- Why isn’t it enough just to do aerobic exercise?
- Why should we go to the gym or use weights at home?
- Why do you need to get some muscle?
First, let’s look at some sobering facts:
- In the mid-1980s, biochemists established that muscles were essential to immunity, as glutamine was manufactured by muscles and glutamine was the key to the immune system
- From 20 and 80 years old, females lose on average 8 lbs of healthy muscle and gain 23 lbs of excess fat.
- From 20 and 80 years old, men lose a quarter of their muscle mass, and a lot of their immunity to diseases follows this.
- In a study of 2,300 people over five years, the University of Pittsburgh found that those with low quads strength were 51% more likely to die. A second study looked at both age and quads strength, and they found that you were 13 times more likely to die with weak quad A sobering fact.
Do you want to lose more fat and look younger?
In a ten-week study by Neil McCartney, it was shown that using weights, a form of resistive exercise, is part of the answer. In this study, inactive females who had an average of 21.8% fat were split into two groups (McCartney, cited in Colgan, 2005). Some of these ladies were advised to follow only an aerobic exercise regime, and the others had resistive exercise using weights added to their regime. Those using weights achieved a greater fat reduction of 7.1%, compared to those not using weights who achieved only 5.6%.
In another study (Willis et al 2012 J Appl Physiol) they concluded that resistance exercise was more effective for muscle mass gains, aerobic exercise was better for fat loss. If increasing muscle mass and strength was the goal, resistive exercise must be included in the program.
Other studies went have shown that resistive exercise boosted human growth hormone, testosterone, and DHEA, which were all anti- ageing and immunity boosters. Furthermore, when this happens, the stress hormone goes down, slow wave sleep is boosted, and so is bone strength.
Here’s a starting point for all you beginners out there who want to try a resistive exercise:
It’s best to limit yourself to a maximum of 45 to 60 minutes in any one session, and if you have a busy day, even doing several sessions in 15 minute blocks will add up and make all the difference. You need to work different muscles with different exercises, and even with the same muscles, you need to vary the intensity and the type of exercise in order to constantly challenge your muscles. One way of doing this is to write down a list and put them in a jar. You can then randomly pull out different ones to stop boredom from creeping in – something that my personal fitness coach at the clinic suggests doing. I would add to this that I’d like you to group lower limb, back/stomach, and upper limb exercises in order to allow the necessary recovery for your muscles to repair themselves.
Studies show that improved muscle strengthening comes from including eccentric loading (which is loading the muscle as its fibres lengthen rather than as they shorten). If this all sounds a bit complicated, then call us on 01889 881488. We can help make sure you are doing the right exercises at the right time and in the right way. Make sure you never overstrain, though, because inflammation isn’t good. Damaged muscles will take five to eight days to repair and strengthen.
I teach my patients very specific exercises for their specific injuries. However, here is a simple general guide:
- Start by doing an aerobic action, either by using a lightweight with 8 to 12 reps, or just a warm-up exercise.
- Then work the chosen muscle with a stronger 8 to 10 repetition, pushing yourself to near exhaustion by the last one.
- To work a selected group of muscles, leave a minimum of 48 hours in between for healing.
- Take a protein drink an hour after a hard workout. Before a workout, take some glucose and hydrate well. Keep an alkaline diet, as muscle work will enhance an acidic environment.
Muscles have two types of fibre: the slow and fast twitch, the former working hard during aerobic activity, and the latter in explosive actions and weight training. Unlike the constant supply of energy generated during aerobic exercise, the fast twitch can only grab energy in the muscle, hence short bursts of exertion only, before its short battery life is effectively over.
Another factor is your body type, as this will impact your response to training and the diet you need to follow:
- Ectomorphs are those irritating friends who eat everything and stay looking slim in clothes, as it is more difficult for them to build muscle.
- Endomorphs are heavier; they put weight on more easily and have to diet. They can build muscle, but it is often buried under the fat, making them look bigger. Aerobic workouts are essential here – that or big pants!
- Mesomorphs, on the other hand, have an athletic build, narrow waist, and broad shoulders. They build muscle easily, although they have to diet as well.
