Hello, it’s Michael Brown from Cram Osteopath in Glasgow, today I want to talk to you about stenosis. If you’ve heard that word before, you might well be suffering from it or you know someone who has it. It’s a very difficult condition to have and it can affect all aspects of your life, not just because of the pain that you get in your lower back, but also in mobility. People can become unsteady on their feet as the nerves are being compressed in the lower part of the back.
Now, stenosis is a complicated subject. Today the one that we’re focusing on is foraminal stenosis or lateral foraminal stenosis, which you can see when someone’s spine has degenerated enough that the disc is thinning and the nerves are getting compressed on either side. Treatment options for something like this can be very limiting in terms of giving the patient relief that they’re looking for, which often is they want to be able to be a bit more steady on their feet and to get rid of the back pain when walking up the street. Hands-on treatment has its limitations with something like stenosis, depending on the actual pain source or what we’re trying to achieve with the patient. One of the pieces of kit that we do have in the practice that can help treat this type of stenosis is IDD therapy.
You may have seen some of our other videos before regarding IDD therapy and if you haven’t, there’ll be a link to our IDD therapy page in this video, please check it out and if it’s something you’re interested in, we’d be delighted to hear from you.

What is IDD Therapy?

Michael Brown from Cram Osteopaths in Glasgow and today I want to talk about the Russian twist. Recently I’ve seen a few cases where Russian twists have been a contributing factor in a patient’s agony with lower back pain, and this has then caused some trouble and pain all the way down the leg. It really is a sorry sight to see and the patient has my full empathy. So Russian twists are done in a sit up position, and then twisting, repeating this hundreds of times with a load. The reason this can be troublesome is because of the position of your spine and your lower back with inflection and rotation at the same time, you then add in weight and more frequency and then that can equal an osteopath visit. If you’re suffering from back pain or you believe this may be adding to your pain, then I would think about dropping them and replacing them with something else. Speak to your trainer, or if you’re doing home exercises, then I would advise to stop doing russian twists and come and talk to someone in the practice and we can find a better solution for you. Like planks, now, everyone hates planks, no one likes them, but in this position, planks are stable, no twisting and better for your spine and your disks. And I know what you’re thinking, his guy is a top class planker. So until next time.

Hi, it’s Joanna here from Cram Osteopaths and today we are talking about how to encourage you to get up and move more when you’re working from home or in the office.
One of the big problems we see in the clinic is people that sit all day long and hardly get up and before you know it you’ve spent seven, eight hours sat at the desk, probably not in a good posture and putting a lot of strain on some of the key joints through the spine and also through the hips, pelvis and the thigh muscles. So it’s very important that we move through the day. I do appreciate my job is easy because I’m up and moving all the time whilst some other jobs where a lot of your work is based on a screen, it’s intense and you forget to move. So there’s a couple of tricks I would suggest.
One is using your alarm on the actual desktop and every half hour it gives you a beep or a notice to simply stand up, that means all you have to do is get up and we raise the arms up above the head with a big stretch and back down again. The reason something as simple as that is useful is as getting the arms up overhead increases your cardiac output in your heart. It gives everything a good stretch and when you sit back down, you will refind your neutral posture. So doing that every half hour or so is a really good way of balancing quite an intense period of computer work.
The other thing that I suggest is using your mobile phone. Phones can be a really big distraction when we’re working and you’re trying to get through big documents. What I recommend is you set a timer for about 45 minutes, and we put the phone over the other side of the room or in the kitchen and we just leave it there. The next thing you know, the alarm goes off and because it’s not just there, you can’t just switch off, you have to get up to turn the alarm off. This is the perfect opportunity to take that minute or two as a break, get up, go back over to the phone, switch the alarm off and reset it. At the same time, you can get a small glass of water or go to the toilet or something just to change up your schedule.
So there we have two really easy tips. One is standing up every half hour and reaching above the head and the other one is setting an alarm and leaving the phone in a different room or the other side of the room to encourage you to get up and change what you’re doing before going back to work.
So hopefully that helps, obviously though if you’re struggling and you’re in a lot of pain, come in and see us, let us help you and get you out of pain quickly and start this year of 2022, as you mean to go on, which is positive and without any pain or discomfort.
See you soon.

Hello, it’s Michael from Cram Osteopaths in Glasgow and today I wanted to talk to you about plantar fasciitis and Shockwave therapy. It is a terrible mouthful and a terrible condition to have, heel pain is what you’ll know it as. Waking up in the morning with incredible excruciating pain in the base of the heel, sometimes into that fleshy bit of the Achilles tendon, or underneath the sole of the foot. Usually patients that attend the practice, have tried a series of other treatments first, acupuncture, ice rolling with a Coca-Cola bottle, stretches and boots, some of it works, some of it doesn’t. With shockwave therapy, there is a lot of science behind it, a lot of research that makes it specific and we can calculate what treatment dosage a patient will need, how much pressure we can use and the time frame it’s going to take for recovery. In 80% of these studies going up to 80 plus percent there is a good treatment outcome.
Now it’s not a magic fix. It does take a series of treatments to get it under control and there is only so fast that your body can heal in order to get itself better. With shockwave therapy, the idea behind it is that we push that process along. We help stimulate that process and help these tissues recover in a normal way, rather than the wonky healing mechanism that they’re going through at the moment.
So if you’re suffering from heel pain in the morning, you’ve tried all the orthotics. It’s stopping you from walking, you want to play golf and you can’t, your dog walking’s become terrible and you’re just in a lot of pain and discomfort. We’d be delighted to hear from you to see if this treatment option is something that is suitable for you.