What is Pelvic Girdle Pain?
What is Pelvic Girdle Pain?
Pelvic girdle pain (PGP) affects one in five pregnant women. If you have PGP you may be experiencing pain or uncomfortable symptoms at the front of your pelvis over the pubic bone, across one or both sides of your lower back and sacroiliac joints. It can also radiate around the hips and inner thighs or the area between your vagina and anus (perineum).
You may find the pain to be constant, episodic or intermittent. The pain you feel can affect your mobility and quality of life.
Why do I have PGP?
During pregnancy, your body weight increases, and 60% of the weight is above the pelvis. As the pregnancy progresses your centre of gravity shifts forwards due to the growing bump which will automatically change your posture. Alongside this, there are huge hormonal changes that cause the pelvic floor muscles and ligaments to become looser to prepare your body for birth. All of these changes increase the stress and pressure on your pelvis and can lead to PGP. Some women accommodate all these changes well, others find it leads to strain and pain. PGP is normally related to a lack of stability in the pelvic girdle joints, caused by the loosening of the pelvic ligaments and the weakening of the pelvic floor muscles.
What can I do if I have PGP?
The good news is that PGP can be managed, particularly if it is diagnosed and treated earlier.
Some general tips to help manage PGP are:
DO
- Listen to your body. Try to remain as active as possible within your comfort limits but avoid activities that make the pain worse.
- Rest or change position more frequently. Avoid sitting or standing in one spot for over 30 minutes at a time.
- Maintain good posture: sanding tall with your bump and bottom tucked in a little.
- Ask for and accept help from others, involving partners, family and friends where possible.
- Sleep on your side with a pillow between the legs. Turn over with your knees together and squeeze your buttocks.
- Sit down to do things that you would normally stand for e.g. getting dressed and undressed; ironing.
- Go upstairs one step at a time with the less painful leg first. Go downstairs leading with the most painful leg.
- Wear supportive comfortable shoes.
AVOID
- Standing on one leg to put on trousers or tights, sit down instead.
- Movements that involve separation of your legs such as getting in/out of bed; getting in/out of a car (squeeze knees together instead); if swimming avoid breaststroke; consider alternative positions for sexual intercourse (e.g. lying on your side or kneeling on all fours).
- Asymmetrical positions of the pelvis e.g. avoid twisting movements and sitting cross-legged.
- Sitting on the floor or in low chairs.
- Avoid lifting a toddler (especially on one hip) heavy weights or shopping.
- Carrying anything in only one hand.
- Using your feet to move objects on the floor.
What can I do if I still have pain after trying the tips above?
It is important that if your pain does not become manageable with general advice you are referred to a physiotherapist. Here at Physiofit, our Women's health physiotherapists specialise in treating people with PGP. The sooner PGP is identified and managed the greater the chance of improving your symptoms and making you more comfortable.
A physiotherapy assessment will include a careful examination of your pelvis, back and hip joints and the muscle around them, looking at how well the joints move and whether the muscles are strong enough to support your pelvis and spine. We can offer a range of treatment options and advice options that are specific to you and will fit into your lifestyle.
If you have any questions at all or you would like to discuss your condition, please don’t hesitate to contact us at 01223 914140 or e-mail us on enquiries@vineryroadstudios.co.uk
How to protect your core during pregnancy
What happens to my core muscles during pregnancy?
During pregnancy, your posture changes and the weight increases as the baby grows. The enlarging uterus causes the abdominal and pelvic floor muscles to stretch, and your diaphragm has less space to move. This may cause the two bands of muscles that meet in the middle of the abdomen to separate. These stretched muscles struggle to work efficiently and therefore your usual day-to-day activities, such as lifting, getting out of bed, going to the toilet, and even coughing or sneezing which all increase intra-abdominal pressure can become much harder and increase the strain on these muscles.
As a result, your chances of low back pain or pelvic floor dysfunction may increase
How can I protect my core?
You can help reduce the chances of these things happening by exercising your core during and after pregnancy and by trying to manage the intra-abdominal pressure created by your day-to-day activities.
Here are some of the tips you can do to protect your core:
- Lifting: Over the past years we have been told that we should always lift something with a wide base of support, squat and keep the spine in neutral, not bending or arching our back. Recent research suggests that bending from the spine when lifting will not necessarily damage your back. But when we are talking about lifting heavy loads, without forgetting all the changes that are occurring in your body throughout pregnancy, and with a sudden increase of intra-abdominal pressure, we need to be more mindful of the technique. So, when lifting heavy loads, we encourage you to bend your knees and hips, and head, keep your back straight, inhale through your nose and then gently engage your core and glutes as you exhale through your mouth look straight and lift at the same time.