Patients ask me how heavy, how often, and how long for, and the key here is to follow a guided program of specific coordinated exercise, as muscles will strengthen faster and with less weight.
I found that my maximum dumbbell weight for toning was to do between 12 and 15 reps comfortably then go hard with the last 3. Then, I had to take a break before the next set. When you want to bulk up a muscle, it’s the handful of hard reps that do the breaking down and rebuilding action – not particularly kind to your body. Needing to continue that feeling of toning to get gently stronger means that you have to gently increase the weight, which is a rewarding and positive thing to do. Toning means high reps of 15 or more, low exertion and only 30 seconds are needed between sets. When defining, you need to make more of an effort to do 10 to 14 reps before muscle fatigue, with only a minute to recover, then repeat. Building and stressing muscles means fatigue at a max of 10, pushing into pain for an extra couple of reps, and a minute or two’s rest is essential. After injury, the first set is the first to be attempted.
Pushing your strength – rather than toning – means using a weight that you can just move a maximum of 4 to 8 reps, then resting a minute or two minutes per set. The latter will lead to muscle soreness, repair, and bulking. A good time to consider Sports Massage.
Free weights involve more body control and are, on the whole, more effective. I tend to work opposing or different muscles to fill the rest of the time in with an exercise for a different muscle, and it also allows more recovery time, as I don’t want muscle soreness hindering me afterwards.
If you want to reduce fat and increase your strength and need to be guided to ensure the best results while minimizing the chances of injury, then call us.
We can help.
Do You Need Help With Your Running?
Call 01889 881488 NOW
Jean, Erica and Charlotte will be happy to help.
Ask to see Anton, Katie or Dean
What I have learnt whilst working with athletes is that runners are the most determined, there is no stopping a runner from running. There is no such thing as a day off… they just run all year round.
This means that injuries such as stress fractures, plantar fasciitis and overuse injuries become very common, and generally get worse without treatment or rest. This, however, doesn’t stop a runner. It is thus important to implement pre-rehabilitation strategies to prevent injuries from occurring in the first place, so sports therapists don’t have to pull the short straw and do the uncomfortable task of telling a runner to minimise their running.
Here are some of the things a sports therapist can provide that will help to minimise the risk of injury and enhance your running performance.
Prehabilitation, what is it?
Most of us know the importance of rehabilitation following surgery to restore physical strength and function. However, many will be confused with the concept of prehabilitation aka pre-hab. Pre-hab is designed to prevent injuries by taking care of weaknesses ahead of time to stop them from evolving. Why bother? Some may ask, but once injury hits, the regret sets in, and you wish you had spent that extra time looking after your body. In addition, studies have shown that those who incorporate pre-hab into their daily activities regain full function faster and more easily than those who don’t prehab before the injury.
Sports Massage
Sports massage is a must for runners. It not only breaks down fascia (connective bands of tissue) but also helps improve overall running performance by increasing blood flow and oxygen to the muscles and helping remove metabolic waste such as lactic acid. This helps to maximise training, increase range of motion, and increase muscle energy activity. It also helps to maintain overall muscle health by identifying areas of tension and addressing them before an injury occurs.
Sports massage helps create an overall sense of wellness as it releases chemicals from the brain and can induce a state of relaxation, which can also help with sleep. Sleep is vital for recovery.
How often should you have sports massage?
If sports massage is undertaken regularly, it is easier to detect variations in the soft tissue. Muscle imbalances can be corrected before they become serious enough to cause discomfort. Advice will be given on how to maintain yourself between massages to prolong the benefits of the treatment.
Having regular monthly maintenance is a great place to start. However, if you are new to massage, don’t schedule it too close to an event just as you wouldn’t test out new running shoes or socks too close to a big event.
Sports massage is like an MOT for your body… it’ll keep you ticking over, stop you getting too tight and prevent niggles from turning into injuries.
Incorporating strength training into a running program?
