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I read the in the news about the toddler Jaxon Taylor, this really caught me and hit home as my own son is of similar age. If you missed it, here’s a brief overview;
Jaxon Taylor a sixteen month old toddler in New South Wales, Australia. Fractured his upper two vertebrae C1 and C2 following a car crash causing his head to come away from his neck. Fortunately, after undergoing 6 hours of spinal surgery he is set to make a full recovery and due to go home any day. Take a look at the video on the BBC website, it’s so inspiring to see little Jaxon smiling even though he has to wear his ‘Halo’ holding his head and neck in place. Jaxon Taylor YouTube.
This highlighted to me how important it is that our children are as safe as they can be whilst we travel. I don’t know the details of the type of car collision or car seat used by Jaxon Taylor, that’s not relevant to this post. This post is not aimed to criticise what should or could have been done. This post is aimed at highlighting potential risks whilst traveling with a baby or toddler and information on minimising injury. Ultimately, all we can do is our best. Our thoughts go out to Jaxon Taylor and his family, and we wish him the speediest of recoveries.

A child’s head weighs up to 25% of the total body weight, that’s like an adult having a head that weighs 20Kg (the average adult head is 4.5 to 5Kg). Their bones are softer and cartilage like, meaning they don’t have the same protection adults have protecting their vital organs.

Head on collisions tend to place the highest risk of injury on both adults and children. Generally they tend to occur at higher speeds than other types of collisions. In a head on collision the moving vehicle is brought to a stop very quickly (sudden deceleration). This sudden deceleration of the vehicle causes the person to be forced forward into their seat belt or harness on a child seat. This is due to the persons own momentum. The head, as we know, is not restrained against this forward momentum and relies on the bones ligaments and muscles to resist the forward momentum. In adults this can causes injuries including whiplash associated disorders, bruising, internal bleeding, fractures and more. As mentioned, babies and toddlers have a proportionately greater head mass and their bones are soft. Essentially the same forces applied to a more delicate structure.

Chosing the Right Car Seat

To reduce the forces placed on our little ones we use car seats, it’s a legal requirement that all children under 12 or smaller than 135cm to be seated in a car seat. This ensures that they are in a seat that fits correctly and that they are using adequate seatbelts for their age/weight category. If you are ever in a situation where you don’t have a car seat, don’t drive. Even if it is only down the road, not only is it illegal, you are putting your child at greater risk than need be. Up to 1 in 3 car accidents happen within a mile of your home. Modern car seats are great, there are some really well made products on the market with different features to ease getting your child in and out of the car, or to facilitate the growth of your child.

Quite new to the market, and getting more popular, are rear facing group 1 car seats allowing you to keep your child in a rear position up to the age of 4 or 5 dependant on weight. The advantage of a rear facing car seat is that in a collision your child’s momentum is absorbed through the whole back and head rest. This means that the forces placed upon our child are spread across a larger area and their head is supported stopping it from being flung forward. In Sweden rear facing group 1 seats are the only seats available on the market, as a result serious injuries have reduced. Studies have showed rear facing seats to be up to 5 times safer than forward facing seats. These seats definitely offer ultimate protection and in an ideal world everyone would use one. Unfortunately a few things hold back use. They are quite large so may not fit in all small cars, cost varies but generally rear facing group one seats start at a higher price than their front facing alternatives, you can’t easily see your child whilst traveling (although this could be a distraction anyway).

Whatever seat you chose to use here are some tips to get the best out of it and be as safe as possible:

1. Harness/Belt – Five points are better than three. Five points allow more points of contact spreading the load during an accident, also there is less chance of your child coming out of a five point.
2. Installation – Make sure your seat is installed correctly. Check with the manufacturer, often they have information on compatibility with particular cars. Make sure you follow the manufactures guidelines on installation. A properly installed seat is better than a poorly installed one.
3. Child Fit – Make sure your child fits their seat. Use weight and height guidelines to help, age is a rough guideline and not all children are big enough for a group 1 seat at a year and some may need to step up sooner. Make sure the harness is on the right settings and is a good, but comfortable fit.
4. No Twists in the Harness – not only is this going to be uncomfortable for your child. Twists narrow the surface are of the belt causing greater pressure on an area if there were an accident. Also, nice wide belts spread the pressure better than narrow belts.
5. Second Hand – if using an old or used seat make sure; it is intact, all pieces are there, it hasn’t been in an accident, you have the manual and know how to fit it. It’s also important to consider the age of the seat as plastics can become brittle with age, compromising the safety of the seat.

