You are doing high-intensity spinning classes, three to four times a week, you feel pretty good afterwards. Why?...because you have triggered a physically induced stress response, you have taken your body into the red zone, the fight or flight state. Your body releases adrenaline, cortisol, endorphins and insulin which, like some magic mix cocktail, leave you buzzing....like you might after having outrun a sabre-toothed tiger with eyes on you for lunch.

We treat many cases of adhesive capsulitis, a.k.a 'frozen shoulder' each year. It is an unpleasant, painful and tricky condition but usually responds very well to an integrated physiotherapy treatment approach.

The stiff and painful frozen shoulder is usually due to an inflammatory reaction of the sub-synovial tissue that results in capsular (the elastic tissue that holds the top of the arm bone in the shoulder socket) and synovial thickening and often accompanied by rotator cuff tendon inflammation (1). Women over the age of 50 years are more likely to develop this condition (2).

Migraine headaches are multifactorial with many possible contributing lifestyle factors. These may promote functional disturbances and sensitivity within the brain and central nervous system, which in turn increase the risk of migraines.

The role of physiotherapy including medical acupuncture is to promote central regulatory effects, which in turn increase the central nervous system’s ability to tolerate the various migraine triggers.

When undergoing a course of physiotherapy treatment for migraines, we provide the following lifestyle, diet and exercise advice which may help prevent or reduce the severity of migraines.

Stress management

• Avoid multitasking, focus on doing one thing at a time with your full attention.
• Regular rest breaks and pacing i.e breaking up jobs into smaller, manageable tasks.
• Try to stay in the present, let the past go and don’t think ahead.
• Find time in your day to do whatever helps you relax for example light exercise, meditation, reading, listening to music etc.

Load management refers to the amount of mechanical stress and strains your joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments, and nerves have to cope with during sports and day to day activities.

Effective load management is essential to assist with healing and recovery from injury. Too much or too little load can slow the speed of recovery or exacerbate pain symptoms.

As a general rule, a pain level of 3 on the Numeric Pain Rating Scale (usually a manageable level of discomfort) during or after an activity should not prevent you from exercising or doing your rehabilitation exercises. If your pain levels exceed a level of 3 on the NRS, it is necessary to reduce the load.

Priming your immune system for the vaccine may significantly improve the likelihood that the vaccine will have the desired effect, helping your body prepare to fight the Sars-CoV-2 virus should you become infected.

Experts agree the vaccine should not be considered a silver bullet. To be effective, vaccines should be used in addition to advice and education regarding diet, exercise and stress management.

Immunity is complex and multi-factorial; vaccines have an essential role to play but should be part of a broader pro-active public health strategy.

Here are some ways you can help prime your immune system, which will not only naturally boost your innate immunity but may also make you more responsive to a Covid-19 vaccine.

Our treatment approach is functional, integrated and patient-centred within a biopsychosocial paradigm. 

I am often asked, by my clients, about my own physical fitness programme.

My fitness programme has evolved over the years with emerging knowledge and research, is tweaked on a reasonably regular basis, and is very personalised according to what works for me. My goals are to remain fit and functional and exercise well with strength and mobility, emphasising avoiding injury and protecting my joints.

The guiding principles are regularity, variety, frequency and adequate rest and recovery.

Looking after your flexibility as you get older is essential. 

Functional flexibility is the ability to move your joints through full range to perform everyday tasks. For example, being able to reach the shoulder fully upwards to change a lightbulb, turning the head fully to both sides while driving and bending the back along with the hips and knees to pick up something from the floor.

Maintaining flexibility is also important to be able to play sport and reduce the risk of injury. Age-related changes in the make-up of the connective tissues, which hold our body parts together, may contribute to the loss of flexibility that affects the risk of injury and reduces sports performance.¹ For example, good hip movement is necessary to allow for longevity when playing football, tennis, and golf. 

Did you know? If you have experienced neck pain, you have a 70-80% chance of having another episode. The more often you have neck pain episodes, the more often they are likely to occur.

Unless your neck is correctly treated.

Treatment should involve alleviating the pain associated with a neck pain episode, which is often the easier part of the process. The next phase of treatment, which is usually more challenging, ensures the neck is fully rehabilitated. Effective rehabilitation significantly reduces the likelihood of experiencing recurrent neck pain attacks.