Thse first 10-15 minutes of your initial consultation will be spent finding out about your current condition. The questions we ask you help us to work out what has caused the problem. We also ask questions about your general health and the history of any existing medical conditions. Osteopaths are trained to treat many problems, but we are also trained to understand when the problem may not suitable for osteopathic treatment. On these rare occasions, we will write to your GP for further consideration of tests or advice.

On examination we ask patients to get undressed down to their underwear and take you through a set of simple movements so we can see how the different parts of the body are working together. This is a necessary part of our examination as it can give us clues as to the nature of the injury. A patient who might feel self conscious may bring with them some shorts or a vest so that they may feel more comfortable during this process.

Osteopathic examination is very gentle and it is by moving the spine or body’s joints very gently that we can diagnose whether a problem is due to muscles, ligaments or the joint itself. Patients are often very surprised that we can learn as much by the examination as we do, but our fingers are trained to ‘listen’ to what the body is telling us.

We will always discuss our findings with you and propose what treatment is necessary. It is an important part of the consultation that you understand what is causing the pain, why we think it started and how long it will take to get better. It is not always possible at the first session to tell you exactly how many treatments it will take, especially if the condition has existed for many years.

Treatment is very safe, gentle and comfortable. We work with a mixture of massage and stretching techniques and occasional gentle manipulations. Patients can sometimes feel anxious about the idea of manipulation but it is much more gentle than many patients imagine and is not painful. There are other techniques that we are happy to use if patients do feel uncomfortable with these spinal manipulations.