Sarah Key Physiotherapy in Pages Creek | Medical and health

Sarah Key Physiotherapy

Locality: Pages Creek

Phone: +61 408 960 520

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24.01.2022 ARE SPINAL STRENGTHENING EXERCISES NECESSARY WITH A BAD BACK? QUESTION: Hi Sarah, Are the spinal intrinsic strengthening exercises in your book the Back Sufferers Bible contraindicated in cases of lumbar spinal stenosis? Can multifidus hypertrophy aggravate lss symptoms?... I often experience pins and needles in my feet and buttocks on walking. Do I need to stop doing this exercise? Thank you JF ANSWER: What do you have to remember is that the spinal intrinsics exercises are extremely strenuous really the top of the tree in terms of end stage spinal rehabilitation. Strictly speaking, they are only advised in cases of instability of his spinal segment, where the local muscle action provide additional strengthening across the weak link when the disc at that level has become sloppy through dehydration and degeneration. Although it is possible, It is not very likely to have an instability problem if you have spinal stenosis. (Instability tends to be a problem of fit young men indeed over-fit young men and even more specifically over-fit young men who do far too much lifting of weights in gymnasiums). In short spinal intrinsics should not be necessary and you can do much more affective spinal strengthening simply by changing your activities of daily living to incorporate more fluid and natural bending just bending over normally to pick up things, so your shoes at the bottom of the cupboard, simply by reefing in your tummy and always try to incorporate an unfurling action from fully bent back up to vertical. Spinal intrinsic exercises are a first rate exercise but there is a compressive penalty by virtue of their action being so close in on the spinal segments. For this reason, anybody who does spinal intrinsic exercises I always ask to get down on the floor afterwards and do several minutes of rocking the knees to the chest to pull the spinal segments apart again. If you have spinal stenosis it is much more important for you to do decompression and this means using a yoga brick, or better still, my BackBlock. SK See more

24.01.2022 THE JUDO NECK CRANK IS DREADFUL FOR A NECK Last week, at my February Back-in-a-Night-or-Two, I had a 40-something fireman whod being doing the rounds doctor shopping for a neck that hadnt felt right since hed suffered a Judo neck crank 15 years ago. The neck is highly sophisticated mechanism, like an extension of the brain, with all sorts of balance receptors and righting mechanisms that help us balance even when the eyes are closed. I dont really even know what a ne...ck crank is but a quick look on Google was enough to make me feel, well, slightly sick. This patient had a solid, squat neck with restricted rotation left and right. On palpation, I could feel that the top two vertebrae were rotated in opposite directions on each other and stiff to move. Strangely enough - or not so strangely - this accorded with exactly what he felt and hed said as much to several practitioners over the years - in his own words, that the vertebrae at the top of the neck were twisted in different directions. A quick look at the anatomy makes it easier to understand whats happened here. The top vertebras articulation with the base of the skull (C0-C1) is called the atlanta-occipital joint. It is made up of a couple of round protuberances (condyles) either side of the hole in the base of the skull where the spinal cord comes through from the brain. These rockers or condyles fit snugly into two scooped-out grooves in the top of the first vertebra so that the head can rock back and forth in these grooves. A lot of the head-nodding action happens here, but there is no rotation (or twisting action) of the neck a this level. Most of the twisting action happens at the next level down at C1-2 (the atlanto-axial joint) where a long peg of bone from C2 (the dens) pokes up vertically through the ring of the first vertebra like a finger poking up though a donut. A lot of the head/neck twisting action comes from here. Forcibly wrenching the neck into rotation will viciously stretch the atlanta-axial joint, whereas a forcible bending the neck forward (another version of the neck crank) will traumatically stress the C0-C1 level. This spinal level - basically the joint with the base of the skull and the top of the neck - will also be savagely traumatised by twisting it sideways when its not designed to provide that freedom. I treated this patient last week by mobilising the upper two vertebra (yes, with my heel) to make them looser and freer to find a more ideal, read natural anatomical position. Note, I do not think I was putting them back in to place as the osteopaths and chiropractors like to say. I think I was more easing the neck so the muscles settle down and stop making everything worse by guarding the neck. I also provided him with a Ma Roller to be able to do some of this treatment himself at home. You can see on this YouTube clip I like you to use a Ma Roller for the neck. See more

