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| Topic: Osteopaths | ||
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| An Osteopath.Sadly I need one! After 30 years in the business my back is troubling me. Can any of you kind people out there recommend one for me as I would hate to go out and just take a chance on one. I do want to be careful with it and look after it. | ||
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| Reply #1 | |
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| Posted : 08/12/09 | |
| Rory, If you are in London area I can recommend the School - British School of Osteopathy in London Bridge - they do an initial investigation and then treatments from there, the last time I went (was a while ago) it was about £40. A friend of mine swears by hers who is North London - if for any reason you don't want the above and need the number let me know. | |
| Reply #2 | |
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| Posted : 08/12/09 | |
| There's a really good school in Maidstone if you are Kent based. | |
| Reply #3 | |
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| Posted : 08/12/09 | |
| As an aside, I went to see a guy for a deep tissue back massage last week because mine has also been hurting. I swear for the next 2 days I couldn't move, it was like having flu! All my muscles were just so heavy and aching and I felt I was dragging myself around like a zombie. I don't know if this is a normal reaction or not and maybe I did have a virus but I didn't have any other symptoms except tiredness. So yeah be prepared for it to temporarily get worse before you get better Rory! | |
| Reply #4 | |
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| Posted : 08/12/09 | |
| Jenna That IS a normal reaction - if you have a lot of toxins in the muscles and they are released by massage. I suffer this way often. | |
| Reply #5 | |
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| Posted : 08/12/09 | |
| I had a very damaging session with a fairly newly qualified osteopath.If you go to one, please make sure they are VERY experienced, and that they tell you what they are going to do before they do it. Personally, I would recommend Alexander Technique and massage, or cranial osteopathy. I don't believe that there are any really quick fixes.Even if you go to an osteopath, it would be helpful to consult an Alexander teacher to ensure that you improve your 'use' and thus help prevent the problem from returning.If you want a good Alexander teacher to consult near you, do pm me, as I live with a teacher who knows a lot of practitioners, and could dorect you to one near you. All the best with it. | |
| Reply #6 | |
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| Posted : 08/12/09 | |
| There are some good gentle yoga stretches for the spine & back. You could probably look them up on the internet or get a book. Swimming regularly is also helpful. Best to find out what it is in your life style that's causing it. Get someone to give you a nice back rub. | |
| Reply #7 | |
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| Posted : 08/12/09 | |
| Interestingly, although I am completely non-sporty, I was brought up by a very sports conscious father, and this may have influenced my decision, when I strain muscles through acting work, to go and see the local physiotherapists at the sports centre. I would humbly suggest that, although there are undeniably some great masseuses out there, there are two things to be wary of about them: a) Because becoming a masseuse is an increasingly popular option for many (including actors between jobs, who see, rightly, the chance to make decent money from offering the service), there is less and less heavy duty vetting of qualifications. It is true that most trainees have to obtain a formal qualification of some description in order to (legally) trade as a masseuse, but these courses are not necessarily very lengthy, and they do not guarantee that the masseuse you visit has a tremendously valid grounding in physiology. There are also many 'new age' type elements that have seeped into the world of popular massage, as a supposed adjunct to the process, but are often added to it when the 'benefits' may at best be dubious. b) By and large, a massage is designed to relax tense muscles of one sort or another - it is not designed to heal inflammations, treat sprains or encourage the return of movement within a frozen limb. It is a treatment that helps keep the body supple and relaxed BEFORE any physiological ailment befalls it. Once you have actually sprained, twisted, pulled or torn tendons or muscles, then a massage can actually do more damage than good. What I respect about physios is that they are trained to deal with injuries (generally sports related) day in and day out. They will have studied intensively on courses which demand that they understand human physiology in an extremely in-depth way. They can immediately pinpoint where a problem in your body is stemming from (what you think may be an issue with your back may, in fact, derive from your neck or shoulder, for instance), and will be able to manipulate and warm up the muscles and tendons in the correct way to relieve the pain and improve your bodily flexibility. When there is a problem causing you active pain that needs to be resolved, I have found physios to be wonderful. They have treated certain extreme neck strains that I am prone to, for instance, (thanks to awkward sleep patterns), which can leave me literally unable to shift my head to one side without pain, and, within a week, the pain has gone completely. My advice is, therefore, see if you can find whether the local leisure centre etc. actually hosts a physio clinic - provided you are not in terrific difficulty with day to day movement, they will likely prove more than adequate at helping relieve any pain you have, and will probably be much better value for money than many a masseuse. If there is recurrent difficulty, you may need to attend sessions regularly, but, on the other hand, some pains are slighter than you actually think, and once treated effectively, reduce significantly very quickly. In the long term, it is true, you may require taking up Alexander technique, yoga etc. to avoid falling prey to back pain *regularly*, but I would resolve any pain first, and *then* begin exercises to pre-empt it the next time! | |
