What’s a proven therapy for knee pain, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, heart disease, depression and many others?

Written by Sundial Clinics Thursday, 19 January 2012 07:44

Watch this fascinating video to find out.

Whilst our Brighton chiropractors and physiotherapists treat loads of bone and joint problems our effectiveness is often enhanced by the approach so brilliantly illustrated in this video by Dr  Mike Evans. If your looking for a New Years resolution to improve your health there cannot be a better one than this.

Counselling & Chiropractic in Brighton, by guest contributor Diane Hedge

Written by Sundial Clinics Saturday, 22 October 2011 02:44

Just as chiropractic allows your body to start its own healing process, so counselling can help you recognise how the way you think and feel impacts on your physical health.

It’s part of our language to recognise the body/mind connection, as in:  “He’s a pain in the neck.”  “It’s a headache”.

What counselling can do is help you tune in to the message that your body is giving you.  It allows quiet and reflective space to acknowledge what may be the real source of your pain.  Stress, anxiety, depression and grief don’t just happen in our heads, they’re right in there at a cellular level, in the gut, in our breathing, in our stiff backs and necks.  When we start to listen to what our bodies are saying, we can work with it.  I often say to clients:  “If you treated your car like this, what would happen?”  And their rueful response is often “It’d be broken down at the side of the road.”

The most body-focussed counselling is psychodynamic.  It works on the principle that our history is stored in our feelings.  So, instead of dismissing “random” thoughts and feelings as illogical, you’ll be encouraged to be respectful of the source of those feelings.  Very often we run on old software without realising it.  Counselling allows us to “map” old patterns of behaviour.  And knowing the map means we can recognise when what we feel is in the now or belongs to us, say, when we’re growing up.  That insight is empowering, gives us choices in how we run our lives.

Brighton Chiropractors and Counsellor working together

Your chiropractor, of course, is there to treat your body.  He/she will, as part of that, be asking how you are “using” your body.  Are you hunched over a computer for much of the day?  Do you have to drive a lot?  What are the stressors (physical and emotional) in your life? How do you handle them?  In short, listen to your body – it may be trying to tell you something.

Diane Hedge mbacp

Counsellor & Psychotherapist

www.brighton-hove-therapy.com

Matthew meets Hollyoaks actress Gemma Merna

Written by Sundial Clinics Thursday, 30 June 2011 04:02

Matthew Bennett attended the launch of the new Mole & Skin Check Guidelines that have been developed jointly by the Melanoma Taskforce and the British Association of Dermatologists (BAD) especially for health professionals and met Gemma Merna from Hollyoaks

The guidelines provide clear and simple information about the signs of skin cancer. As chiropractors we have an important role in noticing abnormal moles or changes in skin and advising patients to seek advice from their GPs. The guidelines have been developed by skin cancer charities, dermatologists, nurses, GPs and oncologists and are endorsed by professional associations representing the health and beauty industry.

Matthew was in Westminster on behalf British Chiropractic Association as he is Vice-president. He talked with MPs and the new president of BAD and impressed upon them the important role that chiropractors can play in the early detection of skin cancer.

The highlight of the afternoon was a photo opportunity with Hollyoaks actress, Gemma Merna. She is the celebrity face of the campaign having had a skin cancer scare a while ago. She is popular with the younger target group the information is aimed at.

For more information about skin caner and how to protect yourself go to www.bad.org.uk

Hayfever? Simple, effective and natural help

Written by Sundial Clinics Friday, 29 April 2011 02:14

If you have hayfever you probably know all about the symptoms:- runny nose, itchy eyes and sneezing. You probably also know that it is caused by an allergic reaction to pollen. Up to 1 in 5 of us will suffer from hayfever at some time. Other microscopic particles like house dust or dander from animals can cause a similar allergic reaction to hayfever.

The histamine connection

When you get a whiff of pollen up your nose or into the eyes your body reacts if you have an allergy to that particle and produces anti-bodies which in turn produce histamine which cause the typical inflammation, redness, swelling and irritation. It is the histamine that causes the sypmtoms of hayfever. If you can reduce histamine you can reduce hayfever.

Treatment for hayfever

Although the medical treatment for hayfever is anti-histamines there are things you can do without taking drugs which may have side effects like drowsiness. For instance HayMax is an effective organic, natural and simple to use pollen barrier balm that is applied to the base of the nose to reduce pollen entering the body.

Omega 3 oils found in oily fish and supplements such as Pure Bio’s EPA/DHA reduce inflammation and may help. Vitamin E (800 iu a day) has been shown to help reduce hayfever symptoms.

You can lower the overall levels of histamine in your body by reducing the histamine containing foods in your diet.

What is Histamine?

Histamine is made by the human body and by bacterial degradation from the amino acid histadine.  Therefore many ripened foods like cheese, wine, beer, sauerkraut and smoked meats may have very high amounts of histamine and the amount of histamine can be an indicator of the quality of the production process.

Very large amounts of histamine may be a sign of decay.  For example, fresh or immediately frozen fish hardly contains any histamine.  On the other hand, older or stale fish, which has been bacterially contaminated or just stored too long may contain extremely high amounts of histamine.  Fresh cheese or cottage cheese, which has only ripened for a few days also has remarkably less histamine than older types of cheese.

Also, slightly contaminated yeast cultures (like those being used in the production of beer and wine) favour the production of histamine. All this explains the huge variances in the histamine content of various foods.

In our body, any excess of histamine – from the body’s own production or by an increased content of histamine in foods – is normally rapidly metabolized by the enzyme diaminoxidase (DAO).  When this enzyme is deficient, a great variety of intolerance reactions may occur, depending upon the amount of histamine present.

If you are very sensitive you may experience symptoms from extremely small amounts of histamine.  In addition, alcohol and certain drugs may block DAO and thereby worsen the symptoms. Histamine is resistant to cold and heat and therefore cannot be destroyed by cooking (including microwave), baking, grilling or deep freezing. If you think you are sensitive to histamine you should consider reducing high histamine foods eg:-

• Sausages and ham: all smoked animal products are high in histamine and should be avoided.
• Fish: Deep frozen fish is usually well tolerated; tinned fish or fish which has only been cooled (not frozen) may be a problem.  Seafood may contain extremely high amounts of histamine depending upon how fresh they are.
• Cheese: Fresh cheeses like cottage cheese, quark etc should be well tolerated.  Also small amounts of soft cheese should not cause problems.
• Alcohol: May cause problems for most histamine sensitive people as most types not only contain large amounts of histamine but because alcohol also blocks the DAO.
• Chocolate: Contains substances similar to histamine which may also trigger headaches and migraines and should therefore be avoided or greatly reduced.
• Sparkling wine has the highest contents of histamine, beer the lowest and is therefore usually tolerated in small amounts by most histamine sensitive patients.

Industrially produced wines like those from Australia, USA and South Africa are often showing lower histamine levels than traditionally produced or home-made types of wine. The histamine content of various wines and sparkling wines differs so greatly however, that we recommend to avoid these types of alcohol as much as possible or stick to those types which have been well tolerated before.  The histamine content is also dependent upon vintage and vineyard.