24.01.2022 USING HANDS TO RELIEVE NECK PAIN Sarah Key now live on Udemy! For those of you who dont know - and lets face it I didnt until a year or so ago - this is a course hosting website with a unique business model of very low pricing and high market saturation coverage. Not to be too melodramatic about things, now that Im reaching the end of my career Im feeling more and more compelled to hand on the knowledge - any way I can. Im talking to anyone whod like to be able to use ...their hands in a more purposeful, therapeutic way - think physios, general practitioners, occupational therapists, chiropractors, osteopaths, masseuses, yoga teachers, Reiki teachers, Alexander teachers, Bowen teachers. Udemy.com seems the way to go. So heres the gen: Im making the course available free of charge for a limited period. Message me direct and Ill send you the link. See https://www.udemy.com//neck-treatment-using-hands-for-ther See more

24.01.2022 UPPER BACK PAIN IS JUST SOOOOOO FIXABLE (if only you know how) While lower back pain hogs the airwaves, upper back pain can be just as crippling not only because of the pain but because it can affect rib function and breathing with serious, often subtle, consequences for wider health. ... With Sarah now making her wealth of experience available through THE HEALER WITHIN series, here is your chance to widen your experience (both therapists and patients were talking to here) and become a master practitioner/informed patient in multiple different ways. Sarah believes in open-source learning and sharing her wealth of knowledge. Using the Udemy platform she is making available a continuous stream of health-related information AT NEXT TO NO COST. In less than two hours in the Spinal Mobilization for Upper Back Pain course Sarah takes you through: The basic anatomy & function of thoracic spine & ribs The syndromes related to thoracic spine dysfunction Thoracic mobilization techniques on plastic spine Thoracic mobilization techniques on a patient The 6 best thoracic spine exercises A Case Study:Tommy the cowboy See https://www.udemy.com//spinal-mobilization-for-upper-back/

23.01.2022 THOSE PAINFUL KNEES GETTING TO YOU? By far the most common cause of knee pain is friction behind the kneecap, called chondromalacia patellae. But heres the good news . . . its best fixed by you doing a few simple exercises yourself. See a brief 2-part YouTube clip to show you how. https://www.youtube.com/playlist

23.01.2022 CARBOHYDRATES ARE KILLING US Carbs are a quick and easy source of energy. However, they turn to sugar inside the body and any unused (stuck indoors with Covid ...iso) are simply stored as fat. Carbs are not essential for life. They are the one ingredient of our diet that is not essential as any nutrients they contain can readily be found in other foods. You will live a much healthier life (autopsies confirm this) eating and burning fat than burning carbs. Your brain will not develop the neurofibril tangles (otherwise called brain plaques) that are the hallmarks of dementia (this interests me . . ). Any excess weight drops off eating a high fat/low carb diet. The message is to stop your blood swilling with sugar. Your health will benefit in countless life-enhancing ways from this day forward. (With reference Dr Annette Bozworth) See more

22.01.2022 FERNLEIGH SPINAL RETREAT IS OPEN AGAIN ! Weve missed you all. Contact Ruve Singh on [email protected] to make an appointment, both for day appointments and overnight stays. See https://www.sarahkeyphysiotherapy.com/Back-in-a-Night-or-Tw

22.01.2022 SARAH KEY ON YOUTUBE In two parts: A short sharp summary of how backs go wrong and how to fix it yourself

21.01.2022 Just to make you feel better!

21.01.2022 BETTER BREATHING Parts 1 and 2 This is the final tranche of Sarahs mini-series of critically important talks on backs, balance and breathing. https://youtu.be/q9PbvZ7Ixw0 https://youtu.be/X8GEywksOsE

