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Have you recently been diagnosed with bursitis, but aren’t quite sure what that means? We’ve got you covered. Here are the basics you want to know about bursitis and what can be done about it.  What is bursitis?
Throughout your body, you have bursa – small fluid-filled sacs that prevent friction between your bones, tendons and muscles around your joints. Bursitis is when a bursa becomes irritated and inflamed. Bursitis commonly occurs in the shoulder, elbow or hip. However, you can experience bursitis in any bursa. The most common symptoms include pain, swelling and stiffness of the joint. Pain will often increase during the night time, and becomes worse when you move the joint. What can cause bursitis? There are many factors that can cause or contribute to bursitis. Some of the most common include:
How is bursitis diagnosed? This depends on who you see. Any health professional will take a case history and do a physical examination. If you seek help from your doctor, they may order imaging tests to rule out other problems that might be causing your symptoms, or they may order a test of the fluid from your bursa to see if there is an infection. How is bursitis treated? The focus of bursitis treatment depends on what caused the problem in the first place. But it’s likely that treating your bursitis will include:
If the cause is an infection, your doctor may prescribe antibiotics to resolve the infection. A small percentage of people may be recommended surgery if other treatments have been unsuccessful. How myotherapy can help with bursitis When it comes to bursitis, there are a few steps that your myotherapist will take. Firstly, we will assess the joint itself for swelling, inflammation, pain and movement. Once we know what we’re working with, we’ll put together a treatment plan to address the issues. A treatment plan for bursitis often includes:
Another useful therapy that may be discussed is hydrotherapy – exercises and movements performed in warm water. This can reduce pressure on the joint, making therapeutic movements easier and less painful. If you’re dealing with bursitis, the team at Simple Wellness Myotherapy are here to help. To book an appointment with one of our qualified myotherapists, click here.
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Have you just had surgery, or are booked in for surgery in the near future? Wondering how to deal with the pain that you experience after the procedure is finished? Pain management can make a big difference for your recovery and overall wellbeing. Let’s take a look at how you can manage pain after surgery.  Why is post-surgery pain management important? Getting a good hold on your pain levels after surgery is important for your comfort. But there are a few other reasons why managing your pain is essential for recovery. Some of the most important reasons include:
How to manage your pain post-surgery Looking for ways to deal with your post-surgery pain? Every case is unique, but there are some simple tips you can try to relieve your pain. Follow your surgeon’s advice Your healthcare team will give you guidance on how long before you can do certain tasks, and how frequently to take your medication. These are given to you for a reason – to manage your pain and healing! Make sure you follow your surgeon’s advice, and seek their consultation if you need to make any adjustments. Find a way to relax Pain can be taxing for the nervous system. But relaxation techniques such as guided meditation may be helpful for controlling the sensation of pain. There are plenty of free guided meditations online and on YouTube to try. If meditation isn’t your thing, find other ways to relax such as reading or spending time in nature. Focus on resting frequently and deeply Your body does its best healing when it is resting. Even if you feel that it’s ‘lazy’, your body is actually hard at work when you’re taking a nap or sleeping! Make sure you prioritise rest that is both frequent and high-quality. Aim for 8-9 hours of sleep per night as a minimum. If you’re not back at work, switch off your alarm and allow yourself to wake naturally. You might also like to make time for a nap in the afternoon, even it’s only a quick 20-minute rest. How myotherapy can support your body post-surgery When it comes to post-surgery pain, myotherapy can offer a variety of support techniques depending on the type of surgery and how long ago your surgery occurred. For example, your myotherapist can:
Here at Simple Wellness Myotherapy, we are experienced in working with a variety of clients who have undergone minor and major surgeries. Our goal is to help you on your journey back to your ‘business as usual’ – whatever that may be! To book an appointment with one of our qualified myotherapists, click here. Does this sound familiar? Terrible pain in your first few steps in the morning. Pain on standing up if you’ve been sitting for a little while. Putting weight on that foot can be agony. You feel it strongest in the heel or arch of your foot. Once you get moving it seems to calm down. If you're saying yes to these symptoms, you could be dealing with a condition called Plantar Fasciitis. Its quite common, and one of the most frequent foot pains that our myotherapists help people with.  Plantar Fasciitis is a very painful condition that affects your heel and the sole of your foot. Often the mornings are the worst pain, people often explain they feel like they have to hobble about for the first few minutes of their day.