Absolutely! For a runner, it is so important to strengthen your lower body and core. If you run all the time and do nothing else, you build up a few muscle groups, such as quadriceps and calves, whilst not really strengthening other areas. Unfortunately, long-distance running tends to leave out the posterior chain of the body, leaving muscular areas that are very important for speed, such as the hamstrings and the glutes, undeveloped. This means that you’re potentially losing functionality and will begin to develop muscular imbalances that will ultimately lead to injury. Stronger muscles can also act as a shock absorbers, which can reduce the load on the joints. Strength training not only reduces the likelihood of muscular imbalances, but it can also help to improve your endurance, speed and enjoyment as well as improve bone density which will reduce the likelihood of stress fractures.
Strong Body= Strong Runner
In summary, you can’t tell a runner to minimise their mileage. It’s vital, therefore, to avoid nasty injuries before they happen through rehabilitation, massage and strength training and thus maximise your chances of reaching your long-term running goals.
Do You Need Help With Your Running?
Call 01889 881488 now
Erica, Jean and Charlotte will be happy to help
If you’re looking to boost your running performance, why not try a sports massage. Regular massages are a runner’s MOT for the body. As a runner, you put so much effort into your training, it’s worth putting effort into taking good care of your body too.
It Works
There is a reason that top athletes have regular massage and the reason is it works. It helps them achieve their best with less pain and more flexibility. The same goes for the GPs in countries like Germany, where a course of massage is prescribed before drugs. Why? Because it works.
If you would like to get these same benefits for yourself, then please call the clinic now and book an appointment with Katie.
First, decide what your fitness goals are!
Patients often ask me, once their general fitness is much better, “How do I take the next step to train towards a specific sport?” Firstly, any current injuries should be assessed by an experienced physiotherapist or sports therapist. Then you need to decide on your goals. What are your goals? Stronger heart and lungs? A fit-looking body? To win at sport? To live longer?
Furthermore, you need to decide:
- which sports you want to concentrate on
- how vigorously you want to compete
- how long you want to be able to compete.
Everyone should exercise, but you need to set your personal goals of fitness and your own unique set of aims, as this will determine the most appropriate exercise and productive time you can spare for training. A fitness assessment with a personal trainer can establish your personal fitness goals and an injury prevention program can be formulated to attain your goals:
• Enhanced cardiovascular ability.
• Improved stamina and endurance.
• Better agility, flexibility, and balance.
• Stronger muscles and core strength.
• Slimmer body.
• Stronger bones.
• Clearer thinking and happier moods.
Ten Tips to Achieve Your Fitness Goals
1) Measure your heart rate just after vigorous exercise for 5 seconds, then after another minute for another 5 seconds. Multiply both by 12, then subtract one from the other. This gives you your speed of recovery, which is an indicator of your cardio fitness. As you get fitter, both your oxygen capacity and the ability of your enzymes to remove lactic acid will increase.
2) Mix up slow and fast pace in all activities. Athletes carry out long slow and short fast interval training for a good reason; the slow pace builds stamina and teaches the body how to cope with and eliminate lactic acid, as well as enabling muscles to store more glycogen for prolonged exercise.
3) Fast pace, on the other hand, comprises of short bursts of intense activity which boosts sugar metabolism and teaches the brain to co-ordinate the muscles at a faster pace, helping agility.
4) To avoid muscle injury due to tiredness, rest adequately as muscles need
48 hours to recover, plus good hydration and nutrition.
5) To achieve stronger muscles, lift a weight you can just manage between
8 and 12 lifts in about 50 seconds. Then, rest briefly between sets, as
lactic acid build-up will cause injury. Repeat. Rest a day in between. Add
2.5 kg to 5 kg maximum at each increase.
6) Exercised bones get stronger, so use resistance or weight-bearing exercises.
7) For a thinner body, sustained exertion will burn up calories and speed up the metabolic rate.
8) For a flexible body, complete slow, sustained stretches of 30 seconds when you are warm and pain-free. Stretch before your workout to reduce the chances of injury. Stretching after exercise reduces muscle soreness and promotes relaxation.
9) Clearer thinking is essential. Work out your pattern of mental alertness, the daily peaks and troughs. Plan a regular exercise program and see how it eliminates the ‘valleys’. Exercise-induced endorphins plus serotonin will reduce depression and pain.
