We treat the neck, the back, the pelvis, arms and legs, sciatica, headache, sports injuries and whiplash. Due to our clinics continual educational efforts in the acquisition of different types of therapy we have also had excellent results with improving conditions such as pregnancy related disorders (e.g. morning sickness and posturally related symptoms), and the life quality in patients who suffer from a wide range of ailments, who may not feel like they get the help they need using conventional methods.

The main purpose of chiropractic is to restore the functioning of the nervous system, and thereby reduce any notable disorders of the musculoskeletal system, like back pain for example. However, it is our belief that the body functions as a whole, and any decline in health in one area (be it musculoskeletal, nutritional or emotional) can cause a decline or compensation in another area. Your wellbeing lies on a scale similar to a seesaw – in order to be at neutral, you have to have all factors working congruously (like two people of equal weight sitting on either end of a seesaw). This means that to be at your optimum health, it is not only musculoskeletal problems that need to be addressed, but also nutrition\toxicity and emotional factors. It will therefore make sense that we do not only treat symptomatic pain, but also other areas which may be contributing to a ‘less than optimum feeling of health’.

Common primary complaints that people come to us with are neck, back and limb pain, however a large percentage of patients will attest to the fact that they leave with fewer problems than they walked in with (i.e. dizziness, migraine, digestive problems etc).

Many of our patients come here with no symptoms at all, purely to have a ‘health check’ because they realise that health is not just the absence of disease or pain, it is a constantly adapting process which benefits from regular care. Another thing to note is that pain is one of the last indicators that the body gives to show that there is ‘problem’.

We have many personal trainers who have no symptoms of pain who come to us to improve their health, whether that means feeling stronger when they bench press, or feeling less tired in the mornings when they have to get up and train at 6am.

A large number of our patients also come here to prepare for something that they feel they need to be in the best possible shape for, such as a sporting event, or examination, or maybe even just a long car journey. We also take care of many expectant mothers who choose to give the best possible start in life to their children.

Paediatric chiropractic is also an area of interest here, as we have good results with children who suffer from suboptimal health and development. Parents often prefer to try alternative methods before resigning their child into a programme involving drugs with possible side effects.

Headache
Headaches can often come from the neck, the cranium or jaw joint. Other factors can include food sensitivity and emotional stress. Problems in other seemingly unrelated areas of the body can also affect headache. It is also a common side effect from medications. Research has also shown that eating headache tablets daily may help the symptoms, but also puts you at risk for giving you chronic headaches, as in, headaches that can become a daily occurrence. Not good!

We see patients who suffer from mild headaches every once in a while to people who suffer from migraines 2-3 times per week. If you are unfortunate enough to be part of the 10% of the population which make up headache sufferers, we welcome you in for a consultation to see if we can help.

Whiplash
’Whiplash’ occurs when the head has been forced into a direction due to high speed acceleration/deceleration such as a car crash, fighting, amusement park rides and bungyjumping etc. Movement like this can often causes damage to the muscles and ligaments in the neck or low back. Nerve pathways can also be damaged with these movements, as well as be affected by the damage caused to the muscles and ligaments surrounding them. It is often quite normal only to feel a little neck or low back stiffness after a crash - most symptoms begin to show within a couple of months to possibly a few years when the joints surrounding the instable/previously damaged muscles begin to show signs of wear and therefore can exhibit pain as a symptom. The quicker the treatment after the accident, the more likely it is that recovery will be full and fast. The longer treatment is left, the more likely it is to turn into a chronic condition and we therefore advise an examination as soon as possible even though you do not exhibit any symptoms. It can also be useful to have written documentation of your accident should you end up requiring it for insurance purposes.

Children are also at risk from whiplash injuries due to them just being children! They fall over when they start to walk, have ‘rough play’ with other children and usually tend to fall off things such as swings or bicycles. We therefore consider it important for children to be checked up once in a while so that they can continue to grow healthily and avoid chronic problems during their teenage years.

