Let's Uncomplicate Health

Ever since the health of the nation began to slide, more and more work has been done by researchers and scientists to try to determine the reasons for our declining health. It seems that every week some new bit of information is published in the newspaper or heard on the news, and often it contradicts what was said last week on the same subject! This has happened so many times over the years that eventually most people stop hearing the advice that is given of this type as it all seems to blend into a confusing mish mash of noise. "What am I supposed to think now?" we ask ourselves. "I don't think they know what they're doing!" we cry.

So let's uncomplicate health and keep it simple. If you eat good things and avoid eating bad things, if you get some exercise and avoid sitting down all day, and if you keep a positive mental attitude and avoid negative thoughts or stress, you'll regain your health. After all, it's this kind of lifestyle that led to humans becoming the dominant species on the planet. The diseases we fear so much today were just never heard of. Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimers, obesity etc were incredibly rare. And before you think to yourself, "Ah yes, but they're genetic diseases due to flaws in our genes" you need to understand that the genes of human beings have not changed significantly for over 40,000 years! We all have caveman genes, but cavemen never had our diseases! How can that be?

A few thousand years ago, long before anyone ever thought of mass producing artificially flavoured and over preserved items and then calling them 'food', we ate whatever was available in nature. This turned out to be lean wild animals (that had also led a natural life), fruits that grew on trees, plants and vegetables that grew out of the ground, and water that came from a crystal clear, unpolluted stream or river.

So that's the eating good things taken care of. Now for some exercise.  As you can imagine, there weren't so many gyms or sports shops around back then. But obviously hunting animals and foraging for fruits, nuts and vegetables was hard work. There would be lots of walking, probably carrying what you had already collected, mixed with crouching, lifting, stretching and maybe the occasional bought of running. This all led to us getting exercise and burning energy. We strengthened our muscles, and we got our hearts pumping. Sounds like a good workout to me!

So now we've taken some exercise, and eaten a natural diet. What about our mental attitude? Well, it turns out that as a species we are hard wired to care for each other and cooperate in groups and communities. It's currently thought that this was one of the main factors why we survived when other early 'human like' mammals didn't such as Neanderthals. We are happiest when we work together as a community towards a common goal, knowing that your neighbour will help you out when needed, and knowing that you will gladly give your time to support them in return.

A great Canadian chiropractor by the name of Dr James Chestnut has summarised this as Eat Well, Move Well, Think Well^®. If you do these three things, you can’t help but Be Well! Now how uncomplicated is that?

It's really taking shape now!

Well, what a lot of progress has been made. The outline of the front of the building can really be seen now. The walls are up and the new window openings are in. Poor Gavin and Vicky have had their windows blocked up so aren't getting any sunlight at the moment, but that will all change once the new windows and roof lights go in.

It's shocking now to see the clinic like this as it looks like we're not open! It just looks like a building site. You wouldn't know that we're still helping hundreds and hundreds of people to get and stay well!

There will shortly be a big banner on the front of the building telling everyone that we are still open as usual and hopefully before too long we'll have the new roof timbers on. It's looking good!!

Is Chiropractic a treatment for pain relief?

Many of our patient’s first encounters with a chiropractor are as a result of hearing that chiropractic helped someone with back pain or headaches. They usually tell the same old story that nothing else had seemed to work, and they were fed up with the side effects of the pain killers they were taking, so they tried chiropractic as a last resort.

Many times the patient has a great response to care with us and says things like “I wish I’d found you years ago”, or “Why didn’t my Doctor send me to you?”

The strange thing is though, chiropractic was never designed to be a treatment for simple back pain or neck pain etc, as effective as it seems to be for those conditions. Chiropractic was originally devised as a treatment for improving the function of the nervous system which is why chiropractors are so focussed on your spine. The main function of the spine is to protect the spinal cord and this is clearly a very important part of the nervous system as it connects your brain with all of the tissues and organs of your body. However it is also a very delicate part of your body and any slight disturbances can affect its function in numerous ways.

