The Back Pain Clinic

An explanation for your pain.

Whats happening to me?

Ok here’s the deal you bent over to pick up one of your shoes and whammo, you felt something give, pain shot through your body and you found it very hard to straighten up, oh my god whats happening to me?, will I ever walk normally again? and what about the gym or playing footy with the kid?. These are all things that race through your mind when your back muscles go into spasm.

You struggle into the car and down to the Doctor, you’re sitting in the waiting room looking around at all the doom and gloom posters on the wall, rheumatoid arthritis, type 2 diabetes, parkinsons disease, dementia and even STD’s are displayed with all their ominous warnings and treatments. By the time you get into your consultation you’re convinced that your life is on a fastrack downward spiral and then the doctor starts his spiel “Ahhhhh, you’re in your thirties, you’re getting on a bit, it’s around this time that your body starts breaking down” and sends you off for all the obligatory scans and prescribes a course of anti-inflammatories.

Xrays, CT scans and if your’e really lucky an MRI, days off work, voltaren, panadol, you can’t sleep because of the pain and discomfort, it’s too painful to even get in the bath. it’s around this time that you start feeling a little bit despondent even depressed, stuck in front of the TV feeling helpless, eating potato chips, lollies and biscuits, replacing life giving water with fizzy soft drinks, caffeine and chemical filled diet drinks, comfort food that makes you feel a little bit better but really does nothing to help your condition. sugar is a poison to your body filling it up with toxins that makes your muscles tighter, more constricted and unable to get all the proper blood flow and nutrients they need to function, combine this with lack of movement and it’s a wonder you can even muster up the strength to get up and go to the toilet.

Next few days back to the doctors for the results and that’s where the next phase starts, you see doctors have to put a name to everything, its a disease, condition or a syndrome, nothing is easy, they bamboozle you with names like degenerative disk disease, prolapsed or sequestered disk, ligament dysfunction, facet syndrome, facet joint disease, spurring, arthritis, spinal stenosis, nerve impingement syndrome. sciatica, piriformis syndrome the list goes on and on and now the medical merry-go round starts.

First of all it’s off to the physio who will give it some ultrasound or electronic therapy for 10mins, prescribe some stretching exercises and then tell you it wont get any better without pilates, which surprisingly they do right there at their clinic, just hand over the cash and we’ll get you right.

Six weeks later the pain and discomfort has backed off considerably and you can now stop your twice weekly physio appointments, your core feels a little stronger but somethings still not right, you still feel tender and afraid to do anything that might aggravate your once indestructible body. You convey this fear to your doctor and he suggests you go back to the gym telling you that weights will strengthen you and your body and will also get rid of some of that weight you have put on over the last few months. So you go back to the gym and the young newly qualified gym instructor gives you a program of the same old isolation machine exercises that helped unbalance your body in the first place. Before you know it you’re back to square one, can’t sleep, can’t get comfortable and in constant pain.

A friend suggests the chiropractor they know, another an osteopath that they saw, then an acupuncturist that helped someone else with a skin problem. Three months later and hundreds of dollars out of pocket and nothing has changed so it’s back to the doctor and he refers you to the orthopedic surgeon who wants to operate. Sound familiar?

Stop right there!!!!

Numerous studies have show that a very high percentage of people with back pain have nothing more than tight unbalanced (contracted) muscles, connective tissue and a rotated or twisted pelvis.

That’s right a simple “Muscle and Connective Tissue Imbalance” and “Pelvis Rotation”

This muscle, connective tissue imbalance and pelvic dysfunction can be the cause of any number of postural pain dysfunctions and syndromes.

When these tight muscles and pelvic dysfunctions are left untreated these imbalances can and do lead to “degenerative spinal conditions”  These tight unbalanced muscles unevenly exert pressure on the spine’s joints, ligaments, tendons and discs.

These same tight muscles force neighboring vertebrae together closely enough to cause pinched nerve roots which exit the spinal canal, causing pain and numbness in the extremities. They can also cause the vertebrae and pelvis to “twist” out of alignment. When the vertebrae are pulled closely together, discs between the vertebrae may get “squeezed” and eventually break down (bulge or rupture) from these long-term compressive pressures.

These powerful forces will also alter the movement of all the other joints in the body like hips, knees and ankles leading to further injuries and compensations that will eventually cause these joints to break down as well.

To make it really, really simple to understand:-

(a) The muscles on the right side of your body are the same as the muscles on the left side of your body and they have to be the same tension and length, if they are not you will have imbalance problems.