- Getting out of bed: As your bump gets bigger it can be beneficial to roll onto your side, send your legs off the bed, and as you breathe out, engage your core and use your arms to push yourself up.
- Pregnancy pilates: Pilates focuses on core stability, strength and improving your posture and balance. These exercises strengthen the deep postural muscles of the abdomen and the spine, making them an excellent way to cope with your body's changes.
- Use the knack: this is a useful technique and an exercise that involves squeezing and lifting your pelvic floor muscles just before you cough, sneeze or blow your nose. This can help you control bladder leaks, protect against prolapse and reduce the sensation of heaviness when you increase the intra-abdominal pressure. It can definitely make a difference, mainly if you are symptomatic!
- Avoiding constipation and straining: Being constipated is the worst thing you can do to your pelvic floor whether you are pregnant or not.
How does constipation affect my core?
Your pelvic floor muscle strength is important for both bowel and bladder control. repetitive straining from constipation can lead to a weakening of the pelvic floor muscles, excessive stress on pelvic organs and nerves, as well as bladder dysfunction and recurring accidental bowel leakage.
What can I do if I am constipated?
- Eating healthily and regularly; avoid skipping meals as it can lead to irregular bowel habits. A simple diet with healthy amounts of fibre, aiming for 20-30 grams per day is recommended: a variety of fruit and vegetables (spinach, asparagus, carrot, celery, pears, apples, grapes, oranges, strawberries, figs), chia seeds, linseeds. Aim to drink at least 1.5 litres of fluids per day; or 3L if breastfeeding.
- Exercise regularly. Keeping active can improve bowel habits in some people. Try to exercise 20-30min per day, fresh air, outdoor activities, walking the dog or gardening can help you.
- Make sure to have good toilet habits. Most people respond well to a regular habit. About 20-30min after a meal is the most likely time for the bowel to work because of the gastrocolic reflex, which is triggered when food reaches the stomach. Make sure you don’t ignore the urge when you need to go!
- Always take your time: Get comfortable, and don’t rush yourself!
- Use a footstool. Getting your knees higher than your hips puts your body in a better position for going to the toilet. Lean forward and rest your elbows on your thighs.
- Avoid straining. When you strain you brace your tummy muscles, hold your breath and you don’t relax your pelvic floor muscles. Instead, take a slow breath in relaxing your tummy, then breathe out through your mouth as if blowing out a birthday candle. You should feel your tummy muscles gently tighten and your back passage open and relax.
- If you are still struggling to open your bowels even after trying all these techniques, speak to your GP who may discuss the use of laxatives with you.
If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to contact us at 01223 914140 or email enquiries@vineryroadstudios.co.uk
Physio tips to reduce stress and improve wellbeing
What is stress?
We all know what emotional/psychological stress is as we have all probably felt it to some degree in our life. Stress is a feeling of being overwhelmed or unable to cope with the mental or emotional pressure we are under. But we can also have physical stress. Physical stress is the amount of load you put your muscles, tendons and ligaments through as you move and undertake your daily tasks and leisure activities.
How much stress can I handle?
We all have a certain capacity for stress, both emotionally and physically. This capacity will vary from individual to individual and is personal to you. There is also a very complex link between both types of stress and increasing one can affect the other. Also, remember that stress isn’t all bad, it can help us be motivated and strive to do better. In fact, the correct manipulation and amount of stress are what help you progress or recover. But getting the balance right is key.
How does stress relate to injury?
Physically: When you get injured, this is usually because you have exceeded your physical ability to handle load or stress. This could be doing more repetitions of a certain weight, running a bit further, doing a slightly more difficult movement, spending longer in one position or lifting a heavier weight. Essentially, you have done more than the tissues in your body can handle and now they hurt or are damaged. Emotionally; When we have increased mental stress our bodies release certain hormones (adrenaline and cortisol). These can be beneficial in short-term stressful situations to make us react better but if the stress continues for a prolonged period and these hormones are continuously released it can be harmful to your health.
Interlinked: If we are mentally stressed our physical capacity (the load we can safely manage before injury) is reduced therefore we can get injured easier than if we were in a relaxed state.
How does stress affect my recovery?
Increased levels of stress hormones can affect recovery in the following ways :
- The immune system is depressed: which can reduce our ability to control inflammation which in turn can reduce our healing times.
