Poor ergonomics causes a lot of musculoskeletal injuries like back pain, neck and shoulder pain, RSI, carpal tunnel syndrome, headaches and eye strain. It also causes people to fatigue quicker, makes them irritable and generally less productive. So how should your children they set up their desk, chair and computer?

The chair should be adjustable so their feet touch the floor (or a footrest) and they are at a good height relative to the desk. The desk should not be too high so they are reaching, or too low so they …

In last weeks post I talked about the 3 most common causes of back pain in schoolkids. First on the list was a heavy backpack, which is defined as a backpack weighing more than 10% of the child’s body weight. Previous studies using MRI scans have shown that when the weight of the backpack gets much above this, the discs start to become compressed, and the spine starts to curve, probably because the children were trying to find a comfortable position. The danger here is that in addition to the compression, …

Inspired by all those reality TV home renovation shows, we have decided to give the clinic a bit of a makeover! For a couple of weeks in late October we will be rolling up our sleeves and getting the grout out which means a few changes in working hours over that time.
Call us on the usual number – 9389 6344 to make appointments. We will be working from pretty much the same address in the clinic next door to us on level 8. You will be given directions when you …

A recent analysis of the impact of falls has revealed some pretty scary statistics. According to the review, 5% of people who break their hip in a fall die when in hospital, and 25% die within a year as a result of the disability it causes.
Further to this, more than 10% go on to be admitted to aged care facilities. And you don’t need to be old to suffer these effects; the study found that more than a third of people aged 50 never regain their full mobility. One quote …

The answer is probably yes! According to a recent article on the Sydney Morning Herald website, “Millions of Australians are taking too many painkillers”. And some of these medications have quite serious side effects. Here are a few key quotes from the article:

“taking higher doses of something like ibuprofen or aspirin, you’re at a higher risk of gastric bleeds, stomach ulcers and bad indigestion”
“Paracetamol is actually really toxic once you get to certain doses, affecting people’s livers in ways that are not easily reversible, and people can die.”
“Ibuprofen-codeine tablets, such as Nurofen …

A new study has looked at whether getting a steroid injection for osteoarthritis (OA) in the knee is beneficial. This is a reasonably common procedure for OA and is often used to see if surgery can be put off.
In the study, a group of people aged 45 and over were given injections every 3 months for 2 years. There were 2 groups; 1 was given a steroid, the other given a placebo. In the group given steroid injections, the researchers found that not only did it not help with pain, it …

Knee pain. It’s not fun. But around half of us will suffer from it at some point in our lifetime. 
Question is, could sugar be making a common problem much worse?
What usually causes knee pain?
There are lots of different structures that can cause pain in the knee area; tendons, ligaments, cartilage and bone. Usually, you have to suffer a proper trauma to damage anything; it takes a fair bit of force to break bones or rupture ligaments.
Another way to get knee pain is a gradual build up over time. Reports show around …

In this first article of a series on how sugar impacts your health, I’m going to start by looking at the role a high sugar diet plays in inflammation. I first developed an interest in this link when patients would mention in passing that they had noticed an improvement in their pain levels after doing a sugar detox. They were doing the sugar detox for other reasons, but found this added benefit occurred as well.
After hearing this a bunch of times, I started looking into it, and it didn’t take …

There are few things I enjoy more than meeting another Dr Google. And I must confess to getting amongst it myself from time to time, checking to see if that bruise on my toe could potentially be a rare form of untreatable cancer. Heck, the sooner I know, the sooner I can book my one way ticket to the bahamas!
The increase in information available on the net is proving to be a wonderful resource for a lot of people, but, and this might come as a shock to some of you, …

The New York Times posted a really interesting article this week (click here if you want to read it), about the effectiveness (or otherwise), of common surgical procedures. We kind of assume that a doctor won’t recommend surgery for us unless we really need it, and unless it’s going to fix us. After all, there are significant risks and costs involved in surgery, so there must be compelling reasons for them to recommend it, right? Turns out that may not be the case.
As they noted, surgery is not regulated in the …