Usually it affects one foot or the other - some very unfortunate people can get both feet affected at the same time. Symptoms include heel pain; arch pain; altered walking patterns; cramps or spasms in the sole of the foot. Usually the pain reduces after getting moving, but those first few steps can be uncomfortable through to excruciatingly painful. What kinds of treatments work best for Plantar Fasciitis? The techniques I've found that work the best for people with Plantar Fasciitis are:
The hands on treatment sessions are only part of the recovery plan though. Like with most pains or injuries, looking at the way you move and stretch outside of your time in the clinic is important to helping you feel better, quicker. Our therapists will show you some simple but effective movements that help you to stretch your foot and leg to reduce the pain. We can also offer you some temporary pain relief suggestions like ice bottle rolling and using spiky physio balls. Ready to look at a plan for kicking Plantar Fasciitis? Book a 60 Minute Initial Consultation with us. We'll assess your movement and muscle balance, give you a feel-good hands on treatment, and walk you step by step through your treatment plan. Headaches are one of the most common issues our Myotherapists and Remedial Massage Therapists help people with.  There are a bunch of variable ways that headaches can turn up - sometimes affecting only one side or the other; sometimes just the top, sides, or back of your head; sometimes very pinpoint spots like right behind your eyes; squeezing tension bands across your temples and eyebrows; starting from your jaw and spreading upwards; or just generally your entire head.
No matter which type you get, its never a good day if you need to persevere with a headache. There are a lot of factors that can influence headaches. Trigger points in your neck, shoulders and face can send some intense referred pain headaches, and these trigger points respond particularly well to hands on treatments like remedial massage, cupping and gentle mobilisations. Dehydration and exhaustion can be linked with headaches. If you suffer regularly, keep an eye out for your usual water intake and sleep patterns. By improving your quality of sleep and the amount of water your body has available to use, you may find your headaches reduce or go entirely! Stress and hormonal changes can also lead to headaches. Have you ever noticed how your neck, shoulders and face become much tighter when you're under stress? Do you clench your teeth, or hunch into a protective position? Some women find that they get a headache at specific times during their cycle due to changing hormone levels. Hormones are something that are outside of our scope as remedial massage and myotherapists, but many of our patients have found Acupuncture to be a useful tool in balancing hormones. Our good friend Amanda at Upwey Acupuncture can help you explore hormonal treatment options, including menstrual and menopausal symptoms. Eye strain can bring on headaches, as I found out last year! We got a new TV and I got intense tension band headaches every time I watched it for longer than about 10 minutes. My optometrist checked my vision and prescribed my glasses to help reduce the strain on my eyes, and it helped resolve my headaches! If you already wear glasses, is it time for a check up? If you don't wear glasses, perhaps an eye test could be helpful for you. Aside from taking over the counter medications like Panadol, how can you get help with easing and resolving a problematic headache? A great first step is to book with one of our therapists so we can assess your headaches and determine if they have a musculoskeletal origin. We can often help people get rid of their headache and set them up with a plan to prevent future headaches. A Short 40 Minute Initial Consultation is ideal for your first appointment to investigate your headaches. You’ve been told you have Tennis Elbow, but you don’t even play tennis? The pain can catch you off guard, and make normally simple tasks feel really difficult - opening jars, turning door handles, shaking someones hand, maintaining your grip on something. This type of pain can feel like a deep muscle aching, a stretch in the muscle, sharpness when you move, or a combination of these feelings.  Our Myotherapists and Remedial Massage Therapists can help by creating a treatment plan for you that relieves the pain and gives you back your strength and ability to turn, twist and grip again.