20.01.2022 IS SCOLIOSIS HEREDITARY? The short answer is, yes. Last week at my Back-in-a-Night-Or-Two retreat I saw a 48 year old woman whod undergone a Dwyers spinal fusion at the age of 16. You can see in the scans that this is a floating fusion. Post op, she was given nothing in the way of strengthening exercise and this has been unfortunate. She has subsequently developed quite a marked curvature above the fusion, with associated pain over the R rib and shoulder blade area. She ...is a hardworking community nurse, who spends a lot of time bending over treating wounds of the patients in their homes. She has also more recently begun to develop lumbar pain, right across the top of the gluteal area. She says that although she may look bonny and strong, she is anything but; she feels weak and as if her body is collapsing - her midriff into her pelvis. You may be surprised to hear that I mobilised her spine, both within the fusion, above it and below it. I also started her immediately on upper back strengthening exercises, the first of these being up-dog-down-dog (10X). Later, she will progress (yes! and I am serious here) both headstands and shoulder stands. Her 24 hour picture after the first two treatments was very promising with reduced pain (and stopped the Lyrica medication) and general improved wellbeing. The very next working day, she had to take her eight-year-old daughter to one of the Sydney hospitals, where they immediately sent her off to be measured for a brace for her developing scoliosis. Like mother, like daughter, you can see that she too (far right photo) has scoliosis . . . . but I would be very upset if this little girl went into a brace at this stage, when this can be so much more easily, dynamically and - above all - effectively treated with spinal decompression (using the BackBlock also in side lying to decompress=flatten the curves) and upper back strengthening to hold her straighter. This is particularly important while shes growing. I would be very disappointed to see her go straight into bracing. Spinal bracing for scoliosis is very clumsy; it leaves the patient markedly weaker and much more likely to crumple upon coming out. It is also a devastating thing to do to a child - either adolescent or preadolescent - when shes becoming increasingly self-conscious and aware of body image - and furthermore a brace is very hot and sticky in a typical Australian summer! I will be treating both mother and daughter very ACTIVELY! I will be them doing their their spinal decompression and spinal strengthening exercise regime together at home every night. What fun they will have! And doing them both so much good! See here: https://www.simplebackpain.com/adolescent-scoliosis.html See more

19.01.2022 BETTER BALANCE Part 1 Even in mid-life, lack of strength and fitness can blunt reflexes and disturb motor control of the body. And for the elderly, a fall in the house or the street can bring an end to life as they know it. Here is small 2-part talk from Sarah on better balance

19.01.2022 NOW THAT YOUR BACKS GETTING BETTER . . . Get a load of this (from the Baby Dorts of a proud Mum)

18.01.2022 The 3 BEST EXERCISES FOR RELIEVING UPPER BACK PAIN Upper back pain can be crippling, with (literally) breathtaking grabs of pain caused by spasm of the intercostal muscles - the muscles between the ribs - as they jerk into protective mode whenever you make an unguarded move. It can be so painful, it literally takes your breath away. At source, the problem is usually an unhappy rib-to-spine junction - where they head of the rib keys into the side of the spine - possibly cause...d by longstanding poor posture, or indeed recent strenuous scrubbing, pulling, pushing, or carrying - say heavy shopping - with with the arms. Even a bad bout of coughing can strain a rib junction. Either way, there will be a gnawing discomfort out to the said of the spine. On closer scrutiny, the problem rib will usually be painfully prominent, further out from the spine, so that part of the treatment relief is finding that sore rib (it will be sticking up, like a cable around a barrel) and softening it into inconspicuousness by exercises that mobilize (loosen) that rib. Here are those three important exercises. See my latest YouTube video https://youtu.be/ijlH2NU-uBU See more

18.01.2022 I ALWAYS FIND ASKING FOR READERS REVIEWS EXCRUCIATING . . . . so every single one is like gold!

16.01.2022 CANCER? ABSOLUTELY BANISH SUGAR FROM YOUR DIET To my mind, theres an extraordinary blanket of silence from the medical profession about the appalling health co...nsequences of a high sugar (and carbohydrate) diet. The plain facts are that cancer cells thrive on sugar. If you want to feed cancerous cells, you give them sugar. If you want them to die, you take the sugar away. (This is why theres such burgeoning groundswell of interest in a ketogenic diet which also improves many other aspects of health). Cancer cells die when theres only ketones for them to eat! Need more convincing? Well, what about this . . . when you have a PET scan to see where the cancer is in your body, you are fed concentrated glucose, which rushes to the cancer cells to be photographed there. See more

