From Dizziness and Fainting To Back On The Sports Field
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From Dizziness and Fainting To Back On The Sports Field

Osteopathy, Sports Injuries

From Dizziness and Fainting To Back On The Sports Field

By spearweb|2019-08-21T15:10:37+10:00August 21st, 2019|Osteopathy, Sports Injuries|

Have you ever suffered dizziness while playing sport? Well, recently, a patient came in complaining of exactly that. He came in having suffered from unexplained dizziness and fainting that happened at random while they were active on the sports field. It had been affecting them for three or more months and was really worrying for them. Naturally, they had been to see their doctor who had run the full battery of diagnostic tests. Nothing abnormal had been revealed. Their naturopath suggested seeing someone such as myself: an Osteopath.

I was glad that they had been tested medically to rule out anything sinister. It’s the first thing that I think of… My approach was to assess their neck and spinal movements as well as any underlying tensions or abnormalities within the muscles. In this case the patient had experienced a fair amount of rough and tumble landing awkwardly on the sporting field. As a result there was muscle tension and spasm not unlike what someone experiences in a car collision aka whiplash.

After finding this, treatment involved gentle yet deep muscle massage, subtle joint mobilization followed up by tailored stretching exercises to help reinforce the changes created at the clinic. As well as that I emailed links to the videos of the specific exercises.

The patient agreed to a course of treatment over eight weeks. The outcome was that he was able to return to the sporting field with full confidence without further incidence. We wish him all the best for the rest of the season.

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Could Your Legs and Feet Feel Better?
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Could Your Legs and Feet Feel Better?

Leg Pain, Sports Injuries

Could Your Legs and Feet Feel Better?

By spearweb|2019-05-07T16:10:54+10:00May 7th, 2019|Leg Pain, Sports Injuries|

Do you feel like you’ve lost the spring in your step, when you take your first steps of the day feeling like you’ve got wooden legs or feel a pain underneath your heel that lasts for a while until you have walked around a bit?

Have you experienced pain, “pull” or twinge in your calf when you take off for a quick run? Ever had a dull tooth ache like pain along the front of your shin. There are many ways in which you might be affected by leg pain.

We Massage and Loosen Leg Muscles, Tendons and Joints.

We love the challenge of working out what causes your pain. Providing a treatment and exercise solution. We have found that in many case of chronic or long-standing leg pain that you also have hidden joint stiffness and compression especially in the areas above and below. This includes knee, ankle and foot joints.
They need to be assessed and treated to help take the pressure out of the leg muscles. Some of the muscles that start in the leg actually end up in the feet. If they are tense, you lose the ability to absorb shock in your foot. So, the muscles in your legs suffer from an increased pressure of shock absorption coming up from the foot and ankle.

Bounce Out Of Bed Again

So, if leg pain is holding you back from your normal, sporting, leisure and/or work activities, we help you reduce the pain of the inflammation and then the pain and tension in your muscles, tendons and joints, so that you can return to what you what you want to be doing over time. In addition, we can help you to feel better than you have in a long time. Putting the spring back into you step.

Rather Than Wait and Wonder, Let’s Make a Change

If you need help to improve your situation as far as muscle and joint issues are affecting you day to day. Let’s talk and take you to the next level.
Contact us so that you can arrange a time that suits. We can identify what you have going on and provide you with a realistic guideline as to how long it should take to heal and what you may be able to achieve over the long run.

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Sciatica
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Sciatica

Leg Pain, Sports Injuries

Sciatica

By Geoffrey Fong|2017-10-23T20:04:18+11:00March 4th, 2016|Leg Pain, Sports Injuries|

Do you have it?

Most people who have this condition complain of pain that goes down the back of their thigh with or without lower back pain.

Classically, people think the worst. They think they have a disc problem. But that is not always the case.

There are a myriad of possibilities because there are so many structures in a confined space. These include lumbar facet joints, the sacro-iliac joints, iliolumbar ligaments, various deep muscles and nerves in the vicinity of the lower back and hips to name a few. Determining which tissue is affected tends to be an art.

What I do

You can tell a lot by the exact location of the pain and/or accompanying pins and needles and numbness. There are other details help to work out what is happening. These include which points are tender to touch, where the pain radiates to, which movements make it worse and better. What effects do medications like pain killers and anti-inflammatories have? What does heat or ice do to the pain?

Answers to these questions, assessing your posture, watching how you move, probing for tender or hard spots and testing movements in various directions are essential. All help in narrowing down the possibilities to a short list of diagnoses. From there I can develop and monitor your individualized treatment program.

My approach is very subtle. Clients have often commented that “didn’t feel much going on and the time, but the next day they certainly knew they’d been worked on. I use a combination of gentle muscle tension release with pressure tailored to your pain threshold and what your muscles need. Very often clients have muscle tension that has gradually and imperceptibly increased over time. You try and stretch the muscle, but it just doesn’t seem to give or respond. My work involves releasing the tension, so that you can do your own stretching once more.