10) For running, cycling and walking, get checked out biomechanically.
This means the alignment of foot joints to avoid knee pain, hip pain, and back pain.
A correct alignment will reduce wear and tear.
Do you need help in setting realistic goals, creating a plan and
ongoing help to get you there?
We Can Help
Call 01889 881488 Now.
Jean, Erica & Charlotte will be happy to help
Do you remember studying hard at school to get good A levels? Your dream was to get accepted onto a physiotherapy university degree course, as the idea of helping people to get out of pain and live a higher quality of life really appealed to you. Physiotherapy suited your personality because it was a proven hands-on technique that made a measurable difference. And that was what you really wanted to do, to make a difference and help people.
All that hard work and determination got you the A levels you needed and you were accepted onto the course of your dreams. You started your career in physiotherapy determined to help people.
Now a few years on, as you look back on your career, you can’t help feeling that something is missing. Your dreams are not being fulfilled and more to the point, many of the skills you studied so hard to learn are not being used. You seem to be stuck on this treadmill of seeing patients, knowing you could help more, that you could make a bigger difference to their lives, but not able to as the guidelines are to avoid treatment wherever possible and send patients home with some exercises.
As you reflect on this, you wonder, if you continue this way, how you will look back on your life when you are retired. You realised there is a Grand Canyon-sized divide between your dreams at school and university, and what you were actually doing.
Now is the time to act, not tomorrow, as tomorrow never comes
At Nicky Snazell Clinic, we are 100% committed to providing the very best treatment we can, and it is exceedingly rare for that treatment not to involve hands-on, allowing our therapists to use the finely honed skills they were taught at university and refined in their years since. We of course incorporate exercises where appropriate and send online exercises with video links direct to the client. The clinic is also very well equipped with technology often only available in private practices and all this technology is available to all therapists to use free of charge.
Our therapists are able to devise meaningful treatment plans with their clients which will optimise the degree and rate of recovery from injury or pain and then go on to provide ongoing maintenance where needed to ensure that the improvements made are retained.
We have the luxury of both an excellent in-house MSK training resource, plus world specialist pain relief skills that attract clients from around the world, skills that are also readily taught in-house. Simply put, a combination of learning opportunities that’s hard to match.
Emma joined us as a MSK physiotherapist after 9 years of feeling restricted.
“I was so frustrated seeing patient after patient, never really helping them as much as I knew I could. It was equivalent to be trained to use a complete toolbox, but only allowed to use one tool.
The best decision I’ve ever made was to join Nicky Snazell Clinic. The breadth of their knowledge and skills still blows me away every day.
When I reflect back, I realise how my enthusiasm for being a physio was wilting. Now I’ve found my passion again and I can’t wait to learn something new and know there are no restrictions on me. I can now use every tool in the toolbox to get the best result possible.”
What Are You Going To Do Today?
There is no one right answer and we are all individuals. If the idea of actually treating MSK problems appeals to you, in an environment of total commitment to providing the best hands-on treatment possible, supported by an abundance of latest technology and ongoing learning from the best, then you should consider applying for an MSK physiotherapist role at Nicky Snazell Clinic.
You can be confident you will be applying for an opportunity at a well recognised facility. We have more Google reviews than most near us put together and we are rated 5.0, the highest possible. Our latest client satisfaction score was 93.5% and we have already taken action to address the improvement opportunities identified.
If this opportunity appeals to you, send in your CV and a covering letter to alanc@painreliefclinic.co.uk
Find out more about our clinic at www.painreliefclinic.co.uk
Great news. The sun is shining, and it’s holiday time!
Most of us have been couped up for the best part of a year, probably getting a lot less exercise than normal and possibly desperately needing some treatment for pain. Every year we get a surge of clients who have put their back out and need urgent help to resolve back pain before their holiday. This year it’s likely to be a bigger surge due to the relatively low activity due to COVID dragging on.
We are here to help and we will no doubt be able to get you out of pain in time for your holiday. But it’s important to realise that in most cases we won’t have enough time to completely fix the problem, so you will need to be a bit careful on your much looked forward to holiday.