16.01.2022 THE SINGLE BEST EXERCISE FOR RELIEF FROM CHRONIC SCIATICA Chronic sciatica is one of the most disabling and irritating manifestations of a lower back problem. Acute inflammation of a facet joint causes the facet capsule to enlarge and inflame, which causes it to weep or ooze fluid. Chronic sciatica is another story. Invariably, it is caused by the formation of adhesions as a consequence of acute inflammation of a facet joint as the fluid dries out and forms stringy adhesions which glue or mat the nerve, bonding it or clagging it to the side of the joint capsule. Getting rid of the pain in the leg is often a matter of working the nerve loose where it has become matted to the joint capsule. This is known as flossing the nerve. Here is a simple technique to do lumbar flossing. https://youtu.be/ozJf-USKIsw

15.01.2022 SELF-ISOLATING? NOWS THE TIME TO FIX YOUR BACK. LEARN THE 3 FUNDAMENTALS OF EFFECTIVE SPINAL THERAPY As you may have found, fixing a persistent problem isnt easy. Each back problem is different and needs careful untangling but even so, there are three fundamentals of therapy that are common to everybody. Why not make a start while you can:... 1. Calming down over-protective muscles 2. Providing segmental separation to get all the spinal segments moving 3. Supporting the lower back through abdominal strengthening First of all, I suggest you read this page Back Pain Exercising but theres a whole website (www.simplebackpain.com) a welter of stuff devoted to your better understanding - and fixing your back! https://www.simplebackpain.com/backpainexercises.html

15.01.2022 BETTER BALANCE Part 2

15.01.2022 ANOTHER CHANCE TO GET YOUR BACK FIXED AT FERNLEIGH! This afternoon marks the start of the October 2020 Back-in-a-Night-or -Two with patients making their way here from all points of the compass to be welcomed by afternoon tea and sponge cake (there goes the keto diet!). Get your life back! Next month's dates are 4-6 November. https://www.sarahkeyphysiotherapy.com/Back-in-a-Night-or-Tw

14.01.2022 SARAH KEY ON YOUTUBE Better Back Part 2

14.01.2022 CARBOHYDRATES ARE KILLING US (PART 2) Sometimes the medical thinking gets stuck. We are in that time warp now. Type 2 diabetes is a disease of carbohydrate intolerance, yet the dietary guidelines for diabetics is still a low fat/high carb diet. You might be interested to listen to Dr Peter Brukner (part of the enlightened group of Low Carbs DownUnder doctors) speaking to fellow GPs about the dreadful wrong being wrought upon the community with this medical advice. You wi...ll see from the first graphic that a study done in western Sydney with some 130,000 participants - a sizeable study - in both Emergency Departments and GP Practices showed that 47% were either diabetic or prediabetic - almost half the population! This is scary stuff; slow train-wreck insanity! You will see from the second graphic that the obesity epidermic also began about the same time as the high carb/low fat guidelines came in, since not only do carbohydrates cause insulin resistance, they make you fat (and always hungry) and cause widespread inflammation. (I see daily the repercussions of this treating musculoskeletal disorders.) There is also growing evidence that a high carb diet, modelled on the Mediterranean diet, causes the other silent epidemic of anxiety and depression - as well as many of the metabolic disorders (yes, even Alzheimers!). See Peter Brukner Why Low Carb? video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WPF3RMPI9k See more

13.01.2022 WHAT THE HECK IS IT THAT MAKES AN OLD PERSON LOOK OLD WHEN WALKING? So were not talking about the upper body here (because what makes the old person look old in the upper body is being stooped forward like a boomerang bottom at the back and head bent low at the front). Here were talking about what it is in the leg department that characterises an old persons walk. There are three joints to consider the ankles, the knees and the hips. But in the modern era it is the k...Continue reading

13.01.2022 One of the 6 best exercises for treating upper back pain. View on YouTube or see the rest on my latest Udemy Course: https://www.udemy.com//spinal-mobilization-for-upper-back-

13.01.2022 GESTATIONAL DIABETES LINKED TO AUTISM You'd have to be living under a rock to not be aware that autism has increased exponentially over the last couple of decades. Dr Paul Mason, this speaker at the Low Carb Down Under Conference 2020, says that theres's been at least 10 separate papers making the link between diabetes during pregnancy (from a high carbohydrate intake) and children being born autistic. This is important stuff. This video also covers the double-whammy devastation to health - in particular Alzheimer's disease - caused by a high-carb diet combined with cooking with seed oils; the oxidation of the cooking process driving the clumping together of proteins+sugars causing the beta-amyloid plaques in the brain. Again, important wouldn't you say?