- Reduced sleep. The increased hormones during stressful times have a negative effect on our sleep, and we need sleep for our bodies to repair and recover.
- Increased pain sensation: When we are stressed we feel more pain because of the increased level of cortisol and poor control of inflammation.
- Being stressed makes our muscles tense up, bringing us into a poor posture and reducing the time our muscles have to relax and recover.
How can physio help with my stress?
One of the most important aspects of physiotherapy is helping patients with stress management both physically and emotionally. This is because stress has an impact on the recovery time of an injury and also the likelihood of people getting injured/ re-injured.
Physiotherapy can help in a number of ways:
- We will give you advice and reassurance regarding your injury which will hopefully put your mind at ease giving you a recovery path for your problem so you know what is in store.
- We are able to give you a step-by-step individual rehabilitation programme to ensure that we gradually build your physical stress up without overloading the injured area.
- We will give you advice on load management for the future to ensure you will not overload your physical stress again, preventing re-injury.
- We can give you some tips for emotional stress relief that are individual to your situation which will improve your recovery and well-being.
Here are some tips to aid your management of stress.
- Make sleep a priority. Improved sleep quality and quantity help to reduce stress hormones - for ways to help improve your sleep please take a look at our blog on sleep
- Healthy Diet. Improving the quality of your food. Poor food quality can stress the digestive system. Reducing sugar can help balance the body's hormone system so we can deal with stress easier.
- Lose fat. If you are carrying extra fat tissue it can negatively affect the hormones within your body. It also creates more physical stress on your structures just as tendons, ligaments and muscles.
- Exercise routinely. There is extensive research that suggests that both strength and cardiovascular exercise will reduce the chronic stress hormones your body produces. Exercises will also help you to lose body fat and improve your sleep and mood.
- Get a massage. When we have stressed our muscles become tense. A deep tissue massage can help relieve muscle tension and give you some time to relax.
- Take a break. plan some real downtime into your day to give your mind time off from stress. this could be Meditation, deep breathing, listening to music, going for a walk or doing Pilates.
- Write your thoughts down register and recognise your own feelings and create a plan to manage them.
- Talk to someone: If things are bothering you, talking about them can help lower your stress. You can talk to family members, friends, or a therapist
If you require help with managing your physical stress loads through well-structured training and rehabilitation or deep tissue massage please do not hesitate to contact us on 01223 914140 or e-mail us at enquiries@vineryroadstudios.co.uk,
The Physiofit Team
How to start exercising after a long break
The news that gyms are likely to re-open soon is exciting but might also feel a little intimidating after such a long break.
Having a fitness plan means that you are less likely to overdo things in the early stages (which might cause an injury) and more likely to stick with it, until grabbing your gym bag becomes part of your regular routine again.
Consistency is the key to restoring your fitness and strength and if you haven’t done much exercise recently, then don’t wait until the gyms are actually open to get started. Even a little bit of training at home will help you bridge the gap between lockdown and your usual class or weights session.
First choose an activity you enjoy – for example a quick walk, a light jog or a gentle bike ride – and keep moving for up to 20 minutes, at least three times a week. If you aren’t breaking a light sweat after 10 minutes, then you need to move a bit faster. If you like running, take a look at our modified Couch to 5K programme for more ideas.
After a couple of weeks, add in some light strengthening exercises. Common areas that people injure at the gym are the shoulders and knees. So the exercises I have recommended below are designed to build a scaffold of muscular support around these particular joints. You can do these exercises at home or in the park with a resistance band, so long as you don’t currently have an injury. If you do, get some advice first before starting any fitness programme.
Shoulder strengthening exercises
Repeat each of these exercises 15 times slowly with really good control and form:
- Front raises and side raises with a band
Place a resistance band under your feet and hold each end. Breathe out and lift your arms up in front of you until your hands are at shoulder height, pulling on the band. Lower slowly. Then lift your arms out to the side, again to 90 degrees. Alternate between front and side raises.
- Brugger with elbows bent with a band
Wrap the ends of the band around your hands and start with your elbows bent to 90 degrees. Draw your shoulder blades together and spread your hands apart, pulling on the band. Straighten your arms keeping your shoulders, so your arms reach out to the side and the band is pulled tight across your chest. Then return slowly again.
- Upright rowing with a band
Place a resistance band under your feet again, cross the ends over and hold in each hand. Pull the band up to to your chin with your elbows high. Lower again slowly and repeat.