Tennis Elbow is a painful condition of irritation and inflammation of the tendons around the outer side of your elbow. Its normal to feel the dull, constant ache throughout the day, and have the pain turn into sudden, sharp or shooting pain when you move your elbow or wrist, or try to grip something or twist a lid or door handle. It can happen if you spend a lot of time doing repetitive wrist movements like typing, using tools, carrying something heavy for a long period of time. We see it with people who play musical instruments too, or video gamers who get so into the game they forget to take a break for hours on end. Our typical treatments for this kind of pain will look at assessing your movement and strength first so we can plan out some short and long term goals. Our short term goals are usually the ones you want the most - to get rid of this awful pain!! But its also important to plan for the long term goals of recovering the strength in the area so that this feeling doesn't come back. A series of hands on treatments can help to reduce the pain and sensitivity in the area, and we'll give you a few movements that help that you can focus on between treatments. This is a pain that tends to respond well to doing some stretch and strengthening movements each day, starting with small easy movements, working up to more challenging or weight resisted ones. The hands on part of your treatment may include some remedial massage, cupping, active release techniques, dry needling, and trigger point therapy. Afterwards we can support your elbow with kinesiotaping to reduce pressure over the joint and tendons. Do you need help with elbow pain? Our therapists are ready to help assess your pain and work with you to create a treatment plan to reduce the irritation and restore your movement and strength. Book your first consultation with us now! Most people have heard of the Rotator Cuff being a big culprit of shoulder pain, but do you know what it is and how to get help? Our Myotherapists and Remedial Massage Therapists help a lot of people with Rotator Cuff pain - its one of our most commonly treated pains!  The Rotator Cuff is a group of 4 muscles that all work together, and they have different actions. So when you come in with a Rotator Cuff injury, the first thing we’ll work out for you is which muscle is causing you to feel the pain.
The job of the Rotator Cuff group is to move and stabilise your shoulder, and it does that by making what I like to light heartedly call the Shoulderblade Sandwich. Imagine your shoulderblade bone (scapula) as the filling of the sandwich, and the Rotator Cuff muscles are the bread on either side. The muscles on the outer side work to lift your arm and rotate it outwards away from your body, and the inner muscles rotate your arm inwards. The most common issues we see with Rotator Cuff complaints is tight muscles referring pain, or muscle tears. Rotator Cuff referral pains can be felt locally around the shoulder, as well as further down your arm, elbow, wrist and hand. If you've got a Rotator Cuff tear or a partial Rotator Cuff tear, you'll likely notice pain and difficulty on raising or rotating your arm. Muscle tears can be identified on an ultrasound. If you’ve already had the ultrasound and been given the report that you have a tear, the next step for you is to rehabilitate that muscle, and we can help! Pain from shoulder and Rotator Cuff injuries usually respond well to hands on treatments like massage, cupping, or dry needling. We also like to help stabilise your shoulder using kinesiotaping. So how do you get help if you think you might have a Rotator Cuff problem? Firstly, book a time to come see us so we can help you find which of those 4 muscles is acting up. We’ll do some muscle testing and make a plan for reducing your pain and getting you strong again. If we think you may need an ultrasound to check for possible muscle tears, we can refer you to Dr Waj Dib here at Together Medical Family Practice in Knoxfield. Dr Dib is a fully bulk billed GP who can send you for scans if you need them.  When we make New Years Resolutions, we usually focus on what we want. We want to be fitter, thinner, better organised and able to give up bad habits. But have you ever wondered what resolutions your body might like you to make?
