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Physiotherapy for a pain free pregnancy

Back pain during pregnancy is common and it’s no wonder. You’re gaining weight, you’re walking in a new way, and your hormones are relaxing the muscles and ligaments throughout your body. But you don’t have to grin and bear it.

While studies show that 50 to 70% of all pregnant woman suffer back pain, often, you can treat, or prevent back pain during pregnancy.

To help make your pregnancy as pleasant as possible and facilitate an easier delivery, back pain should always be addressed as quickly as possible and managed throughout your pregnancy.

As your baby grows, the centre of gravity of your body will shift, leading to more awkward movements, as well as potentially causing pressure on nerves and triggering lower back pain.

Other causes of pain may well be the increase in hormones relaxing the joints and loosening the ligaments, the additional weight of the baby that your back must support, together with poor posture and stress.

These will all find a weak point to exploit and that weak point will may be your lower back or pelvis, or shoulders and upper back.

Mobilisation of the joints, massage and stretches of tight muscles can be highly effective in helping reduce any aches and pains.

Undertaking an exercise and treatment programme, designed by a qualified physiotherapist, will help strengthen the back and abdomen, also highly effective in helping reduce any aches and pains. We focus on improving posture and alignment so that your body is in the optimum position to take any strain.

Of course no two women are the same. So, we’ll always be guided by what your body is telling you.

In that context, we’ll teach you how you can use your muscles to support your back and bump; how to exercise safely during pregnancy; and how you can change the way you do everyday things to avoid aggravating symptoms.

Here are a few tips for now…

• Avoid high heels and other shoes that do not provide adequate support

• Avoid sleeping on your back

• Squat to pick something up rather than bend

• Elevate your feet whenever possible

So you needn’t suffer during pregnancy. Through proven means we can reduce the frequency and intensity of any pain, safely and effectively. We can also help you in the postnatal period, with safe and gentle exercises to help the pelvic floor and abdominal muscles regain their tone, so they can return to supporting your spine effectively.

Call today to book an evaluation and hear how we can prepare the treatment schedule that will work best for you and for the safety of your baby.

Our Edgware clinic is easily accessible from Mill Hill or Stanmore.

The Green Clinic: Chartered Physiotherapists Stephen or Talia – 020 8728 0625 www.edgwarephysio.com

Our Shenley clinic is easily accessible from Radlett, Borehamwood and Elstree.

The Gingerbread House: Chartered Physiotherapists Stephen or Talia – 01923 852852 www.radlettphysio.co.uk

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Sports – perform better

As well as helping with sports injuries, we advise on injury prevention, and strength and conditioning.

Why is this important?

We helped a teenage channel swimmer recently with low back pain, not only to stretch where it mattered, but to improve her strength in the right way. She noted that not only did her pain go away, but also her swimming improved – she got faster and was less tired.

People often don’t realise the importance of strength, just emphasising ‘cardio’. I often treat people who are fit, but get injured because their muscles aren’t strong enough, from children to adults.

We helped some national level youth tennis players recently, who did strength training but overdid it! We helped them recover from their muscle strains, and build up strength more gradually.

People often think when their pain has gone away that they are fully recovered. We recently helped an adult hockey player and teenage rugby player with hamstring injuries. After resting and noting the pain had disappeared, they returned to sport, only to get injured again in the first game. We helped them recover from their muscle strains, and build up strength with a variety of exercises, from bodyweight to weights to plyometrics, so they could return to sport fully fit (and actually in better condition than before their injury).

Whether you are at primary or secondary school or adult, we can help.

Whether you play informally or play at club level or in a league, dance or play sport, we can help.

Don’t wait and let injuries drag on. Call us today for an appointment – we are open Sunday to Friday and usually have some availability most days.

Choose The Green Clinic

Edgware – 02087280625

Shenley / Radlett – 01923852852

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Celebrate 5 years of back to back expertise from The Green Clinic

Celebrating 5 years of back to back expertise from The Green Clinic

Yes, that’s right 5 years!

We’ve been reflecting quite a bit over the last few days about how The Green Clinic started and how it’s now gained great momentum from the numerous patients we’ve steered back to good musculo-skeletal health, as well as those with chronic conditions where we make their lives that much easier day to day, week to week, month to month and year to year.