Neck pain and/or stiffness
Neck pain can arise due to trauma, but also from normal everyday activities such as sitting at a computer desk for too long or even from being emotionally stressed for a long period. Problems in the neck can occur instantaneously after a specific event, or can be reoccurring following something which may have happened years ago and has not been attended to. Neck pain can also come from other areas in the body due to the intricate engineering of muscle biomechanics – muscles can arise in the shoulder and end in the neck, which means that if you have a shoulder problem, you might perceive it as a neck problem because of the interlink between muscles.

Neck pain is one of the most common symptoms which are seen and treated by a chiropractor. Recent research has discarded any notion that there is an increased risk of damage after chiropractic treatment to the neck. Chiropractic treatment by a trained professional is safe and effective.

The thoracic spine
The thoracic spine is the part of the back which lies between the neck and the lower back. Pain here is very common due to our ever increasingly sedentary life style and our poor postures. It is common for pain in this area to radiate outwards from the spine, maybe to the shoulders, around the ribcage to your chest area, or even up your neck and down into the low back. Problems in the ribcage can cause pain in the same area and can also normally be felt with deep breathing. As mentioned in the ‘pain in the neck’ section, due to the intricate engineering of muscle biomechanics, a problem which seems to be in the thoracic spine may also originate from another part of your body such as the shoulders, neck or even the pelvis.

Pain in this area is also one of the commonest complaints in chiropractic, and is deemed to be managed very successfully with the right treatment.

Low back
Many people are used to having pain or a feeling of stiffness in their low backs and consider it a normal part of daily life. It is also common to have bent down in order to pick something up and feel pain immediately, or feel an increasing amount of discomfort over the following few days. The pain most commonly comes from an imbalance in the spinal musculature, damage to one or several joints and ligaments in the low back and pelvis, or damage to one or more of the nerves exiting from the low back. This is true of acute and chronic low back pain, and even includes disc herniation. As mentioned in previous sections, due to the intricate engineering of muscle biomechanics, problems which seem to be in the low back may also originate from another part of your body such as the foot, knee, neck or thoracic spine.

Treatment of the lower back is also one of the most common problems to be seen by a chiropractor and is shown to have a good success rate with relief in symptomatology and prevention of further problems in that area.

Lumbago
Lumbago is the name given to mechanical low back pain arising from a functional problem in and around the base of the spine. The most common reason for pain in this area is mainly pain after bending or lifting, but it is also just as common for pain to arise over time for seemingly no reason at all. It is usually due to a dysfunction in the joints of the spine to which the body responds with inflammation around the joint, and stiffness due to muscles cramping in order to protect the area. It is important to get chiropractic care as soon as possible as it is common for untreated problems to reoccur with a worsening effect over time, which will eventually end up damaging the spine.

Arms, legs, hands and feet
Problems in these areas can also come from the spine. Nerves from the spine travel into the arms and legs, and irritation of the nerve can cause not only pain but pins and needles, numbness and weakness in the pathway that the nerve follows. Problems in the spine such as a disc herniation or joint irritation can cause this. There can also be dysfunction in the joints of the hip, knee, foot, shoulder, elbow and hand that can cause pain locally (such as carpal tunnel syndrome and tennis/golfers elbow), or can cause a dysfunction in a seemingly distant site, for example, an untreated problem in the foot can lead to problems in the hip due to a simple muscle imbalance.

The jaw joint and the cranium
The jaw joint is one of the most important joints in the body as it can affect the neck, the cranium, the teeth and can also have neurological implications in the rest of the body. A problem in this area can also cause headaches due to muscle association, pain and/or a tired feeling in the cheeks and neck pain. We treat jaw joint dysfunction almost daily, and often together with a dentist, depending on the problem.

