The post The Gentle Power of Osteopathy for Children: Supporting Healthy Growth and Development first appeared on Be Well Clinic.
]]>As parents, we’re always striving to give our children the best start in life—nurturing their growth, ensuring their comfort, and supporting their overall well-being. While nutrition, sleep, and emotional care are vital, there’s another gentle yet powerful tool that can help support a child’s development: osteopathy.
Osteopathy is a holistic, hands-on approach to health that focuses on the body’s structure and function. While it’s often associated with adults dealing with back pain or postural issues, osteopathy can be just as beneficial for children—especially when tailored with their unique needs in mind.
From the moment of birth, a child’s body goes through incredible changes. The physical stresses of birth, the rapid stages of growth, bumps and falls, or even postural habits during screen time—all can influence how a child’s body moves and functions.
Osteopathy offers a non-invasive, drug-free way to support children through these transitions. It can help promote balance in the musculoskeletal system, relieve tension, and improve overall mobility.
Every child is different, and so are the reasons they might benefit from osteopathic care. Some common concerns include:
A pediatric osteopathy session is calm, caring, and adapted to your child’s age and needs. We take time to listen to both the parent and child (if old enough), understand their history, and gently assess the body. Techniques are often so light and soothing that younger children may fall asleep during the session.
Safety and comfort are always the priority. The goal is not to “fix” a child, but to support their body’s natural ability to self-regulate and grow in a balanced way.
Osteopathy is not just about treating symptoms—it’s about understanding the whole child: their body, environment, and unique journey. By supporting healthy alignment, movement, and function early in life, we can lay a strong foundation for lifelong wellness.
If you’re curious about how osteopathy could benefit your child, feel free to reach out for a chat or book an assessment. We’re here to support your little one’s health, naturally and gently.
The post The Gentle Power of Osteopathy for Children: Supporting Healthy Growth and Development first appeared on Be Well Clinic.
]]>The post Menopause – Joint Pains & Osteopathy first appeared on Be Well Clinic.
]]>Hot flushes, insomnia, confusion, anxiety and joint pain. The joint pain is cause by Oestrogen that affects cartiledge, ligaments and can boost inflammation. What are the best ways to deal with this condition?
Like all joint issues, it;s not just about the inflammation in your joints but how your body is responding to the issue. If you are carrying extra weight that is not going to help, but you should also consider if your diet is helping?
Could you reduce your intake of highly refined, high sugar foods that are likely to promote inflammation?
Is there scope for increasing leafy greens right in omega 3 fatty acids that are likely to reduce inflammation?
Some people suffer worse than others because they have poor joint stability that has developed over a lifetime of low exercise and poor conditioning. In this case establishing an exercise regimen may have long-term benefits for joint pain, Although walking is good general exercise, it does little to inprove core strength and you really need to work muscles in your arms and legs and back to reap any rewards.
If you see your Doctor they will probably recommend non-steroidal anti-inflammatories or other over the counter pain killers. These may give you some local relief and be helpful when it is particularly bad, but not a great long term solution. Quite often if the joint pain is significant , it is associated with some of the other menopausal symptoms, in this case it is worth having a discussion about HRT with your GP, just so you know what your options are. There are some side effects but there are also costs if the symptoms are affecting the quality of your life significantly.
Can Osteopathy help? It certainly can’t change the hormonal processes that are occuring in your body, but it may be able to improve your underlying , mechanics in a way that reduces the symptoms. Particularly if you are aware that there are areas of your body that are not as flexible as they used to be. Restoring function allows your body to distribute forces more evenly and you are less likely to have severe pain. Your Osteopath should be able to assess your body and see if there are areas that are compromised that might help.
For further information about Menopause and issues relating to HRT and the risks.
To explore your experience of the menopause try the Zoe menopause calculator
The post Menopause – Joint Pains & Osteopathy first appeared on Be Well Clinic.
]]>The post Bladder Numbness- Cauda Equina?- What you should know. first appeared on Be Well Clinic.
]]>Bladder retention is serious because if the urine cannot be expelled the pressure can build up and cause permanent damage to the kidneys. So if you are experiencing loss of sensation to the inner thighs, altered sensation when wiping your back passage, difficulty controlling urinary flow, then you should seek medical attention immediately (i.e go to A&E). This condition is known as Cauda Equina Syndrome or horses tail syndrome as the nerves affected, resemble the hairs of a horse’s tail.
The post Bladder Numbness- Cauda Equina?- What you should know. first appeared on Be Well Clinic.
]]>The post Bloating & Gas?-dealing with IBS. first appeared on Be Well Clinic.
]]>IBS can be linked to other conditions such as hypermobility and autism, the connections are not fully understood, but it can also be exacerbated by anxiety and stress.
What are FODMAPS?
These are foods that IBD+S sufferers struggle with they are in 5 groups:
Fermentable
Oligosaccharides
Disaccharides
Monosaccharides
Polyols
These are basically foods that contain fermentable sugars or short-chain alcohols.