It’s hard work, yet smart work and of course very rewarding. Because for every one of those patients we treat, there’s a moment of breakthrough, where we and they can see light at the end of the tunnel and thereafter where we can sustain their healthier body with regular treatment and exercise.

What inspired The Green Clinic?

Our lead physiotherapist, Stephen Parkus, is passionate about delivering superior physiotherapy care that’s within reach of everyone.

In April of 2008 Stephen was very aware of just how many physiotherapists are prone to place people on machines and let the ‘current’ do the work for them. And at a price!

At The Green Clinic we’re very much more hands-on. We stretch our clients expectations, (and not their budgets), of what you can regain for your body and then can go on to achieve.

5 years on, there is still some dubious advice out there. Some practitioners also lack the patience upon which we pride ourselves. At The Green Clinic, we take the time to understand your physical pain and how it affects your life. We make sure that every one of our patients is treated how they should be, with an exceptional duty of care.

And we never go off at a tangent. We work closely with GPs and Consultants to continue their good work to achieve the best for you. It’s true body conditioning that will get you back on the paying field, help you prepare and recover from surgery, or improve the quality of your life.

Our desire to provide the most progressive rehabilitative and pre-habilitative physiotherapy there is, is at the core of all we do. We like to call it Total Care.

In 5 years, as our patients go from strength to strength, so have we. We can proudly claim to provide the most effective, evidence based treatment to gain, retain and sustain your strength, fitness, flexibility and mobility.

True Specialists

As a Chartered Physiotherapist, with a background in the NHS, private hospital work and specialist post breast cancer surgery care, Stephen Parkus established The Green Clinic with the explicit aim of bringing the best of all three spheres to our patients. Adding to this a particular interest and specialism in treating Hypermobility, The Green Clinic is increasingly becoming known to offer the highest quality physiotherapy for adults and children.

So, here’s to the next 5 years and beyond of The Green Clinic standing head and shoulders above the crowd.

And we’ll make you a guarantee: You’ll come to The Green Clinic as patients and you’ll pretty soon become friends. It’s just the way we like to do things and we’re told by our patients that it’s pretty rare.

Our Edgware clinic is easily accessible from Mill Hill or Stanmore.

Our Shenley clinic is easily accessible from Radlett, Borehamwood and Elstree.

You can of course become our friends immediately by following us right now on Facebook http://on.fb.me/ZGGWVh and Twitter https://twitter.com/EdgwarePhysio , or scheduling your first appointment now on 020 8728 0625

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Green Clinic

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Is the pen mightier than the keyboard for children with hyper-mobility

There was a time when the pen was certainly mightier than the keyboard, but by whatever means you now communicate the written word, the impact on wrists and hands can take its toll.

At a time when we all seem chained to our keyboards, an article on holding pens and pencils might seem incongruous. But the written word is not dead and there are many people out there who find that their ability to perform such apparently simple tasks is limited.

And it is not always older patients who derive benefit from treatment.

At The Green Clinic, we provide physiotherapy for those with weak hands or wrists at both ends of the age spectrum. We have significant expertise in treating hypermobility in children. It is a very common, yet an often undiagnosed condition which can cause a child pain and so problems in holding pens and pencils for prolonged periods. This will limit the time they are able to write or draw for.

Teachers can be great, eager to please the parent, help the child and willing to go beyond their usual remit. At first! Their time is at a premium and so all the classroom assistants in the country may not be able to help them dedicate the additional time required by a hypermobile child to enable them to express themselves aesthetically and effectively in the written word.

It’s all very well giving the child some therapy putty to strengthen their hands (like playdough, just more elastic), but the effect will be limited if there is no organised muscle strengthening programme in place to increase endurance and effectiveness. This should and go hand in hand with a with reinforcement of good practice general strength and posture, or the result will be shortlived and the need to maintain a close watch on the child will be ongoing. This all, of course, also has an impact on a child’s mental wellbeing.

The treatment programmes we follow enable our young patients to overcome these weaknesses, and as their pain diminishes, their negative thoughts subside.