Sports injuries
More and more athletes are starting to improve their performance and reduce risk of injury whilst optimizing their health with chiropractic diagnosis and treatment. Some examples are Tiger Woods, Arnold Schwartzenegger, Michael Jordan, Tyson Gay, Wayne Gretzky and AC Milan football club, whose chief medical director is a chiropractor.

Sports injuries usually have something to do with straining of joints, ligaments, muscles and tendons. If painkillers are taken to minimize the pain, it fools the body into being able to do movements which will eventually increase the damage to the structure which has a problem. Painkillers also have side-effects which can affect the body in numerous ways.

It is important to remember that pain is the last thing the body will do to show that it has a problem, but that pain is also the first thing to go, regardless of whether the problem still exists. Basically, just because you don’t have pain, doesn’t mean that the body is functioning 100%.
In this clinic we can assess how the individual muscles of your body are functioning, regardless of whether pain is present or not. We can also optimize muscle function and strength, increase movement of the joints, and improve coordination, balance and timing in whatever sport it is that you do.

Subfertility
Subfertility is something that affects 15-20% of the western world. It is something that researchers have been aware of for a long time, yet still the fertility rates in both men and women are continuing to decrease.

Studies have shown that an increase in the amount of chemicals in our daily lives are most likely the cause for this. This can be anything from the chemicals which are in our food and cosmetics, to the chemicals we use to clean the house. In a study conducted in Denmark, it was found that out of 1200 women, it was the women whose blood contained the most chemicals that took the longest time to become pregnant (Human Reproduction, 2009:24:1200-5)

Difficulties in becoming pregnant can be due to:

• Structural/neurological problems. If the spine and therefore the muscles surrounding the womb are not in optimal position, the body will not want something growing there!
  
• Nutritional needs. If the body cannot cope with its own nutritional demands, why would it choose to share the limited amounts that it has with another? It is important to note that specific nutritional deficiencies can be found in even the most seemingly healthy of people.
• Toxicity (chemicals, as mentioned above). If the body has something in it which is not good for it, it is easy to understand why it would not want to concentrate on creating life – passing whatever it is straight through the placenta to the child!
  
• Every organism will make its best attempt at producing the healthiest child possible in the name of kinship survival. It is therefore logical to think that if it does not want to produce, it must be aware of the faults which could harm the growing child. This is obviously discluding complex problems concerned with ‘infertility’ as opposed to ‘subfertility’, and genetic abnormalities however.

In this clinic, we look at factors which may be contributing to decreased fertility rates. What we do is help to create the healthiest possible environment for the body to want to reproduce with. Structural, environmental and emotional factors are taken into consideration with every patient.

Birth
Many women experience back pain during pregnancy, and in order to understand why, it is important to go over a few physiological changes which occur throughout this time. One of the major changes that the body goes through is the relaxation and softening of many of the joints, ligaments, and tendons by a hormone called ‘relaxin’ in preparation for birth. This can often highlight a pre-existing problem, or cause a new problem in a specific area. One may ask why, seeing as our bodies were made for pregnancy, we could get problems in our spine simply for being pregnant – but this is easy to see when we look at our westernized lifestyles – bad posture, not enough exercise and strength in supporting musculature, long periods of sedentary activities such as driving or watching the tv and being overweight… the list goes on…

Treatment by a chiropractor during this time, with the use of gentle and specific techniques designed for pregnancy is both safe and comfortable. It allows the newly softened joints and ligaments to move in the correct way leading to a much more comfortable baby-carrying experience. It is also important to note that if the mother is in pain due to a structural problem such as muscle cramping, it would be logical to say that maybe the cramping muscle isn’t exactly making life 100% comfortable for the growing baby. The womb is much like a woven basket, in the sense that the muscles which make up and surround the womb are like the fibres which make up the shape of a basket ; if you distort some of the fibres in the basket, the shape of the basket becomes distorted. The more a baby grows, the more it relies on a comfortable space to be in. In due course, this leads to an easier labour and delivery and a decrease in the need for medical intervention which can be extremely traumatic for both mother and child.

« Back to the top