After the Chiropractic success of working at the World Athletics Championships in August, Tim has passed the baton on to me for this month’s blog.
While Tim is sunbathing in the south of France, enjoying a well-earned break with his family, I was amongst the thunder and lightning of Maidenhead with Cleve RFC as they were playing in their first away match of the season. Despite the narrow defeat, the ongoing dispute over head injuries continued as I had yet another concussion to assess amongst the squad. Loss of memory, blurred vision, nausea and altered balance are amongst the main signs of concussion which is now being watched closely by most governing bodies in sport. I asked the routine medical questions to the player after the match and cleared him for training next week. However, overlooked concussions can have a detrimental effect to someone’s mental health and it applies to people off the rugby field too. We’ve had patients in the clinic who have had nasty falls and as part of their assessment I’ll always check for signs of concussion.
While on the subject of sport, I recently treated a good friend of mine who’s now a professional rugby player. He came to me at the clinic back in June complaining of back pain following a muscle sprain. That sounded simple enough but the catch was the 2 month deadline we had, as his pre-season training started at the beginning of August and there was no chance he was missing the first game of the season (his words not mine). Massage and rest hadn’t quite accelerated the healing process as he’d hoped. After assessing him, it became clear that his hip wasn’t moving fully which contributed to his muscular tightness. After just over a month’s treatment including manipulation, acupuncture and ultrasound, Jacob was back in training and I sat on the sofa on Saturday night watching him on Sky Sports, surreal!
So we had two new additions to the clinic this month. Firstly I should mention our new Chiropractor Jack Withey, who’s started this month after graduating as Valedictorian of his year (for those of us not educated in Latin, that means he graduated top of his class!) Both Jack and I were inspired to become a chiropractor after completing a week’s work experience with Tim and 5 years after our A-level we graduated with a Masters in chiropractic and were lucky enough to be offered 2 of the most coveted chiropractic jobs in the country back home, here at Cleve Chiropractic.
Secondly we added shockwave therapy to our clinical toolbox at Cleve Chiropractic and Next Step. It’s been working wonders on our patients with conditions such as tennis elbow, plantar fasciitis and achilles problems that won\’t go away. Shockwave is used regularly by all of the Premier league football and rugby teams and is widespread throughout elite sport medicine. It is well known for its use in breaking down gallstones and kidney stones within the NHS. It has now been proven to fix 90% of conditions such plantar fasciitis and is on the NICE guidelines for such conditions but is not widely available on the NHS. Without boring you with the details too much, radial pulse waves are absorbed by the muscle, tendon or ligament resulting in a newfound blood supply to the target area as well as breaking down scar tissue. The results during our first month have been fantastic, particularly for a few of the Bristol Half Marathon runners who had doubts on their fitness leading up to the race. For more details please contact the clinic.
I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my guest blog and I look forward to Tim returning next month to read more of his unique insights!
