S E20: Ep 20 – A thank you to the team and some of the best bits so far

Hello and welcome to the Pain Free Living podcast with me, your host, Bob Allen.

You may notice slight changing surroundings and thinking, why is that then, Bob?

And the reason for the slight changing surroundings is because we are at episode 20 of the podcast.

Yay.

Which means that somehow there have been enough people to watch the old podcasts to get us to episode 20 and the numbers are growing.

So thank you if this is your 20th podcast that you've watched or listened to, and thank you if this is your first or second podcast that you've watched or listened to, because I really appreciate you taking the time out of your doubtless busy day to listen to a podcast about some bloke talking about Pain Free Living, which is what I am all about.

Reason for the slight difference in surroundings is because this is episode 20 and I wanted to make it a little bit different, a little bit more personal.

What I've done.

We've put together some clips from some of those popular podcasts from the past.

So this is the first one you can get, get a feel for what you've let yourself in for.

And if this is your 20th one, hey, you know what you get, you know what you're getting.

So, yeah, before we go into the clips, I just thought I would take a few moments to say a huge thank you to the team that helps me to put the podcast together and makes it such a slick and professional show.

So first and foremost, I'd like to thank Ashley McKenzie.

He is a Northampton based, I want to use the word entrepreneur, even though I know he probably wouldn't like it.

But yeah, he's based in Northampton, he runs a production studio and podcasts are one of the many, many things that he does.

He is also really into his music, runs a sound system.

He runs a local restaurant, local Caribbean restaurant, which is pretty, pretty damned awesome.

If you're in Northampton, check it out.

It's worth a while.

It's worth a visit.

Ashley does many, many, many things.

He used to run his own podcast a while back and that's one of the reasons, one of the things that's inspired me to actually do this one.

So, yeah, massive thank you to Ashley.

Couldn't have done this without you, my friend.

Next on the list is a lovely lady called Jennifer Herbert.

She is my virtual assistant.

She does all the social media stuff that goes out on LinkedIn, on Instagram, on Facebook, and she's been pivotal in helping me to get the podcast out there and let people know that it's happening.

So massive thank you to Jen.

Really appreciate what she does.

And finally, we've got my co host, Louise Gordon.

If you've seen some of the earlier episodes up to episode 10, Louise has been my co host.

She asked me the question.

She's kind of like the voice of the public.

So she asked me questions and then I answer them.

Because if it was just me, I would tend to ramble and waffle quite a lot and disappear down a few rabbit holes.

So she kept me on track.

Unfortunately, Louise had to leave the show around episode 10 because she, as well as being my co host, she also runs her own business.

And her business, she was a business coach and consultant and her business was like going through the roof and she was getting really, really busy and so she couldn't split the time between that and turning up for the podcast.

Unfortunately, my loss.

The business world's gain.

So thanks ever so much, Louise, for all the time and effort you put in.

And this is just to let you know that I really appreciate you.

So those three people I've just mentioned, if you check out the show notes, you'll find their contact details.

So if you're looking for a va, Jennifer Herbert is the lady to speak to.

If you're looking for somebody who can pretty much turn his hand to anything in terms of video, music, production, all those kinds of things, Ashley McKenzie is your man.

If you are running a business, you need some help and support.

Louise Gordon is our lady to speak to.

And like I said, I'll put all those details in the show notes.

So this episode is all about.

Oh, sorry, this episode.

This is all about some of the episodes that we've done in the past that have been really popular so you can get a feel for the sort of things that are going to be coming.

The last few episodes have been solo ones from me and Starting with episode 21, I have got a new co host.

I won't say who it is.

A little bit of a teaser there, but the first episode of the new season, episode 21 is going to be me interviewing my new co host.

So you'll get a feel for who she is.

I know, let's slip her agenda there.

So you'll get a feel for who she is, what she does, and have an idea of what she's going to bring to the party.

We've got lots of interesting topics coming up.

The use of AI in healthcare, which is a real hot topic at the moment.

We're going to be covering things like the placebo effect, what it is, how it works, the some potential issues with the placebo and then we're going to talk about the nocebo effect, we're going to talk about breathing.

There's lots and lots of things to come, so please tune in.

Things are going to get better, much more interesting and hopefully we'll see you at the next episode.

In the meantime, here's some of the ones that have been very popular in the past and hopefully will continue to be popular.

If you like the podcast, please tell your friends.

If you don't like the podcast, don't tell your friends.

But, yeah, thanks for getting the podcast where it is today, episode 20.

I hope you enjoy the clips.

Yeah, I'll see you on the next one.

Bye for now.

What is it that got you into osteopathy?

There's a question.