Thank you for reading and I hope you found this post helpful. If you do experience an accident, be sure to seek medical advice for yourself and your little one, it’s always better to be safe. If you feel you or your little one would benefit from some treatment, please call. Are Osteopath Sophie Parker specialises in paediatric Osteopathy and will be more than willing to help or answer your questions.

Pure Health Osteopath Clinic 01179 000 935

Shin splints can be really frustrating. They can ruin an entire season of running if not kept in check. Also known as Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome (MTSS), can be described as pain bellow the knee along the inner part leg.  Shin splints occurs most commonly in runners, but can affect anyone doing high impact activities including dancers, and military personnel.

Here are 7 Tips to Help

1. Prevention, prevention, prevention!! –  The easiest way to avoid the irritations of shin splints is to make sure your doing everything to stop them occurring in the first place.
   • Train  Steady – Build your exercise program gradually, and allow good time to recover between sessions.
   • Lower the Impact – A cardio workout doesn’t have to be high impact to get the same fitness gains. Mix up your training with some low impact sessions (eg. cross-trainer, cycling, swimming).
   • Look After Your Feet – Good footwear is essential to the bimechanics of your lower limb, pelvis, and spine. Make sure your footwear is suitable for you, not causing over-pronation of the foot, and fits well. If need be, visit a specialist to have your gait and biomechanics assessed, and shoes or orthotics recommended based on the finding.
2. Take a Break –  If your shin splints have just occurred, then rest is advised.
   • Two Weeks Off – This might sound a lot, especially if you are training for an event. Your body needs time to recover, with out any impact to aggravate or worsen the condition. Try cycling, swimming or cross-training to keep your fitness up in the meantime.
   • Gradually Reintroduce the Impact – Picking up where you left off may set yourself up for a return in the symptoms. Instead; gradually build up the impact combining your training with low impact cardiovascular exercise.
3. Ice – Help alleviate the pain and inflammation by icing your shins (use an ice pack wrapped in a tea towel) . Ice for no more than 10 minutes every two to three hours for up to 48 hours.
4. Stretching – Stretch of your calf muscles and the muscles at the front of your shins. This will help ease muscle tension, improve range of motion and ultimately reduce the stress on the area.
5. Strengthen – Improve strength and endurance capability of your calf and shin muscles to help reduce the stress on your shins. This will help the muscles long term by giving them the strength to get through those longer runs.
6. Massage – Self massage through your calf and shin muscles to ease tension. Regularly get massage treatment to further help.
7. Manual Therapies (Osteopathy, Physiotherapy Chiropractic) – Speak to your manual therapist about shin splints. Let them assess; your posture, gait, and biomechanics to highlight and treat possible predisposing factors.

Shoulder and neck pain can be really frustrating, and can be uncomfortable even at rest.

So What is the Difference Between Shoulder and Neck Pain?

This really depends upon where the pain originates. Neck problems can often cause pain in the shoulder or arm. Shoulder pain, although usually more localised, can occur as a result of other structures. Interestingly, over 20 muscles are directly involved in shoulder movement and some of these originate from the back, neck or chest.

What Causes Neck or Shoulder Pain to Arise?

Direct trauma to the neck or shoulder can cause injuries, for example road traffic accidents or even lifting heavy weights at the gym. Depending on the severity of the injury, examination may be required. However, sometimes just sleeping awkwardly can cause irritation to a muscle or joint, causing muscle guarding and pain upon movement. Poor standing or seating posture can cause loading on joints, ligaments, and nerves causing irritation and pain.

Care needs to be taken with shoulder or neck pain to ensure that it is not referred pain as a result of an underlying pathology, for example, a heart attack or angina. We advise to seek medical advice if you’re experiencing shoulder or neck pain with; shortness of breath, squeezing or gripping sensation in the chest, cold sweats, or nausea.

How Can Osteopathy Help?

The key to treating any problem is to find the root cause. At Pure Health Osteopath Clinic we carry out a thorough assessment, and offer treatment and advice based on our findings. We take into consideration your life demands, health, and tailor our treatments to suit. Treatments typically involve massage techniques to ease tight and painful muscles, joint mobilisation to restore movement and improve restriction.

