All posts by James Horwood

Meet The Team

News

Here is a quick update on our team,  Laura Morris joined in the summer 2019.  Laura is an Osteopath who trained at the British School of Osteopathy (now renamed as University College of Osteopathy or UCO).

We are now a group of 3 Osteopaths all with different areas of special interest and different ways of working, kept well organised by our practice manager Liz!

The best things about the practice is that we are a team who are greatly interested in what we do, I believe that this is what makes us different.  I’m proud to work with all my colleagues and feel we have a huge amount to offer our patients.

Osteopaths tend to work slightly differently from each other so it’s definitely not a case of  ‘One size fits all’.

James Horwood (B Ost)

“I very much enjoy the problem-solving part of my job.  It starts with detective work, piecing together the information from my patients with the findings from our assessments and then coming up the plan to solve the problem.  I tend to see mostly adult patients and I work using hands on techniques improving how the joints and muscles work.  This often means direct work to the muscle tissue, stretching, improving the mobility of joints and giving advice on how my patients can help themselves.”

Amy Horwood (B Ost)

“I work with patients of all ages from birth onwards!  In the years since qualifying I have continued to build and develop my knowledge and skills in treating babies and children completing various post graduate courses.  I use a mix of gentle Cranial techniques, soft tissue and joint mobilisation treatments to help my patients.  I find these work very well not just with the very young patients but also those adult patients who benefit from a more gentle approach.”

Laura Morris (M.Ost)

“My areas of interest cover a broad range from sports injuries to womens health. I am currently finishing postgraduate training to enhance my osteopathic management for children and babies.  Before training to be an Osteopath I worked in mental health, delivering confidence building workshops to those in chronic pain. I have also been a Doula for 12 years and have a lot of experience with expectant mums.  Whilst training as an osteopath I also trained as a sports massage therapist taking a special interest in running injuries. I’m now in a great position to be able to help my patients using my past experience alongside the Osteopathic treatment.”

Skiing Injuries

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It’s that time of year again, patients are coming back from a great weeks skiing but with aches and pains!  Knee injuries, ligament and muscle injuries, back, neck problems, you name it.  A week of intensive skiing is often difficult to prepare for and people come home a bit broken. Come and see us at Clevedon Osteopathic Practice and see what we can do to help. Good quality treatment and experienced advice on rehabilitation can get you back on your feet. If you are looking for an Osteopath in Clevedon, North Somerset get in touch, tel: 01275 877339 www.clevedonosteopaths.com

 

Exercise and inflammation

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We know exercise is good for us and as time goes on we have a greater understanding of how our body responds and benefits from regular exercise.  Many research studies have now shown that exercise has a very beneficial effect on inflammation.  Exercise stimulates anti-inflammatory cytokines to be released from muscle tissue.  These and other hormones help to reduce levels of inflammation within our bodies.  As inflammation is a major cause of ill health, whether it be in the joints or in tissues such as our arteries, any reduction is fantastic news.

In short, if you do exercise keep going.  If you don’t exercise start now!  Find something you enjoy, take on a challenge, join a club.  Anything to get your muscles working regularly.

 

For more info search “exercise and inflammation” on www.scholar.google.com

Osteopathy and headaches

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Headaches and Osteopathy

Recently on the BBC there has a been a programme (Doctor in the house) that showed how a lady with long standing and very painful headaches was greatly helped by a course of hands on manual therapy.

This certainly can be the case for the right type of headache.  In this example the lady had upper neck dysfunction thought to relate back to a car accident many years before.  The changes in how her neck had worked and supported it’s self had led to irritation of nerves that come out from the top of the neck and travel over the head.  When these nerves (Greater Occipital nerves) are affected in this way it can lead to a neuralgia, i.e. nerve pain.  Commonly this pain will be one sided and often end up above or around the eye.  Osteopathic treatment can work very well in addressing the mechanical aspects of the neck dysfunction and stop the irritation of the nerve at its source.

As in the above example previous trauma can play its part (such as car accidents or bad falls etc) or they can result from a build up of tension in the upper neck relating to posture or stress.

There are many different causes to headache and some are certainly more serious and need medical assessment.  If you had other symptoms such as changes to your vision (particularly double vision), dizziness, nausea / vomiting, problems with speech or if the pain is very severe for no apparent reason then you should seek medical advice first.  Thankfully only a very small proportion of headaches relate to serious underlying causes.

 

Spring into action!

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It’s that time of year, the weather and day light hours are both improving and the grass starts growing.  Our activity levels often start to increase now, especially for the gardeners among us.  Watch out!  Several months of relative hibernation can leave us out of shape and rather than getting stuck into the garden we get stuck IN the garden.  The first sunny days encourage us to do more but don’t over do things to start with.

Think about…

Warming up before you start.  Don’t dive into heavy tasks straight away, start gently, spend some time stretching your legs, back, shoulders and neck.  Its important we prepare the body before physical activity.

Repeat some of the stretches during the day to help limit a build up of muscle tightness and definitely spend some time at the end of the day stretching to ease the muscles that you have been using.

Divide the tasks up.  Don’t spend hours doing one job, repeatedly using the same muscle groups in the same way.  Chop and change so your body gets some variation.

It is normal to have some aches and pains after more strenuous physical work and this should ease over a day or two.  If pain is more persistent then it is advisable to get advice.  With the right treatment and management plan in place you can get back to your normal activities and get rid of the pain.

Institute of Osteopathy Annual Conference

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November 2016 was a busy month for CPD, we attended the Institute of Osteopathy (www.osteopathy.org) conference. The main themes were Headaches and the role of Osteopathy in their management. The new NICE guidelines on Low back pain management and broader discussions on ‘Reaching out’ with Osteopathy to help more people in the community.

The time spent at the iO conference counts toward our annual CPD (Continuing Professional Development) commitment.  At present all Osteopaths have to complete 30 hrs of CPD a year.  This is a great opportunity to explore interesting areas and deepen our knowledge base.  All of which should reflect in the care that we can provide to our patients.