12.01.2022 GESTATIONAL DIABETES LINKED TO AUTISM Youd have to be living under a rock to not be aware that autism has increased exponentially over the last couple of decades. Dr Paul Mason, this speaker at the Low Carb Down Under Conference 2020, says that theress been at least 10 separate papers making the link between diabetes during pregnancy (from a high carbohydrate intake) and children being born autistic. This is important stuff. This video also covers the double-whammy devastation to health - in particular Alzheimers disease - caused by a high-carb diet combined with cooking with seed oils; the oxidation of the cooking process driving the clumping together of proteins+sugars causing the beta-amyloid plaques in the brain. Again, important wouldnt you say?

10.01.2022 THE 3 MOST IMPORTANT BACK FIXING EXERCISES Most lower back pain is caused by a spinal segment failing to move properly; becoming stuck, like a jammed link in a bicycle chain. The lack of movement can be caused by the soft tissues cobbling together, or the local muscles holding it (usually a combination of the two). Spinal mobilisation with the hands is usually needed to find the jammed link and loosen it off. But if you cant get to a manual therapist (most cant) you can do your own spinal mobilisation exercises yourself. Yes, it will take a little longer but you can do these three basic exercises to get the spinal segments moving properly again. https://www.simplebackpain.com/backstretchingexercises.html

09.01.2022 BE CAREFUL OF BACK SURGERY! Spinal mobilisation is rather like tinkering with the spinal machinery to make all the gears and bearings run better. Its a subtle business, which is why its never as successful treating a spine after failed back surgery (which has its own syndrome in medical circles failed back surgery syndrome or FBSS). Since spinal surgery is only successful 50% of the time, all too often we are called upon at the end to make the best of a bad job.

06.01.2022 CANCER? ABSOLUTELY BANISH SUGAR FROM YOUR DIET To my mind, there's an extraordinary blanket of silence from the medical profession about the appalling health co...nsequences of a high sugar (and carbohydrate) diet. The plain facts are that cancer cells thrive on sugar. If you want to feed cancerous cells, you give them sugar. If you want them to die, you take the sugar away. (This is why there's such burgeoning groundswell of interest in a ketogenic diet which also improves many other aspects of health). Cancer cells die when there's only ketones for them to eat! Need more convincing? Well, what about this . . . when you have a PET scan to see where the cancer is in your body, you are fed concentrated glucose, which rushes to the cancer cells to be photographed there. See more

06.01.2022 SCIENCE SO CRAVEN The other day I was watching a video of a conversation between Richard Dawkins and Ricky Gervais where the latter was extolling the virtues and the truthfulness of Science in protecting us from hocus-pocus information and providing us with good clean knowledge to work with. How can it be then that time after time when a study doesnt conform to the current conventional wisdoms, then that information is simply ignored, or worse still buried? Take the Sydn...ey Diet Heart Study for instance, which ran from 1966-1973, analysing 450 men aged 30-59 - one group eating butter, the other margarine and seed oils - found that 60-70% higher mortality rate in the folks eating seed oils. So often, science prides itself on being above the influence of big food companies and large donations, yet quite obviously it is not. From what has been euphemistically called recovered data reanalysed (Ramsden BMJ) this information has only been recently made public. With the rising tide of metabolic disorders another study, set in Western Sydney, showing that 47% of the population was either diabetic or pre-diabetic (theres a 4-fold increase globally in Type 2 diabetes since 1980) to me it is nothing short of shocking that an unsuspecting public has been so wantonly mislead. People have been literally hoodwinked into believing that vegetables oils are better for you that saturated fats! And sugar? Well, sweetening (usually the highly toxic high fructose corn syrup) just keeps on going up in just about every packaged food you buy. Oh, and the still-lingering American dietary guidelines from 1977 say that in order to be healthy we should be eating 6-11 servings of carbohydrates/day. Dont know about you, but Im standing on my seat right now. Im yelling hallelujah! to the heavens that someone like Dr James Meucke, an ophthalmic surgeon, has been nominated as Australian of the Year 2020. Thank God that he is bursting out of the silence on the three pillars of ill health - sugar, carbohydrates and seed oils when Science (and in this I include Medicine) has been so silent; so craven. See more