“Natural, Drug Free, Pain Relief”

For some tips to ease neck pain take a look at our post; 7 tips to ease your neck pain

If you have any concerns about your neck or shoulder pain, or would like to find out more, contact Pure Health Osteopath Clinic on 01179 000 935

Neck pain can be really frustrating, and can be uncomfortable even at rest. It can wreck a Nights sleep and distract you during the day. Here are 7 tips to help ease your neck pain:

1.  Help your neck, help your posture – Bad posture contributes neck pain and can aggravate symptoms. If you sit at a desk make sure your work station is set up correctly for you, see this article for a healthy desk set up. If you drive make sure your car seat is adjusted to ease loading on your neck joints and muscles.
2.  Keep moving – Exercise is good for our joints and muscles as well as our hearts. Exercise helps improve blood flow to your neck, nourishing your spine to keep it healthy.
3.  Pillows – get your pillow height right for you! People often ask how many pillows they need, if any at all. The answer is everyone is different and every pillow varies so there is no correct number. Ideally you want your neck and spine in a neutral position where the neck is not over stretched in any direction, minimising loading on joints, muscles and ligaments.  This may take some playing around with. Alternatively you could look to get a Goldilocks Pillow sized just right for you.
4. Ditch the Mobile and Look Up – Ok, well maybe not ditch the mobile as I suspect at least 50% of readers are reading from their phone or tablet. But at least hold it higher to avoid bending the neck too far and if you spend a lot of time looking at the phone or tablet give yourself a break and stretch off through your neck.
5. Heat or Ice when in Pain – Many people get relief from either warming or cooling the area. Both are good and whichever creates the most relief is the one to stick to. Generally, it’s thought that ice decreases inflammation and heat eases tight muscles. You could even alternate. Take care with both hot and cold to avoid burns (including ice burns) use for up to 5 minutes.
6. Have an eye Test – If you find yourself struggling to see clearly and craning forward to read you might want to get your eyes tested to allow you to read without craning. Craning forward can put unnecessary load on your neck joints and muscles resulting in aches and pains.
7. Breath from your Diaphragm – Four muscles on each side of the neck (8 total) are referred to as accessory breathing muscles. They lift the chest to help with the intake of air. Breathing from the diaphragm can help take the load off these muscles. Also diaphragm breathing can be therapeutic for stress relief which may help ease tension in the neck. Here’s a great video on Diaphragm Breathing Techniques

We all want to feel great and look good for the summer. Summer is the time for getting outside more, holidaying, gardening, or playing ball with the kids. Bright early mornings, warm sunny days, and mild evenings, it’s hard to resist getting out and enjoying it. O.K…. So perhaps the Great British Summer can be a bit hit and miss. But that just highlights the reason we need to grab, enjoy, and get the most out of our sunny days.

The transition from winter to summer has arrived and its time we make the transition to our summer lives. It’s time to say farewell to our TV, winter feasts, Gadgets, and warm clothes and reintroduce ourselves to our bicycles, summer wear,  gardens and local parks. Exercise and movement is good for our bodies and naturally we are drawn to green space, which is good for wellbeing. Interestingly, research has showed that urban living in greener cities improves health and wellbeing (take a look at this article if your interested) and our lovely Bristol is among the top cities for green space in the UK.

So how can an Osteopath check up help you get ready for summer?

 

You might not be in pain but perhaps a little less flexible than you were last summer, maybe you’re getting more active already and experiencing some aches that you feel really shouldn’t be there. We can help.

As Osteopaths we look at how your body functions from head to toe and how a restriction in one part of your body impacts another part. We want to get to the bottom of what is going on and work to improve the way your whole body functions.  Like a full service for your body, correcting a problem before it goes wrong or causes pain.

Our bodies are amazing at compensating. Us humans wouldn’t be where we are today if we couldn’t compensate for all kinds of problems. An example of this could be a stiff neck from sleeping awkwardly. You’re still able to do your daily tasks, but maybe looking over your shoulder is harder. But the body has limits on how much it can compensate, a niggle here, stiff there, all adds and can eventually cause pain. Think of an empty glass, and each time you experience one of these little niggles you fill the glass slightly until it starts to over flow. Our aim is to stop the glass from overflowing or to empty it. Taking you back to a point where your body is functioning great and not having to compensate.

For more information on how you can benefit from a check-up with your Osteopath, or to book. Call Pure Health Osteopath Clinic on 01179 000 935. Or email: [email protected]