to release and let go is the aim.

Of course if tissues are encouraged to release and we create space it also means that everything that passes through those tissues will be less compressed. Now here’s how osteopathy can actually be seen to back up the work of ‘The Mixture’ mentioned above. If your head is full of mucous, be it a bad cold or an attack of sinusitis, having an osteopath work on your neck and upper back will effectively open up all the drainage pathways to allow for some of the sticky gunk to get away from the head.

Winter is a time of coughs and colds, it’s the time to brew up a batch of ‘The Mixture’ and it’s the time to visit an osteopath.  You’ll just know it’s good for you!