(b) The muscles on the back of your body although they are different to the muscles on the front of your body they still have to work together and have equal strength and tension if some are stronger than the other you will have imbalance problems.

This imbalance not only affects your back it will affect every joint in your body.

How to fix your pain.

Wayne Stafford has had a lifelong passion for boxing, martial arts and strength training. His early teenage years saw him and a mate sneaking off on their bikes after school (as their mothers did not approve) and heading off to a boxing gym several suburbs away. The knocks and bruises were explained away as wrestling injuries and bike falls.

This early experience and the “Bruce Lee Kung fu”phenomonon around the time led him into karate and the early days of kickboxing. From there it has been a continuing journey through the chinese, thai, russian and japanese martial arts (to this day he still trains 4 days a week) plus many years of strength training, bodybuilding, yoga practice and teaching. Wayne was also a long time Rugby Union player.

Along the journey to where he is today he has had careers in engineering, science, IT and teaching, finally finding his way to the health sciences and his love of all things anatomy. He realised that the solid grounding from his earlier careers made him more in tune to the body, it’s inner workings and the injuries it sustains through sport and life experience. (As he has experienced most of them along the way)

Wayne provides specialised Musculoskeletal Physical Therapy and Myotherapy treatments drawing on his many years of training with such great and notable therapists such as Gary Ward and Chris Sritharan – Anatomy in Motion (Developed by Gary Ward), Carl Alexander – Proprioceptive – Deep Tendon Reflex P-DTR (Developed by Dr. Jose Palomar, Julie Ann Day, Dr. Carla Stecco and Dr. Luigi Stecco – Fascial Manipulation (Developed by Dr. Luigi Stecco), Dr. Kathy Dooley – Neurokinetic Therapy (Developed by David Weinstock), Dr. Kyle Kiesel – FMS and SFMA (Delevloped by Gray Cook and Lee Burton), Steve Lockhart – SLM Bodywork, Dr. James Murray and Jan Wanklyn – Active Release Technique (Developed by Dr. P. Michael Leahy), Dr. Paul Conneely – Advanced Musculoskeletal Training, Thomas Myers – Anatomy Trains, Lester Cox – Cox Tendon and Ligament Manipulation, Thomas Zudrell – Dorn Therapy, Paul Davies – Goltech and Charles and Vicki Tuchtan – Australian Institute.

Wayne believes that poor gait and movement patterns coupled with poor mobility and motor control will result in nerve entrapment, tight adherent muscles, tendons and fascia and is the cause of most pain and dis-ease states of the body.

Think about this, the effect of damaged or adherent muscles and fascia can be compared to a garden hose with a kink or bend in it. The normal flow of water is blocked and the garden is not watered sufficiently. When a similar disruption in muscle and soft tissue occurs, the normal functions of the circulatory, nervous, endocrine and lymphatic systems are diminished or blocked and the tissues and organs nourished by these systems are not properly fed.

Wayne’s specialised treatment essentially “balances” the body by increasing mobility, correcting movement patterns, resetting muscles to the correct length and tension through the nervous system, releasing tight adhered fascia and putting tendons, ligaments and joints back where they should be which in turns reduces pain, improves movement patterns, enhances mobility and restores the natural flow of blood and lymphatic fluid.

Then your body is strengthened and lengthened so that all correct movement patterns are re-programmed and remembered.

If you are in pain and would like a treatment, feel free to contact us. We are waiting to help you and get your body moving again.

Wayne is often descibed as “the person who fixes the problems everyone else has given up on”

The Back Pain Clinic in Balwyn, Melbourne, VIC is listed under Massage, Physiotherapists Specialising in Aromatherapy Massage, Physiotherapy, Deep Tissue Massage.

Other services by The Back Pain Clinic are Facial Massage, Full Body Massage, Massage.

Call The Back Pain Clinic to receive more information about our services.

