It's no surprise that sports injuries go hand in hand with participating in our chosen sports, but did you know that osteopathy can play a key part in keeping you fit and functioning at full capacity? We often (mistakenly) hear that osteopaths can't treat sports injuries and that the athlete needs to see a sports massage therapist or a physiotherapist, but you may be surprised to find out that when it comes to sports injury treatment osteopaths can hold their own! Here at Nene Valley Osteopathy, we work with many sports players from all disciplines and levels with great results. Osteopathy not only looks at the injury and how that itself can be improved but also assesses your general health and how your body performs to treat you accordingly. Similar to a Sports Massage Therapist, we can use a variety of soft tissue techniques including massage and trigger point therapy plus some specialised extras like mobilisation, stretching and manipulation (the 'clicking') which, together with oth...

We commonly see patients in clinic presenting with sciatic pain that is often described as a deep, gnawing pain from the back or the buttock and into the back or side of the leg that is sometimes electric, shooting or stabbing. It can occur without lower back pain, and sometimes it can cause a limp when walking. Sciatica is a very painful condition that can be grouped with a family of pains called neuralgia. Neuralgia literally means "pain with a neurological cause", or pain that is due to nerve problems – but that's not enough to make a diagnosis. We commonly see many primary health care practitioners use the phrase 'sciatica' as a diagnosis, but the word sciatica merely means the patient has pain in the leg, rather than be a proper analysis of the cause of the pain. To get to the root cause of the pain, we need to look at what can cause sciatica? Is all sciatica the same? Several different things can cause sciatica. Possibly the most common cause of sciatica is when one of the nerve ...

 A question we hear time and time again, but it's a very valid one and can be a little complicated too, so please bear with us, and we'll try and demystify it for you. Osteopathy, Chiropractic and Physiotherapy all fall under the umbrella term of Manual Therapies. This means we all use hands-on, or manual, techniques to help treat and prevent pain, along with exercise rehabilitation. The way in how we apply those techniques differ slightly which is often where the confusion lies. Osteopaths use hands-on manipulation techniques that include a combination of muscle work (such as massage, stretching and exercise rehab) alongside joint mobilisations (taking the joint through its natural range of movement and encouraging stiff joints to work better) and spinal manipulations that can involve clicking and cracking. The intention is to improve joint mobility, release muscle tension, improve circulation and to promote healing. Osteopaths also seek to improve the patient's posture which can...