“The physician who knows how to harmonize the liver knows how to treat the hundred diseases.” – Ancient Chinese Proverb.

We all tend to over-indulge during the festive season as summertime usually involves catching up with friends and family.  Social events commonly result in overeating, excessive sugar and processed food and high alcohol consumption.  This puts our liver under enormous strain, trying to clean the body and detox nasties from the blood.

Your liver is one of the hardest working organs in the body.  It helps to purify the blood by removing toxins such as alcohol and drugs from the body.  It also helps to regulate hormone levels, which effect everything from sleep to mood, metabolism, reproduction and immunity.  When it is compromised it is impossible to have a properly working metabolism, healthy circulation, balanced hormones, clean blood and strong digestion.

So perhaps it is time to give your liver a rest by cutting the alcohol and nasties.  And it is also time to give it some love and care with Chinese and Japanese acupuncture.   Acupuncture gently assists the liver to detox, allowing your body to restore healthy function and recover a sense of balance and wellness.

Restore has acupuncturists available 6 days per week including early and late appointments so stop making excuses and start taking care of the most important organ in your body today!

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The government has recently legislated changes to the private health extras cover that will be introduced in April 2019.  These changes mean that alternative health care that they do not consider to be “evidence based” will no longer be covered by private health extras cover.

These forms of alternative health will include naturopathy, yoga, pilates, kinesiology among 15 other forms of care.

At Restore we provide what is referred to as allied health, in the same category as dental and physiotherapy.  That means that osteopathy, acupuncture and remedial massage will continue to be covered by your private health extras cover into the future.

If you have any questions of concerns about the upcoming changes, have a chat with your private health provider and they will be able to offer you more insight into how these changes will affect your personal cover.

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Its that time of year again where we relax, celebrate and spend time with family and friends.

Restore will continue to trade during the festive season and will only close for the public holidays.  

Although some practitioners will be taking holidays during this period, there will always be an osteopath, massage therapist or acupuncturists on deck to help look after you.

If you have been too busy to come in and see us all year, now is a great time to give yourself a little TLC.

Our receptionists will be on holidays from the 23rd December until the 10th January, so please book online or leave a message at the clinic and someone will get back to you as soon as possible.

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New research once again supports the efficacy of acupuncture in supporting womens health.  Results of a new study conducted into the use of acupuncture to treat period pain have shown dramatic improvements in the duration and severity of pain.  Among the study subjects the majority of women experienced a significant reduction in their symptoms and many felt that the improvements continued on 12 months later.  

This is good news for the four out of five women who suffer from menstrual pain at some stage during their reproductive years, usually lasting for 2 to 3 days per cycle.  In many it is so debilitating it necessitates bedrest, resulting in days off school or work.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4940780/Acupuncture-reduce-period-pain-YEAR.html#ixzz4vQli6kDb

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Did you realise that there is a strong link between lower back pain and weak glute muscles, or the muscles in your bottom?  Your osteopath at Restore can help you to retraining these muscles, and have a positive impact on hard to shift back pain.

The “glute complex” is comprised of three muscles that make up our bottoms – gluteus maximus, medius and minimus. These muscles have multiple important roles to play in assisting with the stabilisation of the lower back and pelvis, as well as extend, externally rotate the leg and adduct or abduct the hip. As osteopaths we are also aware of just how important they are to keeping away back, hip and leg pain

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With a large percentage of our population spending the majority of their day sitting, we are developing what has become known as “sloppy bottom”. A muscle that is continually being placed on stretch becomes harder to activate. At the same time health practitioners are finding a marked correlation between the lack of strength in this glute area and chronic pain in the lower back, hips, knees or ankles.

Some of the largest demands on the glute complex is with standing on one leg. Now even though no one spends their day standing on one leg, we all will occasionally run to catch the bus or walk up and down stairs. Others put this demand on repeatedly by running as exercise. These are activities that involve momentarily putting our entire body weight through one leg. If we do this, and the pelvis is not being supported through sufficient glute strength, forces are placed on muscles and joints which aren’t designed to tolerate this load.

The brain develops compensations, and without sufficient glute strength present, it will delegate their roles to other muscles. Depending on how well the body copes with these developed muscle recruitment patterns, is determine by whether compensation will break down and result in pain. However usually it’s these “easy” options or secondary muscle recruitments which are the cause of lower back pain that we see in our clinic.

The second problem with prolonged sitting, our patients come in with tight hip flexors as a result of positional shortening from the body becoming used to a prolonged posture. When a muscle is tight and short it has a lower activation threshold, meaning this muscle will activate before any other. Those of us who a relatively active may experience an increased activation of the quadriceps for example, and in others the hamstrings or muscles of the lower back due to the tightness in these areas.

So how do we solve this problem? Simply performing glute muscle exercises is not necessarily the answer, as the brain is already used to recruiting other muscles to the task. In fact, the first step must be to identify whether the glutes are tight and inhibited or in fact underdeveloped. Reprogramming the brain to utilise these muscles does take time as you have to strengthen the connection between the brain and the muscle.

In osteopathy we use hands on manipulation to loosen and calm down the overused muscle, encourage recruitment of weak muscle, and use muscle resistance work to strengthen the muscle in a controlled way. This speeds up the process of retraining the brain, as well as reducing the chase of injury to the lower back and pelvis.

Also beneficial is working glutes with a roller at home:

* Lying on the floor with the ball or roller under the target muscle

* Roll out the area until you find a tender area

* Maintain pressure on the tender point until pain decreases 50%

* Roll until you find another tender spot and repeat the process

* Avoid putting too much pressure on the tender spot

* Best after exercise or shower when the muscle is warm

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