04.01.2022 DONT BUGGER UP YOUR BACK WORKING FROM HOME! My daughter Scarlett sent me this photograph of her newly set up workstation at home, where she, like many others literally millions of people around the globe is getting to grips with working long hours in less than ideal ergonomic circumstances. As soon as I saw this photo, I was straight back to her to suggest improvements since using this as a work chair will bring almost any spine undone. . . . . I then thought all of the ...rest of you could do with these same few pointers (!) My first suggestion was put a very substantial pillow (perhaps two?) in behind her lower back because the seat here is far too deep and there is no spinal support from the back of the chair. You will see in the following website pages that as far as possible, the spine has to keep its statuesque S shaped alignment while sitting - and be be kept from crumpling forward into a C shaped one. In achieving this set-up, make sure that there is enough pillow-support from behind that even when youre relaxed against it, you still do not lose that forward thrust into your lower back at waist level. In some cases your chair could look like a positive rats nest of miscellaneous pillows, but maybe thats probably exactly what you need! Note: With all these pillows you initially may feel too much pressure in your lower back when you first plonk down into the chair. But do persevere, because quite quickly with your heavy body-weight of resting there, the pillows will recede and lose their ooomph. The second thing she needs here is to be raised up in the seat of the chair because the distance up to the table is too high and will mean that she will have to shrug her shoulders to clear her wrists from the computer keyboard. This will cause huge neck/shoulder strain (remember, the ideal desk height means that the elbows are slightly lower than a right angle). Scarlett is young and newly married, living in quite a small flat, so I cant imagine her having a whole lot of spare pillows around the place but ideally, she should put at least one or two under the yellow base cushion of this chair. If she doesnt have pillows then she should use anything at hand, such as books or even a pile of newspapers or Economist magazines to raise the base of the seat. There are various pages on sitting, but I suggest start here: https://www.simplebackpain.com/back-pain-with-sitting.html See more

03.01.2022 THE SARAH KEY ONLINE STORE: For All Things Helpful for Back Pain Now with a name like Sarah Key Global, you could be forgiven for thinking were some sort of multinational company in downtown Sydney with a turnover of gazillions. Well, yes, but not really . . . ... Nowadays we are situated at my farm in the Upper Hunter Valley, where my able helper Heidi fulfils orders to across the world from our country mailbox. See the creek winking in the sunlight (since we had 5 inches of rain last week to ease the drought) and also see the little flag to tell Ian the mailman to pick up (thanks Ian!). Life seems to be getting easier and simpler and its not just because Covid-19! See The Sarah Key Online Store for all things helpful for backs. See https://www.simplebackpain.com/sarah-key-physiotherapy-stor See more

02.01.2022 WHAT THE HECK IS IT THAT MAKES AN OLD PERSON LOOK OLD WHEN WALKING? So we're not talking about the upper body here (because what makes the old person look old in the upper body is being stooped forward like a boomerang bottom at the back and head bent low at the front). Here we're talking about what it is in the leg department that characterises an old person’s walk. There are three joints to consider the ankles, the knees and the hips. But in the modern era it is the k...Continue reading

01.01.2022 LEARNING HOW TO TREAT BACK PAIN EFFECTIVELY Fernleigh is opening up again! Start the webinars now, in time to meet up with Sarah on July 22nd for the next intensive 2-day Practical. See www.sarahkey.com to enrol and get started. Students join up with Sarah on the job when shes running her back care retreats in the Upper Hunter Valley. Intensive up-skilling sessions and learning from the pro in action. https://youtu.be/D8HL_4zMSAk.

01.01.2022 SCIATICA: LIKE A TOOTHACHE IN THE LEG In earlier epochs of medical understanding, it was always thought that if you had sciatic you had a slipped disc. Now we know differently (its taken a while). With the advent of MRIs its now possible to see that most so-called slipped discs are asymptomatic (painless). Everybody has them - even though they do tend to be more pronounced at the painful spinal levels (probably because the muscles here are more switched on, which compresse...Continue reading

01.01.2022 SPINAL MOBILIZATION FOR UPPER BACK PAIN Coming soon. Watch this space for the next Sarah Key course on Udemy.com. Using the hands in a more purposeful therapeutic way to relieve pain in the upper back. Sarahs hands-on mobilization techniques, and the critically important exercise to restore mobility to the thoracic spine and rib cage