Knee strengthening exercises
Repeat each of these exercises 15 times slowly too:
- Squats
Slowly lower your body into a squat position as if you were going to sit into a chair, keeping yours knee roughly in line with your feet. Push through your heels to rise.
- Step ups
Stand with one foot on a step (or park bench) and shift forwards over this foot. Step up slowly, keeping your knee cap in line with your foot. Keep your pelvis as level as possible.
- Lunges
Put one foot in front of you and walk it out to the side slightly so it doesn’t feel like you are walking a tightrope. Lower your back knee towards the floor, keeping your front knee in line with your foot. Push through your front heel to rise.
If you can’t yet do these or feel you need more help please don’t hesitate to contact us.
The Physiofit team.
How to exercise safely and prevent injuries
If ‘getting fitter’ is one of your New Year’s resolutions this year, then you’re in good company. However, there’s nothing worse then an injury to derail your best intentions.
Aches, pains and potentially avoidable sports injuries are common reasons for giving up. So to create an exercise habit which lasts and to avoid injuries, my first bit of advice would be to steer clear of online exercise fads or challenges which promise results in six weeks. Aim to be active everyday and instead choose a type of exercise that you enjoy, which can easily fit in around your lifestyle. Even working out just once a week is 100% better than not exercising at all, so make a realistic plan and stick to it. It’s also less tempting to skip a session if you’ve been consistent and you can easily increase your training if you have more time.
A significant number of sports injuries we see here in clinic can be put down to ‘training error’, meaning a rapid increase in training or activity without giving your body enough time to adapt.
Your cardiovascular system (heart and lungs) will respond far more quickly to your new exercise regime than your musculoskeletal system (muscles, tendons and bones). So you might feel ‘fitter’ quite quickly and be able to train harder and longer as your cardiovascular system rises quickly to the challenge. Your musculoskeletal system, however, will be much slower to respond and may be overloaded and injured if it is worked too hard or too fast without enough time to adapt.
Developing an injury this way can make you feel mentally deflated and really put a dent in your confidence to exercise. The key is to give your body time to adjust, increase your activity at a steady pace and make sure you are building up appropriate muscle strength and endurance at the same time.
We’re offering a free 7-day trial of our physiotherapist-led online pilates programme which you can access here. This is a great way to build flexibility, strength and control to support any exercise programme. We also offer tailored fitness programmes in our gym if lifting weights or kettle bells is your thing.
Ultimately, we want you to be able to enjoy exercise that enhances your life and helps you feel happier and healthier, without injury.
Please get in touch if you think we can help.
The Physiofit Team
Sports Therapy or Physiotherapy - what's the difference?
Faced with a choice between Physiotherapy, Sports Therapy, Osteopathy, Chiropractic treatment and many other practitioners, it’s no wonder that most people with an injury will opt to see someone a friend has recommended to them.
In fact, most of our patients contact us after a word of mouth recommendation and many don’t really know what the differences are between these professions.
What’s the difference between a Sports Therapist and a Physiotherapist?
This is a question I have been asked increasingly frequently and indeed it can be important to make a distinction between these two professions, so I’ll try to answer it in this blog post.
One of the main jobs of a Sports Therapist is to be able to turn a regular person or injured athlete into someone capable of the complex activities involved in competition sport. This might be working with individuals or teams.
However, Sports Therapy is not a regulated profession in the UK, so unfortunately anyone can call themselves a Sports Therapist. This must be incredibly frustrating for those practitioners who have completed a degree and have significant experience in this field. However, it does mean that you should carefully check that your therapist is properly qualified and bear in mind that most private insurance companies will not cover the cost of treatment with a Sports Therapist.
If your Sports Therapist has a degree then you can be confident that they have comprehensive knowledge and training in sports-focused prehab, rehab and sports massage techniques, with up to 200 hours of hands-on skills training. In the UK, registration with the Society of Sports Therapists also seems to be a good indicator of a well-qualified practitioner.
Physiotherapists however have a broader medical training through their degree, covering not only sports and musculoskeletal injuries and rehab but also degenerative conditions, diseases, surgical procedures, neurological issues and elderly care. Every Physiotherapist will complete over 1000 hours of clinical work before they qualify and this means that they have a greater understanding of the overall medical management of a patient.
Physiotherapy is also a legally protected title. You may only call yourself a Physiotherapist if you have completed the degree programme and meet the strict criteria required to register with the Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC). You can check whether your physiotherapist is registered with the HCPC here.
In order to maintain registration with the HCPC, Physiotherapists must also complete regular training and produce evidence every year that they are aware of the latest treatment techniques, procedures, medical developments and advances.