Here is some simple advice to help you avoid ruining your holiday
First, let’s understand pain a little. When we are in pain, it’s difficult to get it off our minds. But once it’s gone, you can’t remember it, can you? You can remember you didn’t like the pain, but you can’t recreate the pain in your mind. There lies the risk.
Once the pain is gone, it’s forgotten and we feel good. Then we do stupid things and the pain comes back with a vengeance. What is one of the main culprits? Suitcases.
If you think about basic health & safety when picking things up, the rule is bend your legs, not your back. It makes sense, but not easy to do when putting a heavy suitcase in the boot of the car, or fighting to get the suitcase off the conveyor at the airport. Worse yet, one sure way of putting your back out is to lift and twist as the same time. What do you do when you take a suitcase out of the boot? You are in the way, so you twist and put the suitcase down! Ouch, home goal. Now for the Physiotherapy
Stop and think
Try two lighter suitcases instead of one heavy one. Bend your legs putting the suitcases in the boot, or even get two of you to do it. When you take a suitcase out of the boot, avoid twisting, instead rotate on your feet, like a robot.
Be extra careful with airport conveyors. They tend to be a free for all, and fighting to get a suitcase off before it goes past is a sure way to put excessive lifting and twisting loads on your back.
We have had many clients who ruined their holiday before it started. Don’t let that be you.
If you are in pain, we can help
Call 01889 881488 Now
Jean, Erica & Charlotte will be happy to help
A big thank you to those who bought one of Nicky’s books or some of our bespoke jewellery in April. You generated £60 which will be paid into the Red Cross and Blue Cross Charities specifically to help Ukraine.
For those who would still like to help, then we are selling Nicky’s books and bespoke jewellery at bargain basement prices until we no longer have anything to sell.
We guarantee 100% of payments taken will go to these charities to
Help Ukraine
What services are provided at the pain relief clinic?
If you have reached this page, then you have most likely Googled "where can I get a massage near me", this is a common question that is typed into Google every day.
If Google has done its job and we hope that it has, then you are most likely located within a radius of about 60-mins to Stafford, and we are worth the travel!
We have a beautiful clinic, with parking.
What areas do you cover for massage therapies?
Here at Nicky Snazell Pain Relief Clinic, we provide massage services to our clients who very often are prepared to travel to see us. We have had clients from the USA and from the United Arab Emirates travel over to see Nicky and the team for treatment.
The main bulk of our fantastic centre is for Stafford massage customers come from areas such as Stafford, Litchfield, Cannock, Rugeley and Uttoxeter for our massages and other pain relief treatments.
Is massage right for me?
There are a variety of massage types that are all designed to help, 95% of our customers who are looking for massage really do need it and value our support and massage service. We recommend checking out our testimonials and seeing what others think. But also by visiting the team you will find out what variety is best suited to your requirement.
Who has massage?
Anyone that understands the benefit but here are five patient types that are suited to our popular treatments:
- Business owners and managers - Those with high-stress roles often benefit from shoulder and neck treatments.
- Sportsmen and sportswomen - We often provide slightly more vigorous sports massage for this group. This helps condition the muscles and can aid muscle recovery. Cyclists, horse riders, football players, tennis players and rugby enthusiasts are just some of the sports we help.
- The elderly - Massage can help promote movement and circulation benefits, so we find that our older patients appreciate our services - Especially important if you are less mobile or sit for more extended periods.
- Nurses & Doctors - Long hours, stress, and shift work means that Doctors and Nurses will choose to come and see us privately to help them cope with the job's physical demands.
- Manual Labourers - Builders, factory workers, bar staff anyone that is repeating tasks will understand the physical hammering this can give to their bodies, joints and soft tissues.
Does massage work?
Yes, it does, and our reviews support this, but long before Pain Relief Clinic, people have practised this type of therapy for thousands of years.
If you are still not convinced then consider Physiotherapy, but either way,
Call Now 01889 881488. Erica & Jean will be happy to help
What are the different types of pain?
Acute pain is when you have an accident or injury and the nociceptors (pain receptors) trigger an alarm impulse. This is useful pain – it’s protective and necessary for survival.