FODMAP FOODS:
Fructose – watermelon, peaches, nectarines, apples and peas.
Lactose – diary products
Galactans- found in legumes; peas , beans nad lentils
Fructans- Onions, garlic and grains that contain gluten.
Polyols- sugar alcohols incertain plant-based foods.
These food all have to be processed by the git before they can be digested and it is this processing that is not complete in IBS. It means that these foods enter the large intestine ina state where they are not easily digested by the microbiome, this leads to fermentation, causing bloating, pain and gas. The slow transfer of material through gut draws water in causing diarrhoea.
Are FODMAP food bad for you?
No, these foods are generally food that support the microbiome of the gut aiding in the balance of good versus harmful bacteria. People with healthy guts should seek out FODMAPs, excluding them from a healthy diet is a very poor idea.
The Fodmap Diet
Before starting a diet it’s important to be aware of certain issues; with the reduction in carbohydrates significant weight loss can occur, this can be an issue if you started the diet with a low body weight. There is also the risk of significant mineral exclusion as these FODMAPS are nutrient rich foods. The actual process of excluding these foods and sticking to the diet should not be underestimated which is why the advice of a dietician is strongly advised.
The Exclusion process.
Initially the food are excluded for a two to six week period in order to reduce the symptoms and break the inflammatory cycle. In order to get clear results it’s important that you do these things systematically.
Once symptoms have abated you can start to reintroduce the foods looking to see which particular foods are triggers. Once you have established this it may be possible to reintroduce the non-harming food while excluding or reducing the harmful ones to a manageable amount.
What food can you eat?
High protein foods like fish meat and eggs, some cheeses that are low in lactose like feta, brie and cheddar. Some grains such as quinoa, rice and oats have less gluten than other grains.
This diet is not a rapid process, it is a journey towards better health and may take months to show results. Over that time consistency and being systematic will pay off, constant chopping and changing can lead to real confusion and a longer process.
Some people may heal their gut and be able to eat virtually anything that they want. Others may have to exclude or reduce certain irritants but they will then have choices and options and be more in control of their health.
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]]>The post Is Sitting Killing Us? first appeared on Be Well Clinic.
]]>I accept that there is some truth in that idea to a point, but what is statistically true for the majority of the population may not be true for you as an individual. My beliefs are affected by the what I see in clinic, which by its nature is a self-selecting sub group and does not necessarily represent the whole of society. The reality is my patients don’t really care about the whole of society they just want to get better. I am always keen to give patients the information that they can use to make the changes that are going to keep them more active and out of pain. One of the statements I often casually make is that modern life does not contain enough daily movement and that we have to go out of our way to give our bodies the movement nutrition that it needs. But how much movement do we need? and how much movement did we get in the past? How much do people living in the past actually sit? These questions are hard to answer as we can’t time travel but there are some populations of people that still live in very traditional ways. These hunter gatherer societies represent the longest extant examples of traditional societies, how we used to live before ‘modern life . Tribes such as the Hadza and Kalahari San’ have been studied for many years their movement practices are outlined in the book ‘Exercised’ by Daniel Libermann. He makes the point that hunter gatherers are only active for about three hours a day and they may be sitting for as much as three hours a day. But when they sit, they don’t do it for very long, they don’t sit in comfortable chairs and they are quite often engaged in other activities.
This means that their sitting is very different, they are usually ground sitting and so shift and move their position to stay comfortable. They maybe conversing or carrying our small tasks as they sit, but they do not spend large periods of their day not moving while they are engaged in metal tasks as one would be on a computer or while watching TV. It seems to be both the length of time that we sit at work combined with how little we are moving at home that is detrimental to us. This is impart due to the accumulation of inflammation that can occur in the inactive, but also the opportunity cost of not retaining muscle mass that means that our sitting time has a more detrimental effect as we age.
The post Is Sitting Killing Us? first appeared on Be Well Clinic.
]]>We all know that we should be engaging in more exercise and movement throughout the day to maximise our health, but for many of us there are significant resistance factors or ‘reasons why not’ that stop this from happening. Lets be frank, some of these are deep rooted excuses that people make to avoid doing something that they don’t want to do. The most common ones we hear are:
“I don’t have time”
“I’m so busy with the kids”
“I work long hours”
None of these are valid reasons, the are essentially people stating that they are a victim of their own choices and opting not to take responsibility for themselves, but they can feel true if you repeat them to yourself often enough!
The reality is, you don’t have to commit large amounts of time to reap the benefits of increased mobility and movement, but you do have to increase your awareness of your body throughout the day. Regular small doses of movement and re-sets can make a difference.
“The first ten minutes of exercise is Golden – because that’s ten minutes more than nothing!”
Do you struggle with getting enough exercise or mobility?