Very often if muscle spasm has occurred it has reduced the amount of movement across the span of the joint which it runs and acts. The joint can become stiff. I work to move the joint for you. Literally stimulating the production of lubricant for you. This can be done by rocking and stretching in ways that you can’t quite do or manipulating your joints in directions that you can’t perform yourself.

When appropriate I prescribe and get you to try exercises that you can do at home and on follow up visits I recheck how you are doing them. It takes time to learn and finesse new motor skills.

In many cases, Sciatica can be relieved over a six to eight week period. The course of the treatment changing over the period based upon your rate of recovery. You will be able to sit, stand, walk and sleep more comfortably again.

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ITB – Ilio Tibial Band
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ITB – Ilio Tibial Band

Knee Pain, Sports Injuries

ITB – Ilio Tibial Band

By Geoffrey Fong|2017-10-23T20:04:50+11:00February 19th, 2016|Knee Pain, Sports Injuries|

You know that you have a problem when

You have knee pain or ache.
You have pain on the side of your hip or thigh.
The pain seems to come on suddenly for no apparent reason.
It seems to have been coming and going for aa long time.

What I do

I like to hear what you have been up to prior to the injury becoming an issue.
Run various movement tests.
Feel the muscle tension above and below the area. This includes:
- The side of the thigh
- The front, back and inside of the thigh
- The knee
- The hip
- The back
- The ankle
Once it is confirmed that you are indeed suffering an ITB problem, very often my work involves loosening the ITB and its various attachment points. This includes the muscle on the front of the thigh including the Vastus Lateralis (a part of the quadriceps group), the biceps femoris (a part of the hamstring group), the tensor fascia lata and the gluteus medius muscle. The last two are way up towards the side of your hip.
I tend to work with the muscles. Getting a feel for the amount of pressure that is bearable, but not so much as to back you feel like we are having a wrestling match. It is like I am working with empathy for how the muscles are responding. To me this is the most rapid way to affect the muscles. The aim being to achieve the best release of tension with least amounts of side effects. E.g. the least amount of soreness the following day, so that you can carry on as best you can.
Usually, it is only after you have received work to these muscles that they have enough “give” or elasticity to be able to respond to your own stretches.
What you will feel and be able to do.
As the pressure around the knee is released you’ll be able to:
- Walk and run again without pain.
- Squat more comfortably
- Lie in bed with less knee and hip ache.

ITB issues don’t always cause pain in the area where the muscle tension is. More often than not it emerges as a type of knee pain. If you are having doubts about the cause of your knee pain, please get in contact to get the ball rolling again.

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Head Check?

By Geoffrey Fong|2017-10-23T20:08:59+11:00December 14th, 2010|Neck Pain, Sports Injuries|

Whenever you are on the street, whether as a pedestrian or as an operator of a vehicle, the ability to do a head check is very important to your safety. Head check is a term used particularly in the motorcycle rider training to describe the action of turning your head and looking over your shoulder to check to see if someone is in your blind spot. A similar manoeuvre is important for any one operating a vehicle on the road. In particular it is important before changing lanes. With a move to higher density housing and greater use of street parking there is so much more of a need to be able to know what is going on all around you. So, if you have a stiff neck the risk of an incident is increased.

As an Osteopath, I see many people who have been affected in this way and have helped by restoring and when necessary maintaining people’s optimal range of movement. Patients can have such conditions for a number of reasons. Some have only had the condition briefly e.g. they slept badly and woke up with it while others may have had an injury from the past e.g. whiplash or sporting injury.

In terms of driving a car, it could be argued that with the correct set up of your mirrors you should be able to cover all your rear vision. There is a method that I re-visited a few years ago and I have a link to it here:

Changing your mirrors:
http://www.wikihow.com/Set-Rearview-Mirrors-to-Eliminate-Blind-Spots

However, just to be on the safe side, I always do a headcheck and utilize as much peripheral vision as possible before changing lanes while driving or riding.

In a similar vein reversing the car quickly becomes an issue not only as a result of a stiff neck, but sometimes a stiff mid or lower back. Some of these issues seem to have been addressed with reverse parking cameras and sensors in modern cars. However, it’s almost human nature to want to have a look around to see if there is any danger.

In many occupations, we are in doors more often than not and we can almost become detached from the weather condtions out side. Having ridden two wheels of various forms, I know that it is important to wear the correct gear to suit the conditions. Things like turtle furs and neck tubes are a great way to keep a layer of warmth around your neck. Apart from these outdoor pursuits, I often advise patients to utilize these and/or scarves to maintain heat around their neck after treatment in order to get the best results. Unless of course it is a very hot day.

So, if you are having any difficulty seeing everything around you when you walk, ride, drive or fly, you may well benefit from Osteopathic treatment.

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