Services

Musculoskeletal Physical Therapy

Working with the skeletal, muscular and fascial systems of the body to release restrictions, restore mobility and ensure blood and lymphatic fluid flows freely and nourishes the tissues. Our treatment works on the principle that great movement is critical to pain free, unrestricted living. If the body is not optimally moving through both the gait cycle and day to day functional actions then joints and soft tissue will be compromised by an underworking and scrambled neurological system. Treatments such as Gait Analysis and Correction (with special attention to the joints of the feet), Osteopathic Techniques such as Muscle Energy Techniques, Strain-Counterstrain, Joint Manipulations\Mobilisations and Structual Integration Techniques are all utilised to follow our underlying principle of Mobility, Stability and Motor Control then Strength

Anatomy In Motion (AiM)

Anatomy in Motion (AiM) Gait Therapy is a cutting-edge method of correcting postural problems, relieving pain, helping with injury-repair/rehabilitation, reducing the likelihood of future injury and improving physical performance. It requires very little equipment and is based around very different principles to most exercise therapies. For starters, the importance of the feet and the hips are not overlooked. It can be incredibly effective, incredibly quickly. See our mentor Mr. Gary Ward in an appearance on BBC-One’s “Doctor in the House” and an introductory video to get you ready for treatment here “Anatomy in Motion Movement Exploration”

Proprioceptive – Deep Tendon Reflex (P-DTR)

P-DTR addresses musculoskeletal problems by focusing on an important, but largely overlooked apparatus of the human body: the mechanoreceptor system. Think of the receptor system as “software” and bone, muscle, ligament and tendon as “hardware.” As with computers, hardware problems are best addressed at the level of the hardware, but when the problem is at the level of the software, no amount of work on the hardware can fix the problem. Most everyone knows that muscles move the body and the brain moves the muscles. Fewer are familiar with the simple fact that it’s the mechanoreceptor system (software) that provides the brain with the information it needs to tense and release muscles as needed for good functioning and pain-free living. Without accurate “uncorrupted” information from the mechanoreceptor system, the brain-muscle connection cannot function optimally. Breakdowns in this communication can result in chronically weak or chronically tensed muscles showing up as pain and/or difficulty with movement.

Neurokinetic Therapy

NeuroKinetic Therapy is a sophisticated assessment and treatment modality that addresses the causes of dysfunctional movement/coordination problems at their root in the motor control center in the cerebellum. The motor control center stores these patterns and directs their completion through the spinal cord and the muscles.

Functional Movement Screen (FMS) & Selective Funtional Movement Assessment (SFMA)

Put simply, the FMS is a ranking and grading system that documents movement patterns that are key to normal function. By screening these patterns, the FMS readily identifies functional limitations and asymmetries. These are issues that can reduce the effects of functional training and physical conditioning and distort body awareness.

The FMS generates the Funtional Movement Screen Score, which is used to target problems and track progress. This scoring system is directly linked to the most beneficial corrective exercises to restore mechanically sound movement patterns. Exercise professionals monitor the FMS score to track progress and to identify those exercises that will be most effective to restore proper movement and buils strength in each individual.

The SFMA is a movement based diagnostic system, designed to clinically assess 7 fundamental movement patterns in those with known musculoskeletal pain. The assessment provides an efficient method to systematically find the cause of symptoms, not just the source, by logically breaking down dysfunctional patterns and diagnosing their root cause as either a mobility problem or a stability\motor control problem.

This systematic process allows clinicians to clearly match their intervention to the main problem of the patient. This model efficiently integrates the conceopts of altered motor control, the neurodevelopmental perspective and regional interdepenance into musculoskeletal practice

Fascial Manipulation

Fascial Manipulation© is a manual therapy that has been developed by Luigi Stecco, an Italian physiotherapist from the north of Italy. This method has evolved over the last 35 years through study and practice in the treatment of a vast caseload of musculoskeletal problems. It focuses on the fascia, in particular the deep muscular fascia, including the epimysium and the retinacula and considers that the myofascial system is a three-dimensional continuum. This technique is highly effective in the managment of pain and dysfunction and presents a complete biomechanical model that assists in deciphering the role of fascia in musculoskeletal disorders.

Active Release Technique

ART is a patented, state of the art soft tissue system/movement based technique developed by Dr. P. Michael Leahy that treats problems with muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia and nerves. Active Release Technique is known throughout the world as “The Gold Standard in Soft Tissue Therapy”

Myotherapy

Balancing the muscular system so that all the muscles of the body are the right length & tension when they are at rest & when they are working. Treatments include SLM Myotherapy, Trigger Point Therapy, Myofascial Release, Scar Tissue Treatment with Laser Acupuncture and Myofascial Dry Needling.

Tendon and Ligament Manipulation

Putting tendons and ligaments back in place so they funtion optimally and without restriction.

Nutritional Advice and Specialised Rehabilitation Exercise Prescription

A realistic and honest approach to nutrition that cuts out all the lies & mistruths about what we put into our bodies. We also rebuild a new you with clinical yoga, foundation training, kettlebell and bodyweight strength exercises.