If you do struggle with committing to a regular exercise regimen do speak to you Osteopath, many of our patients opt to see us on a three or six month rotation to prevent the slow build-up of tension and deep patterns that eventually lead to acute problems.
What level of pro-active treatment would suit you?
Every Six Weeks;
In this category we have people that either have some arthritic changes due to their age or have heavy jobs that they know have done some damage in the past. They find that keeping their back loosened off helps to keep them doing their exercises or allows them to physical job with less stiffness and pain.
Every Three Months;
If you know that you don’t have much arthritis or history of damage, you are reasonably active but aware that you body tends to stiffen up over time. Some people struggle with anxiety and they find themselves holding tight for no apparent reason. We recommend that this type come to see us every three month or so, to just reap the benefits of feeling more relaxed, sometimes this is about feeling more comfortable and sleeping better rather than avoiding pain.
Every Six Months;
If you are reasonably active and healthy, you have a weekly exercise regimen and get out and about most days, but aware that things do stiffen up over time and perhaps your job is quite sedentary. You have benefited from Osteopathy and want to take a pro-active approach, you don’t want to wait to get worse before you seek help.
Ask your Osteopath about a pro-active treatment plan that minimises costs and maximises benefits.
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]]>The post Christmas Hours first appeared on Be Well Clinic.
]]>The post Christmas Hours first appeared on Be Well Clinic.
]]>The post Fee Increase first appeared on Be Well Clinic.
]]>New Patients £50,00 approx 1 Hour
Continuing Patients £44.00 approx 30 minutes
These fees are consistent with other Osteopathic practices in the area.
The post Fee Increase first appeared on Be Well Clinic.
]]>The post Why and When? first appeared on Be Well Clinic.
]]>Usually they are in some kind of chrisis with pain, they cannot function and need help. Some may even have realised that their body is telling them that they need intervention before they are in chrisis, the enlightened few! Most need help getting free of pain and returning to normal movement.
This week I saw a Ground Worker that has been keeping out roads and drains in working order for over twenty five years and although he is frequently handballing in the trench with a shovel, he has experieced remarkably little back pain over the years.
How can this be?
Anyone that has dug their spuds in the garden knows how cripplingly one-sided digging is, and when you try to even things up by swapping sides – it never quite gets the job done! ‘Genetics’ I hear you say, well yes this fellow is not too tall and solidly built, there are many of us that would look all ‘elbow and knees’ in a trench, his levers are compact and suited to the task. ‘Adaptation, he’s grown into the work’, yes that maybe so, but there are plenty of crippled Brickies and Platerers out their, to name but two of the most one-sided trades.
Why is this his firt visit?
Because this individual chooses to do exercise after work, to swim or go to the gym on a regular basis, not to ‘crush it’ and push themselves to exhaustion and injury, but to maintain a steady, reliable practice. What this means is that he is regularly taking the strain pattern of his working day out of his body, So when he starts each day he is not already bound up by the working pattern of the day before. The symetrical requirements of the gym or swimming help to overwrite the neurological patterns that his body accumulates during the previous day.
Why the visit now?
Because recent changes at work mean that he has to work nights to complete a job on a busy intersection, this has totally upset his routine at the gym and allowed his body to build up a pattern of strain that he usually manages well himself. Because his body is not crippled with an ingrainned work strain, he is likley to make a rapid recovery and as long as he get back his positive habits he won’t need to see anyone for a good while.
Positive habits, prevent injury and prolong health – what are your sustaining habits?
What are the strain patterns that you need to counteract?
The post Why and When? first appeared on Be Well Clinic.
]]>The post 10 minutes of tiny gold. first appeared on Be Well Clinic.
]]>When it comes to doing the right thing many of us find that our good intentions are thwarted, by, well by life. We become distracted, there is always something better to do, we will always get rtound to doing what should be done later, after this particular displacement activity. There are many reasons why we procrastinate, or fail on a daily basis to do the simple things that a more perfect version of ourselves would do. Part o this is definitely due to making these undone tasks bigger than they need to be. In terms of movement ffor example the first ten minutes of any movementb routine is always the most important – why?
Because it is ten minutes more than nothing! actually initiating the process is always the hardest part. This is why one of the first boundaries to remove when increasing your daily movement regimen is to start micro-exercising , doing small sets of exercises or stretches that may only last ten minutes. You know you can complete them, you are not going to get over sweaty, you can fit it in during the gaps between other things, in this way the movement isn’t a thing but rather something that happens in the spaces between things. Obvioulsy there are benefits associated with stressing your body for longer periods, but if you can actually break your sitting habit, raise your hear rate, reset some of your postural habits then you are achieving something.
This approach supports the idea that brief walks, short stretching routines, taking the stairs, can all contribute to undoing the damage of sitting for too long.
Less isn’t more, but it’s a whole lot more than nothing and it may just get you started down a more positive path.
The post 10 minutes of tiny gold. first appeared on Be Well Clinic.
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