It was quite an alarming series of headlines last week as news broke of a large scale analysis of the risks associated with the use of common over the counter anti-inflammatory medications. “Common painkillers linked to heart disease” reported The Australian, along with “The findings confirm that drugs such as Nurofen and Voltaren can significantly increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.”
Previous studies have examined these medications mostly on an individual basis, but this study tried to compare their relative risks, in short it asked the question “which NSAID is …

I had to come up with something to replace that ridiculous Tiramisu story, here are some of the stories I’ve been reading online (in the medical/health genre):
Headline: “Exercise can treat cardiovascular disease as well as prevent it”
Story: A number of studies have recently found that as well as being good for preventing the possible onset of heart disease, people who have coronary artery disease can reduce the risk of having a heart attack, and/or the severity of their heart disease.
One author concluded: “”I would be happy if I could convince …

If you’ve read more than one or two of my posts then you’ve probably noticed certain subjects seem to come up repeatedly, and the benefits of a good night’s sleep would be one of them. Kind of contradicts all the posts I do about having coffee now that I think about it….
This article looks at the relationship between poor sleep and mental illness – in a nutshell the relationship is that people with mental illness are poor sleepers. It has been thought that the poor sleep is due to the …

I recently read a review of “the adverse events” associated with manual therapy. That is to say, the bad things that can happen when you get a hands on treatment. An adverse event included both ‘minor’ events like feeling sore after a treatment, as well as ‘major’ side effects like nerve injury, paralysis, and stroke. I have listed the definitions at the bottom of this page.
Here is a summary of the data they collected:

The risk for adverse events after manual therapy were about the same as for doing exercise,
The risk …

A couple of articles have surfaced recently which raise more questions on the usefulness of medical scans. Now, don’t get me wrong, they are useful. What we’re talking about here is whether they are used too often (knowing the radiation risk), and whether the findings on scans are as important as they’re made out to be.
I’ve written on this before when I talked about
A couple of articles have surfaced recently which raise more questions on the usefulness of medical scans. Now, don’t get me wrong, they are useful. What we’re …

We’ve all wondered what, if any effect they have on kids backs. Now a new study has shown the level of compression kids experience when carrying a heavy backpack.
Let’s start by pointing out that this study was only done on 8 children, so we should be careful about generalising these results to everyone. But from what I read in the study, they were 8 normal enough kids, average age 11, average weight 40kg. The researchers did an MRI image of their lower back before they were carrying anything, then gave …

Breaking News – Meditation is good for you. Well, that statement is not that revolutionary really, there’s been plenty on this before, but this latest research helps us understand HOW it works.
The Australian of a new study which found that “Zen meditation helps lower sensitivity to pain by thickening a part of the brain that regulates emotion and painful sensations“. The researchers measured the thickness of grey matter of meditators compared to people who don’t meditate and found the meditators had increased thickness in areas related to pain sensitivity. The …

This is not a sponsored link, I just really like this site. badbacks.com.au offers a wide range of back pain related products:
Pillows/Beds
Computer Workstation/Ergonomic Equipment
Braces/Straps/Supports
Hot and Cold Therapy (Ice Packs/Wheat Bags etc)
Inversion Beds
Sports (Taping, Gels)
Rehab Equipment
There is a store in Alexandria you can go to if you want to check out or try any of the products.

I’ve been wanting to write something on Platelet Rich Plasma Injections for Tendon Injuries for a while now. I first heard about it when a lady I treat came in after having had it done for a Tennis Elbow. She said it certainly increased her pain, quite dramatically. In her words, it was the worst thing she had ever done. She certainly would not recommend it to anyone, but I didn’t really have any other information on it and so I started to look and ask around.
These injections are relatively …

Following on from previous articles where we looked at ability to perform normal everyday functions as being an important predictor of having a fall for older people, new research has shown the amount of pain someone is in will also be a key predictor. Which makes sense when you think about it – if you’re in pain, you’re probably not going to be walking properly, you might have a limp, favour one side, and thus be a bit off balance.
Basically what they found was that the more sites of pain …