So, way back when, a family member had some muscle and joint problems.

They'd gone through the NHS and hadn't had great results.

I was chatting about that to a friend and they suggested taking them to an osteopath.

I'd never heard of osteopathy, didn't have a clue.

So took them along to an osteopath and they were treated and things improved.

Really fascinated me.

Never seen one in action, didn't really know what they were going to do and there's lots of muscle and joint movements.

I asked lots of questions and it just triggered something somewhere and I thought, this is really interesting.

So I then went back to see the osteopath a couple of times without my family member and, yeah, just kind of got drawn into it.

The job that I was doing at the time had stopped being fun and I was looking for something else.

And then I thought, oh, no, I could do this osteopathy thing.

So that's what I did.

Wow.

And no looking back, lots of looking.

Back and thinking, oh, my God, I didn't realize how hard it was going to be.

But actually, yeah, it's all been worth it.

And it's a massive change from what you did before as well, isn't it?

It is, it is, yeah.

20 years of computers, that's what I do.

So, yeah, time for a change.

So, Bob, what is the difference then between an osteopathic chiropractor and a physiotherapist?

Louise, I knew you were going to ask me that.

Instinct, I think.

Where to begin?

To start with, they're all protected titles.

To allow yourself to be called an osteopath, physiotherapist or chiropractor, you have to have completed a certain number of years of training.

We are all regulated by different authorities.

So for an osteopath it's the general osteopathic council, for chiropractors it's a general chiropractic council and for physiotherapists it's the hcpc and I can't remember what that stands for, but yes.

So we will have regulatory bodies and if you have any concerns about the qualifications for the therapist you're going to see, you can look them up and it will have all their details, when they graduated, etc.

Etc.

In terms of qualifications, we're all highly qualified.

The main difference between osteopaths, chiropractors and physiotherapists, I can speak from an osteopathic experience because that's what I did.

So the degree course was four years full time or five years part time, which is the version that I did.

So that's all part of the training that we do.

For chiropractors it's something similar.

Again, it's a four or five year qualification period and I can't really speak for what's involved in the course because I'm not one, but you know, they cover the similar sort of things to what we do.

Physiotherapy.

They do between three and four years on their degree course and yet again they're fully regulated.

Again, I can't really talk about what they do because I don't know, but you know, it's very exercise based.

What's the difference in terms of the approaches of them?

The approach is actually very similar, but in terms of what we're taught, that's very different.

So as an osteopath we get taught to look at all of the body systems.

We take a detailed case history, which all therapists do, but we are taught to look quite holistically at the body.

So we will look at all the different systems, we will look at muscles and joints.

Although I think holistic is an overused term, it's very applicable to osteopaths because that is what we do.

Chiropractors are trained and taught with a slightly different philosophy.

So for a chiropractor, because the body is pretty much controlled by the nervous system, nerves go to the, to the organs, to the muscles, they send information back to the brain.

The theory behind chiropractic is that as long as the nervous system is working and functioning correctly, then the body will function correctly.

So they are very specific about working with the spine and the nerves coming into and out of the spine, just in case there may be some nerve compression, some restriction in joints, which can potentially affect how the body works and moves.

So that's the chiropractic side of things.

And for physiotherapists, physiotherapy is very much exercise based and exercise and rehab, rehabilitation techniques based.

So it's more focused on actually using exercise as an aid to recovery.

Is there one approach that is better than the others?

Osteopathy, obviously.

But taking my osteopath's hat off, I would say that no, there's no one best approach because different things work for different people, which is why acupuncture can work for some people.

Crystal healing works for some people.

Angel therapy works for some people.

So all of the different things have benefits.

So it doesn't really matter what somebody practices.

The thing about osteopathy, chiropractic and physiotherapy is that they are all regulated.

You know, there are certain standards that we have to adhere to.

So we have to do 30 hours of CPD every year.

And there are other things that we have to comply with.

We have a regulatory body that will make sure we are maintaining that certain standard.

So that's one of the key things about what we practice.

But as long as we adhere to that, there is no one best approach.

So it's very much down to the practitioner.

Today, Bob, we are talking about kinesiophobia.

I hadn't heard of the term kinesiophobia before, but I can identify with kinesiophobia.

So, Bob, what is kinesiophobia?

So, Louise, kinesophobia, as its name suggests, is fear of movement.

And if you don't know Latin, you probably wouldn't know that.

But yes, kinesophobia is fear of movement.

And it's not a term that's commonly used, but for anyone that's had pain for any length of time, once we get into it a little bit, they will totally relate to what it's all about.

So, yeah, like it says on the tin, it is a fear of movement.