Should I see a Sports Therapist or a Physiotherapist?
As Sports Therapists generally focus on musculoskeletal rehab and have a sports focused background, this might appeal to you if you’re aiming to get back to sport.
That said, many Physios specialise in treating sports injuries, sport-specific rehab and injury prevention through strength and conditioning programmes.
So I’d recommend you choose your practitioner based on their individual skills and experience and your own personal reasons for seeking treatment.
If you think we can help you, please get in touch.
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Simple spinal mobility exercises to reduce pain and help you move better
Why is thoracic mobility important?
The middle part of your back is called your thoracic spine and it does naturally have a bit less movement than other part of your spine like your neck or lower back because it supports your ribcage. However, daily habits and sedentary working often increases the natural stiffness in your upper back, causing shoulder and neck pain and it can even prevent you from standing fully upright or restrict your breathing.
So maintaining good flexibility in your thoracic spine will really reduce pain and improve the way you move so that these other part of your body don’t have to compensate.
How to loosen your spine and improve mobility
These are five of my favourite exercises to help you loosen your upper back, release and stretch out tight muscles and improve your spinal mobility:
Foam rolling your upper back
Place your roller between shoulder blades and link your fingers behind your head and wrap your elbows around the side of your head, so your skull is supported by your hands. Hover your pelvis and uses your feet to press and pull to roll your spine up and down on the roller a comfortable distance for up to 1 minute.
Book opening
Lay on your side with both arms pointing in front of you with hands together. Breathe out and turn your ribcage towards the ceiling, allowing your arm to raise and follow the movement until you feel a stretch in your chest. Keep your knees on the floor. At the end of the movement, take a deep breath in and as you breathe out, rotate back to your start position again. Repeat 6-8 times each side.
Cat / camel
Get onto your hands and knees. Breathe out and curve your spine until you feel a stretch in your mid back, breathe in and allow your spine to arch the other way. Try to keep your elbows straight throughout the movement.
Side to side child pose
After you’ve finished the cat/ camel stretch, take your hands to one side of your mat and drop your pelvis back to touch your heels and stretch through the side of your spine. Take a deep breath in to increase the stretch and repeat on the other side. 5 reps each side.
Rotate and reach
Stay on your hands and knees. As you exhale, slide your right hand underneath your left and turn your ribcage to reach through. Keep your left arm and elbow strong, tall and straight. Inhale as you return back and lift your elbow to turn the ribcage away from your support arm. Repeat 6 to 8 times on each side. Keep the movement slow and controlled.
If you think we can help you, please get in touch.
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Coronavirus Protocol - Physiotherapy Cambridge
Covid-19 protocol for face-to-face physiotherapy treatments
From Monday 25th May, we are reopening our physiotherapy clinic and will be offering limited face-to-face appointments alongside our current physiotherapy video consultation service.
Following guidance from the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, we will ask all patients who contact us to complete a short physiotherapy and health screen over the phone before arranging a face-to-face appointment at our clinic. For this reason, I'm sorry but we will not be able to accept online bookings.
Instead, if you want to make an appointment, please call us directly on 01223 914140. Our office is now open seven days a week and we'll be able to discuss with you the risks of a face-to-face appointment and the measures we have put in place to minimise that risk. We will also run through what we will ask you to do to protect other patients attending the clinic as well as our staff (the details are outlined below).
For those patients who attend clinic, please know that we are implementing the strictest protocols around infection control through social distancing, PPE and general clinic hygiene.
We will also be resuming our home visit service from next week (Monday, May 25th) so please call us if you would like to arrange a home visit.
Social distancing and PPE
Please do not come into the building before your appointment time, unless you need to use the bathroom. Please wait in the courtyard outside our clinic instead.
If you are travelling to our clinic by car, please wait in your car and your physio will come out to meet you at the entrance to the clinic.
If you are cycling or walking, please wait in the courtyard garden, at least two meters from any other patient.
Our treatment rooms are much larger than most other clinics, so we are able to remain a safe distance from you during the initial part of your consultation. If hands-on treatment is required and it is not possible to maintain social distancing, then your physio will use a face mask and gloves.
To safeguard our staff, we are asking everyone to wear a facemask or face covering to appointments. If you do not have one, we can supply you with a disposable mask (there will be a small charge of £1.00 for this).
Clinic hygiene and cleaning
We will ask you to use antibacterial gel on your hands at the beginning and end of your appointments.