Chronic pain is when the signal has stopped serving a useful purpose. Pain travels through nerves, and these can be damaged due to repeated trauma or poor posture resulting in compression, however brief this may be.
Limbs are just an extension of your spine. When we were a ball of cells developing in the womb, we had cells dedicated to specific zones, such as the skin cells (dermatomes), the muscle cells (myotomes), and the organs (sclerotomes). These flow out from the spine to the limbs and are numbered according to the spinal segments to which they belong. Often, therefore, painful chronic problems will not switch off because a nerve is faulty, for example, with tennis elbow, plantar fasciitis, whiplash, and sciatica.
Poor posture repeated injury, and wear and tear of the spine (spondylosis) can all cause the phenomenon of neuropathic pain. This is when the nerve becomes super-sensitive, which leads to false chronic pain stimuli, as well as palpable muscle contractures and chronic degenerative tendonitis/tenosynovitis (where the muscle attaches to the bone via the tendon).
We feel pain long after the cause has happened. Unhelpful, unpleasant pain. Ring any bells?
Of course, everyone has a reasonable idea that they need to exercise and eat healthily and have purposeful thoughts to do this, but you don’t always do it, do you? You procrastinate. “I’ll start tomorrow… I don’t have the time…It’s not my responsibility… I’m far too busy… I don’t believe things will get better… I can’t make a difference, not me, not just one person out of billions… I have more important priorities…” The excuses go on.
What you have to remember is that, actually, your health is your number one priority, and nothing should come before it. If you want to have a happier, longer, pain-free life, where you can be around for your family and friends, you need to put your own health right at the top of your list. Everything else comes after.
I must confess: I’ve been in your shoes, many times, and yes, it’s a constant battle. I remember how I felt about my mother’s severe chronic back pain. My endless anger and disappointment. Hating the fact that no one could do anything to help her.
Well, she’s conquered her problem now. In fact, she hasn’t had it for about 40 years.
I strongly believe that integrative medicine is the way forward, combining the most potent aspects of modern medical practices and complementary therapies. My interest in ancient medicine and wisdom has taken me around the world, meeting shamans and healers who still use the ways of their ancestors.
I also believe in – and use – modern technology; and can I just ask: where does it say that we can’t use both in our modern medical treatment of pain? I use techniques from all of these ancient and modern types of healing, and I think that we should all be more open to the different ways in which we can help our bodies and, therefore, help ourselves.
There is so much more that you can do – without the help of a doctor or a pill or surgery – than you may realise. In fact, there is a whole host of things you can put into practice to give yourself a longer, healthier life. And who wouldn’t want that?
With my background,in biology, psychology, alternative medicine and physiotherapy; I am very aware of the power of the mind, and I feel privileged to be in the driving seat of the physical medicine of tomorrow.
I strongly believe that analysing any block to a patient (in terms of pain) and getting the healing results they want is incredibly important. In the future keeping accurate records of both an intuitive and scientific approach to tackling health issues, we will be able to experience a broader understanding, something which will pave an exciting way forward in terms of healing for our future generations.
Physiotherapy – A Brief History
The beginnings of Physiotherapy date back to the late 1894 when four nurses formed the Society of Trained Masseuses. A Royal Charter was awarded in 1920, in recognition of the profession’s high education and professional standards. It evolved over the following years until it became the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) in 1944.
The CSP has been the controlling body for physiotherapy since 1944 and they work to the guidelines as dictated by NICE (The National Institute for Health & Care Excellence – a government body). The CSP is predominantly geared towards the needs of the NHS and this is where the great divide has it’s origins.
Physiotherapy Within The NHS Today
The NHS is a massive entity and has to constantly make difficult decisions on how and where to best spend the budget it is provided by the government. The lack of a sufficient budget has been a permanent factor in our lifetime, and as we all know, it is without fail subject to political football every election.
In recent years the NHS has moved towards ‘hand off’ physiotherapy. You will get a good diagnostic assessment if a face to face appointment is granted. However, hands-off exercises seems to be the normal ‘treatment’. Follow up appointments, if really needed, are 15 to 20 minutes and are spaced 8 or more weeks apart.