 Your brain is constantly monitoring the status of your body, and makes millions of minor corrections every second to allow you to adapt to whatever situation you find yourself in. This could be something such as producing enough stomach acid to digest that meal you’ve just eaten, or increasing your heartbeat to allow you to run up a flight of stairs. It could also be something much more subtle such as altering the amount of a hormone produced in a cell, or healing a wound. To be able to do this, your brain needs to receive millions of accurate signals from your body, and then needs a way of getting those corrective signals back out to your body again. Obviously this is where your spinal cord and all your nerve tissue comes in. The tiny alterations that your brain is sending out need to get to the right location in your body in exactly the right form and at exactly the right time to ensure that your body is changed in exactly the right way. Otherwise things don’t quite work as they should!

The whole purpose of chiropractic care is to ensure that those signals that leave the brain get to the correct part of the body at the right time, in the same format and with the same intensity that was determined by your brain. Similarly, chiropractic aims to make sure that all the signals that go back up to the brain from your body arrive intact to make sure your brain has the best possible information to be able to keep making all of these corrections.

When your chiropractor checks your spine before deciding where you need an adjustment, they are looking for areas of the spine either not moving as they should, or out of alignment. These areas are called subluxations. Subluxations are thought to press on or stretch the nerves as they exit the spinal cord which then affects the critical signals going to and from the brain. What is going through your chiropractor’s mind when they then deliver those adjustments is not “This will help with the pain” as often the area they are adjusting doesn’t actually hurt yet. No, what they are thinking is “There is a subluxation here that is affecting the function of the nervous system and this adjustment will help improve that function”

It’s no coincidence that there can sometimes be some pain at the location of a subluxation, because pain is your body’s way of shouting at you to take some action! You could have had the problem for many years and been ignoring the early warning signs, before your body says “Enough is enough, I’m going to do something that will make you take notice!” It’s also no coincidence that when you do take some action and allow the chiropractor to adjust the areas that are subluxated your pain levels subside. But I hope you can see that this is just a side effect of your improved nervous system function because as you now know, chiropractic is not a treatment for pain!

The build moves on....

I can't believe how much progress is being made already. I've always been told that getting the building out of the ground is always the tricky part but it's flying up!

The first few rows of blocks appear from the ground!

The Edinburgh Lectures

On Friday 15th July the chiropractors will only be treating patients up to lunch time. In the afternoon, Julia, Gavin, Vicky and James will all be travelling up to Edinburgh along with Spencer to attend this years Edinburgh Lectures.

This is an annual chiropractic seminar that is fortunate enough to have some of the worlds best chiropractic speakers. Expect us to all come back inspired to work harder and do more to help our patients.

For information on this year's speakers, go here

The building work has started!

Well, it's been over a year since we got our planning permission, but building work has finally started!

We eventually got several quotes back from a number of builders in the area (I would have thought they would have been desperate for the chance to quote!) but the clear winner was Paul Jupp of Jupp-Foard builders.

We only met Paul Jupp by sheer chance. Julia was trying to find the phone number of another builder suggested to us and phoned Paul by mistake. During the call he asked if he could quote anyway, and seeing as we'd had so few quotes back by that time we thought 'why not?'

We sent him the drawings and met him at the clinic. He came back with a great price and clearly understood what we wanted. A few phone calls to his previous clients to check their experience of him gave us all the reassurance we needed, and the job was his. We set a start date that was about six weeks into the future and he turned up on that date and started work!

Currently the garage has been knocked down and the foundations for the front extension have been dug.


Where's the garage gone?



It's estimated that the work will take around six months to fully complete but the clinic will be so much better at the end of it all.

We'll have loads more parking spaces and a larger reception. There will be a dedicated retail area so we can make a wider range of products available. We'll have more storage space and also two further treatment rooms.



The foundations at the front of the building





Everywhere will be redecorated and modernised. We hope to be able to make other services available to our patients in these rooms, all with the sole aim of helping them lead healthier lives. Lastly, our clinic manager will have an office on site.

Exciting times!