We will be cleaning the treatment rooms with 70% alcohol and disinfectant for 15 minutes between each and every appointment, along with heavy traffic areas such as door handles, rails and the bathroom. Windows will also be opened between appointments to encourage ventilation.
Payments methods
We will not be able to accept cash payments.
Video Physiotherapy consultations
We will continue to be able to offer you physiotherapy treatment remotely by video consultation if you are shielding or self-isolating.
Please get in touch if you have any questions at all, we're very happy to help in any way.
The Physiofit Team
How to run pain free - Couch to 5K
Running is a great form of exercise. It’s free, requires a relatively low level of skill, it improves your cardiovascular fitness and it’s good for your mental health.
Couch-to-5K type running programmes are brilliant motivators but I do find that they increase a bit rapidly for some people and don’t always give enough time for your muscles, tendons and ligaments to adapt before you are encouraged to move onto the next stage in the programme. This has the potential to overload these soft tissues causing pain and putting a dent in your confidence.
So if you are a complete beginner starting one of these programmes, my advice would be to pause at the end of every second week and repeat it, before moving on. For example:
Week 1:
Alternate 60 secs of running with 90 seconds of walking for 20 minutes
Week 2:
Alternate 90 seconds of running with 2 minutes of walking, for 20 minutes
Week 3:
Alternate 90 seconds of running with 2 minutes of walking, for 20 minutes
Week 4:
90 seconds running, 90 seconds walking, 3 minutes running, 3 minutes walking (repeat twice)
Week 5:
3 minutes of running, 90 seconds walking, 5 minutes running, 2 ½ minutes walking, 3 minutes running, 90 seconds walking, 5 minutes running.
Week 6:
3 minutes of running, 90 seconds walking, 5 minutes running, 2 ½ minutes walking, 3 minutes running, 90 seconds walking, 5 minutes running.
And so on.
Warming up properly will also reduce your chances of injury. The ‘brisk 5 minute walk’ programmes like this often recommend will raise your body temperature but a few carefully chosen exercises to mobilise your ankle joints and activate the muscles which will promote an efficient and coordinated running pattern will be more effective. Try this short programme of exercises which can be used to build strength and control around your knee joints but would also be a great warm-up routine for runners:
Finally, if you do experience any aches and pains during or after a run and they don’t settle within 3 to 5 days, you don’t necessarily have to abandon your running completely. If your symptoms are mild, there’s no swelling and you can walk and move normally, then try stepping back to one or two weeks in the programme and try again. If everything goes well and there is no significant increase in your symptoms, then stick at this level in the programme until you are running pain-free again before moving forward a week.
If you think we can help you, please get in touch.
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Physiotherapy for headaches
Having a headache is very common, in fact around 50% of adults suffer from significant headaches more than once per month.
However, this doesn’t make it normal and if your headache is triggered by your neck (cervicogenic) then effective treatment with an experienced physiotherapist is available.
Cervicogenic headache symptoms
If your headache is caused primarily by your neck you may experience some of the following symptoms:
- Neck pain which builds into a headache.
- Headache is affected by posture or specific physical activities
- Headache that increases with neck movement
- A restriction in the movement in your neck
The location or pattern of pain may be variable but it’s common to experience pain at the base of your skull which travels up and over your head, pain in your forehead or temples or behind your eyes.
Cervicogenic headaches are often on one side of your head but can spread to both sides or alternate from one side to the other. Some people will also experience some dizziness, changes in vision, nausea and ringing in ears
Self help, treatment and exercises for cervicogenic headaches
Heat pack – placing a hot water bottle or wheat bag round your neck and shoulders will help to relax muscle tension.
Massage ball neck release – sellotape two tennis balls together and lie on your back with the balls positioned at the base of your skull. Use a towel to stop them from moving around and gentle rest the weight of your head on the balls so they apply pressure to any painful spots at the base of your skull:
Chest stretch - stand in a doorframe and place your forearms on the frame, just below shoulder height. Lean into the doorway to stretch your chest muscles. Hold for 30 seconds and repeat 2-3 times.
Shoulder shrugs – Face a wall and place the side of your hands on the wall (starting in the W position). Slide your hands up the wall (ending in the Y position). Shrug your shoulders up to your ears and lower them again. Repeat 10 times slowly
Posture – if you have a desk-based job check that your work station is set optimally for you and set a timer to remind you to get up and move around regularly throughout the day. Keep your neck gently on the move in all directions, little and often.
Precautions
If your headaches started recently or there has been a significant change in your usual headache symptoms, please consult your GP before starting any treatment programme.
And don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions,
The Physiofit Team