Our head myotherapist and resident body-whisperer Mel has 5 resolutions that your body is begging you to make this year. Move more throughout the day Our bodies were not designed to sit at desks for hours every day. They were designed to move constantly in a variety of different ways. Unfortunately, most of us can’t change jobs just to suit the body’s preferences! But you can find little ways to move more frequently throughout your day. For example, you could:
When you get up and change position regularly, your body will thank you. Regular movement can also reduce the risk of injury and pain that can occur when you’re physically inactive. Stretch out regularly Another important way that your body loves to move is with a good stretch! But when we sit for hours at a time, our muscles can tighten up and leave us feeling sore. So whether it’s at work, at home or even at the gym, find a way to incorporate a regular stretch. Make sure that you stretch until you can feel the muscle stretching out. But don’t go too far – pushing a stretch too deep too quick can lead to injury. If you do feel any sharp pain while stretching, you might have just stretched too far. But you might have an underlying injury that needs to be checked by your myotherapist. Focus on good quality sleep Our bodies do their best healing work as we sleep every night. So if you’re not getting enough deep and restful sleep, your body can’t maintain itself properly. A good rest isn’t just about how many hours you sleep. It’s also important to get quality rest, so your body can go into healing mode. Sleep is particularly important if you experience chronic pain. A poor night of sleep can worsen your pain the following day. But this goes both ways – worse pain during the day can impact on your sleep that night. Find a healthy way to manage your stress A lot of the less healthy choices we make can come back to stress. How we eat, move our bodies and unwind in our spare time often reflects how we deal with stress. But on the flip side, these factors can also make a big difference with how we manage stress. That's why it's a good idea to find a healthy way to manage your stress. There are plenty of options out there, including:
Take a proactive approach for body care When it comes to our health, most of us wait until something goes wrong before we actually do anything about it! But if we can switch to a more proactive approach to taking care of our bodies, we can get onto issues early or even prevent them. Book yourself in for a check-up with your GP, dentist, optometrist and any specialists you see regularly. When it comes to your muscles and joints, the team at Simple Wellness Myotherapy are here to help. To book in for a tune-up your body would approve of, head to our booking page here. Need a massage and it’s only day 2 of the school holidays? We’re open, and although we know you’d probably prefer the time to yourself, we want you to know that our clinic is kid friendly!  There are toys for the little ones, or your older kids can choose to read, or of course every kids favourite, play games or watch YouTube.
We can help you save your mobile data by connecting you to our wifi during your treatment, so the kids can keep themselves busy and you don’t have to wait til they’re back at school. We’ll also be open throughout the AFL Grand Final weekend, including on Friday the 27th (the Grand Final eve public holiday) and on Saturday the 28th. Time to make a booking? We’ll see you soon! Have you wondered if yoga might help you? Yoga has become the "in thing" over the last few years, and you only have to do a quick search online to see everything from traditional styles of yoga, to beer yoga, chicken nugget yoga and goat yoga! (Not even kidding!)  But is yoga a good option if you have pain?
Here's a lot of reasons I like yoga as a pain-friendly exercise.. Low Impact Movements Many yoga sequences are slow, gentle, low impact movements. There's no need for jumping, running, hopping, or other high energy movements that can put a lot of force through your joints. Moving in these slow, controlled ways can help keep your muscles and joints happy and healthy. Improve Your Balance Practicing yoga can challenge your balance, it can be a little tricky at first if you're not used to shifting your body weight or if your proprioception is a little out. But practice makes perfect, and by improving your balance you can reduce risks of things like trips, falls or rolling your ankles. It Can Be A Full Body Work Out Unless the class specifically is targeting a certain area, most of the time you'll get a pretty well balanced work out for your whole body. You'll also be doing stretching and strengthening moves without needing to push yourself too hard. Of course, there are many types of yoga classes, and some are designed to be much more physically challenging, so if you have pain choose a gentle class like a Slow Flow or Yin style, and talk to your yoga teacher about any limitation you have so they can keep an eye on you if they need to. Stress Buster Exercise naturally produces amazing brain chemicals that help reduce our stress hormones. Combine that with mindful breathing, purposeful movement, and the calming environment and you have a very powerful stress buster! So Many Choices! There are just so many choices in where, when and how to practice. Yoga studios are abundant in Melbourne. But with the internet, YouTube and smart phones, you can also choose to practice at home, at the beach, in the park, literally