| Reply #8 | |
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| Posted : 08/12/09 | |
| Fabi Waisbort-02074999947 He practices in Harcourt House, 19 cavendish square, w1g 0pl. I have been twice in a year and half, and really recommend him, he has worked alot with actors, and has a holistic appproach mixed with a sound knowledge of cranial and regular osteopathy. He came recommended to me also. | |
| Reply #9 | |
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| Posted : 12/12/09 | |
| Lovely Lee im afraid i have to disagree. I am someone in question who has re trained as a Sports massage therapist. I took nearly a year and half out to study at St Thomas' Hospital and had to take many exams practical as well as 3 two hour written exams on Anatomy and Physiology. Yes there are a lot of massage therapists out there who have not trained somewhere credible and are not offering a good service or are more into 'beauty massage' but i am registered with the Institute of Sports and Remedial massage which is a very highly respected body & provides therapists for the London marathon. I was actually at The British School of Osteopathy today for further continuing training which you have to do. Massage therapists, particularly sports, have a lot to offer, yes a swedish massage is a relaxing massage to ease tight muscles, a deep tissue massage is more focused, uses more pressure and several techniques to break down knots. And Sports Massage is used as preventative to sports injuries but we can also assess injuries and treat them...at the acute stage obviously you cannot do massage over the local area but you can do lymphatic drainage and ice and compression to stop the inflammation. And after pain has subsided, we can use deep tissue frictions to break down adhesions and scar tissue as well as mobilisations to the joint, passive and active stetching to encourage range of movement. Yes for back problems particualy spinal or nerve related you are best seeing a Chiropractor, Physio or Osteopath but they often refer to sports massage therapists, i work closley with a chiropractor myself who often refers conditions like tendonistis and planta fascitis. I just wanted to clear up this myth that massage is purely for relaxation. Sports massage therapists now travel with every sports team, we can assess injuries, tape and strap them up and treat them in the rehabilitation stages. I personally love Osteopaths so best of luck in finding one Rory. Sorry to interrupt your thread. (BSO is great) x | |
| Reply #10 | |
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| Posted : 12/12/09 | |
| Hi Natalie, You are quite right to point out these kind of differences in definition as you are trained in the practice, while I'm not! However, I actually think we are saying similar things! Those trained in anything 'Sports' related are exactly those whom I was trying to promote (!), because, as you so excellently point out, the training in these areas is genuinely in-depth and expert - I certainly didn't want to denigrate the efforts of anyone who is a trained sports-based professional, as these are my first line of defence whenever I do myself an injury, and I trust this form of training not only because it is so in-depth, but also because of the detailed physiological training that is required to qualify as a practitioner (also because I feel that many of the physical injuries actors are liable to acquire during work routine are liable to be similar to certain routine sports based damages). But you are quite right to pick me up on my use of terminology - I wasn't aware that there were specific 'Sports Massage' trainings - and it is possible that I have been treated by those who specialise in it myself - although generally I simply ask for physio treatment and am given it accordingly. The criticism I level at massage in general was intended for, as you say, deep tissue Swedish massage, homeopathic holistic massage and so on, which I have generally found to be undertaken by practitioners who are underqualified, overeager to charge for extraneous treatments, uninterested in specific diagnosis of an ailment (i.e. they 'treat' all problems brought to them in the same way, regardless of specific physiological difficulty), and often actually increase/prolong the duration of an injury by mistreating/misdiagnosing it. I hasten to add that there *are* probably good practitioners out there, but there are also a great many charlatans. In actual fact, much of my physio routine is, in effect, massage - so you are right to say my argument was a bit blunt, Nat - but I find that it is generally prefaced by a specific diagnosis and localisation of the given muscular problem, and then continues to localise and isolate the particular site of pain - sometimes, as I'm sure you'll agree with - focussing on areas that I was not aware was where the actual pain was being generated from - the last time I visited my physio the pressure I thought was being derived from a frozen shoulder was, in fact, being transmitted from my neck vertebrae it seems. The physiotherapist was able to identify and localise this problem for me very succinctly and efficiently, check me for postural defects, treat the problem with massage and manipulation and a number of basic rehabilitation exercises and, in effect, free me up again so that, within a week, all pain had vanished. I just wouldn't expect the same from a beauty therapy massage studio! As a matter of fact, Nat, I was also thinking of your in-depth training when I wrote the original message - I know full well that the type of studying you have done for the past several years is precisely the sort of expertise that *should* be trusted in these respects...but I may have confused the issue about massage! (For those who don't know - which would be virtually all of you - Natalie and I went to Drama School together!) All good! | |
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