The time taken to properly assess your child, to help you to understand the diagnosis and treatment, is time well spent. Hypermobility and weakness in the hand makes holding and moving the pencil tiring and less efficient than usual.

The child needs activities to strengthen hands and improve endurance, as well as to master the finger actions for handwriting.

Depending on the degree of joint mobility and the weakness in the muscles there are a variety of adaptations a child can make to compensate for the muscle weakness in the hand when holding a pen. But they have to be good ones, that will stay with them for a lifetime.

Through play and tailored exercises for strengthening, establishing a steady grip and co-ordination, we’ll assist your child in their development to ensure that writing will be less of a chore and more of an art form.

Our Edgware clinic is easily accessible from Mill Hill or Stanmore.

Our Shenley clinic is easily accessible from Radlett, Borehamwood and Elstree.

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Do You Need Physiotherapy? Free Assessment!

Not all Physiotherapists are the same.

There is a wide variety of skill and experience.

Come in for a free 15 minute assessment or call us for an assessment over the phone to decide whether Physiotherapy can help you.

Our Edgware clinic is easily accessible from Mill Hill or Stanmore.

The Green Clinic: Chartered Physiotherapists Stephen or Talia
020 8728 0625 www.edgwarephysio.com

Our Shenley clinic is easily accessible from Radlett, Borehamwood and Elstree.

The Gingerbread House: Chartered Physiotherapists Stephen or Talia
01923 852852 www.radlettphysio.co.uk

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Sports or Deep Tissue Massage in North West London

Can Sports or Deep Tissue Massage help you?

We are Chartered Physiotherapists who bring a deep understanding of anatomy, posture, movement and sports to our massage treatments. As well as providing accurate and expert handling of troublesome areas, we are also qualified to give advice on prevention of further issues as well as recovery from any injury.

We provide Sports and Deep Tissue Massage from our Edgware clinic, easily accessible from Mill Hill or Stanmore.

We provide Sports and Deep Tissue Massage from our Shenley clinic, easily accessible from Radlett, Borehamwood and Elstree.

Sports or Deep Tissue Massage can:

help you recover from injury;

help you recover from a sporting event such as a Marathon or Half Marathon, triathlon, London to Brighton Cycle;

improve your flexibility and sporting performance in any sport;

help ease neck and shoulder tension and tension-type headaches and back-ache;

help you relax;

help you sleep better;

The Green Clinic in Edgware: Chartered Physiotherapists Stephen or Talia
020 8728 0625 www.edgwarephysio.com

The Gingerbread House in Shenley: Chartered Physiotherapists Stephen or Talia
01923 852852 www.radlettphysio.co.uk

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Joint Hypermobility – Common Clues

Delighted to see an article in The British Medical Journal

http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7167.full

Common clues suggesting joint hypermobility syndrome:

In children and adolescents
Congenital dislocation of the hip

Late walking, with bottom shuffling instead of crawling

Recurrent ankle sprains

Poor ball catching and handwriting skills

Tiring easily compared with peers

So called growing pains or chronic widespread pain

Joint dislocations

In adults
Non-inflammatory joint or spinal pain

Joint dislocations

Multiple soft tissue (including sporting) injuries

Increase in pain or progressive intensification of pain that is largely unresponsive to analgesics

Progressive loss of mobility owing to pain, or pain avoidance through movement avoidance

Premature osteoarthritis

Autonomic dysfunction, such as orthostatic intolerance (dizziness or faintness) or postural tachycardia syndrome (in this form of dysautonomia, in 60° upright tilt the blood pressure remains constant while the pulse rate rises by a minimum of 30 beats/min)

Functional gastrointestinal disorders (sluggish bowel, bloating, rectal evacuatory dysfunction)

Laxity in other supporting tissues—for example, hernias, varicose veins, or uterine or rectal prolapse

We have years of experience in treating children and adults with hypermobility.

Our Edgware clinic is easily accessible from Mill Hill or Stanmore.

The Green Clinic: Chartered Physiotherapists Stephen or Talia
020 8728 0625 www.edgwarephysio.com

Our Shenley clinic is easily accessible from Radlett, Borehamwood and Elstree.