anywhere with enough space to roll out a mat. Online classes also means that you can pick the length of class you can manage on the day, even if thats just 5 minutes per day. Join A Community By joining a class at a studio, you can meet people who are there for similar reasons. A lot of studios also offer memberships to make it affordable to go regularly, and run workshops or events. Build Great Habits By booking in for the same yoga class each week, you create a routine. Even one class a week makes a difference! Its your You Time, your time to move your body, push thoughts out of your head, breathe a little deeper, and know that you've nourished your body and brain. You Can't Win At Yoga There's no prizes or championships for yoga. No medals for being the most flexible. Winning isn't your purpose in yoga, you can just be exactly how you are on the day and move your body in a way that feels good. Some days you'll feel more or less mobile, but its all about you, not the person next to you. Modify The Moves To Suit You A lot of poses have different stages, and its unrealistic to expect to jump straight into the most advanced version of a pose. Speak to your teacher and they can modify poses to make it gentler and more comfortable for you. Taking a modified position that isn't painful is always better than forcing yourself into an advanced position that hurts. Want to try yoga, but you're not sure where to start? If you're local to our Knoxfield clinic, then my favourite yoga studio near us is Hark Yoga on Burwood Hwy, Ferntree Gully. You can try an intro pass for $30 for 14 days of unlimited classes - personally I can highly recommend their Body & Mind classes, its a great combination of movement and meditation. Hark Yoga also have a 21 Day Challenge starting on 2nd September, and we're contributing some Myotherapy gift certificates to the goodie bags! If you've chosen to see a Myotherapist, theres a good chance that you've got a pain or injury that you're concerned about and you know that it needs more than just a bit of a massage. There are some cases where follow-up may not be needed. But for the majority of pain conditions or injuries, the best long term pain relief comes from a series of treatments specifically designed for you by your Myotherapist.  Why do I want to see you for a follow-up treatment? Let me tell you all of the reasons!
Seeing how you responded to the treatment This one is pretty self-explanatory. When you receive a myotherapy treatment, you might respond well, or you might not. A follow-up allows us to check in and see how you recovered, and how the original problem is going. This lets us know which treatment techniques to keep using because they were effective for you, or which ones to drop from your treatment plan. Checking progress with at-home care and exercises Most clients receive either suggestions for at-home care and modifications and/or exercises. During your follow-up appointment, we can check in and see how these changes went for you. Found yourself struggling to do a particular exercise? We can prescribe an easier alternative until your strength or balance improves. Forgot how to do one of your stretches, or not sure if you’re doing it right? This is our opportunity to review it for you. Getting to the root cause of the original issue For most people, one treatment isn’t going to fix the issue completely. In most cases, there is an underlying cause that needs to be looked into. This is particularly important for those with chronic conditions and chronic pain. There are multiple contributing factors to chronic symptoms and pain. Unfortunately, we can’t address all of those factors in just one session! That’s why follow-up appointments can make all the difference. Helping you achieve long-term health goals Do you dream of running your first marathon? Or maybe you want to do an obstacle course with your friends? Perhaps you just want to chase the kids around the park and not pay for it later? Whatever your long-term goals are, we can work on them during a follow-up appointment. Follow-up sessions can really pay off when it comes to long-term goals, even if you experience chronic pain. One of my long-term clients with a chronic pain condition recently achieved her goal of going back to full-time work. She also goes to F45 several days a week – talk about smashing goals! Preventing future injuries Unfortunately, once you’ve had one injury, you are more vulnerable to future injuries. But we can help to minimise the risk of this occurring through follow-up sessions. During a follow-up, we can assess how strong and stable the surrounding muscles and joints are. Myotherapy treatments such as stretching, taping and exercises can all support the area while it heals and minimise the chance of future issues. Ensuring that your injury or symptom doesn’t warrant further investigation If you come in with some pretty impressive muscle tension or pain, it can be difficult to fully assess your situation. Your first session gives us a chance to release those muscles and reduce the pain. But in some cases, tension and pain can be covering up a red flag sign or symptom. With a follow-up, we have the chance to investigate your concerns further. If we do see any red flags, we can immediately refer you to your GP or specialist to get it sorted. Is it time for you to book your follow-up session? You can do that right here. |
Mel HanleyMel is a Myotherapist based in Ferntree Gully. Archives
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