Entries by Timothy King

MADAGASCAR

  Off the east coast of Africa, Madagascar is home to about 20 million people. Madagascar is nothing like the movie! The beautiful forest that you see in the movie now only covers a very small percentage of the south of the country because most of it has been cleared for farming. Due to plenty […]

MAURITIUS

Mauritius is a tiny and beautiful island off the east coast of Africa. Only 40 by 70 kilometres in size, it inhabits approximately one million people.   The predominant languages are English, French and Creole. Mauritius is not described as a Third World nation, nor a developed country, but a developing country. Although Mauritius is considered […]

Guiding Principle III: Discussion and rationale

This article discusses what may be happening in the myofascial system when cross-fibre manipulation is applied.  Cross-fibre manipulation. I explained in part 1 that this manipulation involves ‘locking’ your thumb or fingers onto the skin and firmly and slowly gliding across the perpendicular fibres of the muscle beneath. In my opinion what you are really ‘affecting’ is […]

Scoliosis explained

I have patients often explain to me that they were told they have a scoliosis but they feel fine, whilst another will tell me that their niece has a scoliosis and needs an operation! So are these the same thing? What is a scoliosis?

Lower back pain: rule of 10s

Lower back and sciatic leg pain are symptoms that I see every week. When the pain is arising from discs in the lower back, as it often is, then the first thing you need to be doing is avoiding activities that irritate the disc. The easiest way to encapsulate these principles is in a few […]

Guiding Principle II: Discussion and rationale

This article explores some observations and science that may support the idea that myofascial pain and the sensation of ‘stiffness’ are curiously connected.  My second guiding principle that I use every day in the assessment and treatment of chronic pain is the idea that myofascial referred pain patterns can present as ‘stiffness’. In other words, when […]

Sciatica: What is it?

As a patient said to me this week, ‘My mother-in-law called my back pain some old name … err … sciatica … that’s it.’ Patients regularly tell me they have sciatica. Sometimes they are correct and sometimes it is no such thing. So what is it?