Perception Is Reality
Understandably, the general public will think of the NHS first if they perceive they need some physiotherapy. After all, they have already paid for it in their taxes, so there is no extra cost. This of course ignores the fact that wherever you go, there is a time commitment which could mean time off work or even taking holiday. I reality, nothing is free.
If an individual has no former experience of physiotherapy, their perception of what physiotherapy is will be governed totally by their NHS experience and their perception, in the words of most of our clients coming from the NHS, and there are a lot of them, is it’s a waste of time.
Now this is not good for the profession of physiotherapy, because all physiotherapists, whether they work in the NHS or not, are highly trained to provide excellent diagnostics and effective hands-on treatment.
Long term, this is not good for the physiotherapy profession
The issue is not the physiotherapist, it’s the environment they choose to work in. And if that’s in the NHS, then the shift is towards ‘hands-off and in reality, how can you effectively treat if it’s ‘hands off’?
The real risk is that many will have their first and last physiotherapy appointment in the NHS. From their perception, this lacked any real benefit, and consequently, they will post physiotherapy to the dustbin for the rest of their lives and seek out alternatives like chiropractic and osteopathy.
Long term, this is bad news for the physiotherapy profession.
An Alternative Perception – An Alternative Reality
Many physiotherapists choose to work in the private sector because they are primarily motivated to make a real and positive difference to a client’s life. In reality, they know they can only do that by being allowed to give as much treatment as is needed. That means sufficient time to be effective and the ability to follow up as frequently and as often as is really needed.
Skills Availability
As written above, the CSP has to work within NICE guidelines and this sometimes causes problems that can be avoided in private clinics. As an example, a few years ago, NICE awarded acupuncture the gold standard for treating back pain. Then they made a complete U turn and said it was ineffective. The impact of this decision was that acupuncture was categorised by many in the NHS as quackery. Some of our part time staff, who also worked full time in the NHS, reported they were banned from using acupuncture, which they found very frustrating as they were using acupuncture very effectively in our clinic at exactly the same time.
Some years later, NICE performed their second U turn and approved acupuncture for back pain again. Without doubt many patients in the interim, who could have been helped from suffering severe pain, were probably left to taking pain killers and talked to about how to manage their pain.
Now compare this to what happened in our clinic. We had massive experience in using not only acupuncture, but also much more advanced techniques, and we had achieved substantial success in helping people get out of pain and be more mobile. Thus when NICE stated acupuncture as being ineffective, we simply ignored it because we knew it was incorrect and carried on helping clients, day in day out. Many clients even traveled from abroad for our skills in this period and that simply would not have happened if our treatments didn’t work.
Technology
It may come as a surprise to many, but private clinics tend to invest much more heavily than the NHS into technology which can really help clients in pain. We don’t have the restrictions of conforming to NICE dictates, and thus we have the freedom to look more broadly and move much faster. We also employ evidence based decision making and take account of clinical experience and client preferences.
We know this because when we employ physiotherapists from the NHS, we have to train them in new skills and new technology which they have never seen before.
What Does This Mean For You
Not surprisingly, we have many clients who start with us and then go to the NHS thinking they will get the same intensity and breadth of treatment as we provide, only to return weeks or months later expressing their frustrations of how little, if any, treatment they received.
Their perception was that physiotherapy was based on what we provided, and it seemed logical to go to the NHS and get the same thing for free. The reality was they experienced the great divide between private and NHS physiotherapy.
We doubt that future clients new to us will be any different. The truth is clients just don’t believe us when we try to explain the differences.
You, however, are only getting this blog because you have already been to our clinic and hopefully you will thus better comprehend the great divide. That may not stop you from wanting to try the free option first. If you do decide to give it a go, hopefully it will work for you as you will get a good diagnostic assessment, but the chances are you will end up waiting weeks to get an exercise prescription.
Your Choice
Ultimately it’s your choice what you do. We can only advise as best we can and if you are in pain now, that would be to get to a private clinic as you will get out of pain a lot faster.
If you are in pain, we can help.
Call 01889 881488 now. Erica, Jean or Charlotte will be happy to help.