So tell us a bit more then about this fear of movement.

I see it a lot with people that have had back pain, but it's any kind of long standing pain that you may have, it's a body trying to protect itself.

And I guess then a lot of people must, I'm assuming, must have kinesiophobia.

I know having had an injury, you naturally Avoid doing anything to put extra strain, stress on an injury.

And, you know, sometimes injuries take quite a while to heal.

Yep.

And then you find that you actually are getting aches and pain somewhere else as a result, because you're maybe walking slightly different or.

And I do totally understand about the back pain that you really don't want to.

You really don't want to have that anymore.

So you will avoid doing things if you don't want to aggravate it.

Absolutely.

And you can see it with sport.

Well, yeah, sports people.

So when a sportsman has an injury, they'll have a hamstring tear or something like that.

The advantage that they've got is a professional team with infinite amounts of money to give them massages, physio, they'll have sports psychologists, all to help them overcome that fear of pain or a pain problem.

Unfortunately, the average person in the street does not have that behind them.

So they will then modify their movement to avoid the pain and then that becomes a habit.

Because the brain is very, very good at developing habits.

The brain doesn't know whether a habit is good or bad.

It just knows that by developing that habit we don't have to think about it and it becomes automatic.

So the classic with low back pain is that it can last a while.

So you learn how to not bend the lower portion of your back.

What this can result in is that you've got compensations going on which can then lead to recurring back pain.

And I see it quite often where people will have low back pain once, twice, two, three, four times a year, because what happens is they get into a routine of something and then the back decides one day that we're done and it can cause them excruciating back pain.

For a while, they'll change their habits, but as the pain reduces, they'll go back to the old habits that cause a problem and it happens again.

So what I have to do is to teach them how to use their back properly and then the problem becomes no problem.

Right.

So, yeah, it is possible to unlearn kinesophobia, but it can take some support from people that know what they're doing to help you through that process.

I'm a big fan of exercise, but I'm a big fan of exercise that everyone can do rather than just a few.

So, Bob, you know your mantra we've talked about a number of times is movement is medicine.

And I guess, you know, there can be some limitations as and when we get older.

So let's just talk through that in terms of how you see exercise for older adults.

Okay, let's do that.

Right.

So when you graduate as a physical therapist, osteopath, chiropractor, whatever it is, you tend to specialise in different areas.

So for me, having two parents that are quite old, working with older adults generally is a bit of a passion of mine, because I think they're an underserved, fairly substantial minority of the population.

We're all getting older.

And the message is, and the view generally is that as you get older, pain, lack of movement, a list of medications, as long as you're.

Et cetera, et cetera, are standard and only to be expected, because what do you expect?

You're old.

And one of the big things for me about exercise is that it needs to be progressive, so you can start really, really simple and you can make it much more challenging rather than complicated, because never make it complicated.

If you make it complicated, people won't do it, or if you make it too complicated, people may start and they will stop.

So keep it simple.

I, a trained Otago instructor, I ran a class for just over a year and it's really exciting to see the change that you can make, particularly for older adults who have never exercised.

They are in pain and they don't know what to do.

So they've been going to see the GP for a while.

And although the NHS is getting better at recognizing that the more exercise you do, the less issues that you have, it's getting better, but it's nowhere near the level it should be.

Now, a broken hip can have a fatality rate of up to 21% because it's a major injury.

Rehabbing an injury in an older adult who can also be quite frail, especially if they've not exercised before, it can be quite traumatic and the fatality rate is quite high.

Now, by implementing an exercise program like Otago, it significantly reduces the risk of injury, and if an injury occurs, they will recover quicker.

So there are a lot of pluses to doing it.

And one of the things that you have to do if you're in a Tago instructor is you're only allowed to charge a certain amount for it.

So the.

With the aim being to make it as accessible as possible to the maximum number of people.

So, as I was saying, it's a strength and balance program and it really is simple to do.

Actually, I've given some of these exercises to younger adults in their 40s and their 50s.

They've never done any exercise.

They don't know where to start.

They have zero level of fitness, but they can still do the Otago exercise if you can do the oldest lady in the and my otago class was 99 so if a 99 year old can do it then if you're in your 40s there's no reason why you can't do it as well and it can be just as effective and what I found is that by giving people those nice simple exercises to do they realize that they can exercise it's not a major issue to exercise and as long as they're consistent and they stick with doing the exercises and after a while I then progress them onto more complex strong yeah more complex more resistance based exercise because they can do it because they, they know they can do it they've got the confidence that they can do it they may not want to go to a gym but most of the exercises I give are things that I can do at home anyway requiring minimal equipment so yeah Otago is basically for anyone at any age right.