The Gingerbread House: Chartered Physiotherapists Stephen or Talia
01923 852852 www.radlettphysio.co.uk

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Is your handbag a pain in the neck?

If you look at someone from the side, their spine should be a gentle S-shaped curve. From behind, their spine should be a straight line.

Anything that causes the spine to be pushed or pulled away from this ideal shape can cause strain in the spine, and the more often it happens, the more this strain can build up. This can lead to headaches, pain in the neck, upper or lower back.

Carrying handbags that are too heavy is one such cause of strain.

The trend for oversized bags means there is more space to fill. The bigger the bag, the more tempting it is to pack it all in.

The Daily Mail in 2007 quoted a study which found that women today carry twice as much in their handbags as their mothers used to. Mum might have had a coin purse, a powder compact, a couple of tissues and a house key.

Increasingly, women are carrying more gadgets such as iPods and mobile phones, which has created a demand for larger handbags. A survey in the Independent in 2008 showed that the average weight of a woman’s handbag has increased by 38% over five years to 2.37 kilos (5lbs). In some cases the weight of a full handbag can be up to 7kg (15 lbs). As well as packing more inside, the handbags themselves are often heavy.

Overfilling an enormous bag is less of a problem if you can just throw it in the car, but if you need to walk any distance carrying it, the strain just builds up.

Carrying a bag on one shoulder leads to improper weight distribution across the neck, shoulder and back, causing strain in the joints, muscles and ligaments of the spine, which can lead to pain. Carrying the bag over one shoulder causes the shoulder to hike up which can shorten the muscles.

As a result, more and more women are requiring treatment for neck, shoulder and back pain.

The Health & Safety Executive report that back pain is more common when lifting heavy items;
carrying loads awkwardly, or one handed; repetitive tasks; bending or crouching; lifting when tired.
Although there is no such thing as a completely ‘safe’ lift, for an average woman, the maximum recommended weight to lift from the floor is 3kg or from knee height 7kg. This assumes that the bag is grasped with both hands, and lifted in reasonable conditions, with the lifter in a stable body position. If you usually put your handbag on the floor when not on th move, your limit is 3kg, if you are able to lift and lower it carefully with both hands!

If it is really necessary to carry a large handbag, try to reduce the weight of the handbag itself to no more than 1 to 2 lbs. Then try to minimise how much stuff you’re putting in your bag. Ditch anything you don’t need and then think about how you carry your bag. You should alternate the bag from one shoulder to another, every 10-15 minutes.

It is much better not to carry the entire weight of the bag on one shoulder.

Ideally the weight should be distributed evenly across your body, which means using something like a rucksack, or pulling a carrying case with wheels for heavier items. The next best option is to wear a bag that you carry across your body like a satchel.

Here are a few tips to keep your handbag from being a burden.

– Weigh your handbag. You might be amazed by how much it weighs!
– Think through the day ahead and pack your handbag accordingly. There’s no need to cart around sunglasses if the season has changed.
– Pack a smaller make-up bag with a few essentials. You’ll only have to touch up your make-up during the day so leave the foundation and brushes at home.
– De-clutter your purse of small change – clear it out or try to use it up.

Exercising regularly is also advisable. If you have a strong core from exercise like pilates, you’re much less likely to hurt yourself.

For the sake of your spine, when you choose a handbag, less is always better!

It’s important to find ways to stay healthy while staying in fashion.

For advice on your posture, or advice on exercises for a strong core, see an experienced physiotherapist.

If you have pain from repeated carrying, or from your posture, for the right kind of hands on treatment, see an experienced physiotherapist.

The Green Clinic is based in Edgware, Middlesex, and in Shenley, Herts.

Our Edgware clinic is easily accessible from Mill Hill or Stanmore.

The Green Clinic: Chartered Physiotherapists Stephen or Talia
020 8728 0625 www.edgwarephysio.com

Our Shenley clinic is easily accessible from Radlett, Borehamwood and Elstree.

The Gingerbread House: Chartered Physiotherapists Stephen or Talia
01923 852852 www.radlettphysio.co.uk