Osteopathy & Work related injuries

Lower back pain? Mid back pain? Neck pain or headaches? You name it and most people working at a desk will have suffered with something over their working lifetime. And with such a large percentage of people working at desks for long hours nowadays, its no surprise we see a big portion of these people at the Chart Clinic complaining of numerous aches and pains.

It’s because of this high volume that I have really started to enjoy treating and helping people with desk or posture related issues (working is usually bad enough without having to do it in pain!). 

As I mentioned previously, symptoms can crop up anywhere but spinal and shoulder/wrist problems are most common. Injuries to the spine and/or spinal muscles are most frequent mainly due to people’s poor desk posture; shoulders rolled forward, upper back slumped and neck pitched back. This position is not natural and is especially not going to be good for your body for 8+ hours a day! Humans didn’t evolve over thousands of years to sit at desks and work on computers, our bodies are designed for movement! So the best thing to do is take lots of regular ‘movement' breaks (every 30 minutes, if possible) or even work standing up for periods if your office environment allows it.

Another tip to prevent pain or fatigue is to ensure that your desk is ergonomically set up, i.e. your screen/desk is at the correct height, your chair has the correct amount of support and that you aren’t particularly rotated one way or another. If your desk set up isn’t ideal, speak to your management or HR department and ask them about an ergonomic assessment, it could save you and them hours of trouble!

The other key area for overuse is the wrist and/or shoulders, again mainly brought about by poor desk set up. If your mouse or keyboard are even just slightly too far away this can lead to a build up of stress over time which in turn can develop into a chronic injury. You can even get specialist wrist protectors to stop things such as RSI developing, and again ask your company about these if you do already get symptoms into your fingers, wrists, arms or shoulders.

Even when you try to do your absolute best at work in terms of keeping your posture correct and taking regular breaks, the body does sometimes still need a bit of external help and this is where we come in. A few osteopathic treatments in quick succession with a tailor made stretching programme should help get things moving and substantially decrease the pain. Then followed up with ongoing ‘maintenance’ treatment every 4-8 weeks is always advisable to keep things nice and flexible and allow your body to be able to cope with the physical stresses and pressures of being sat at a desk for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week!

So don’t just accept your aches and pains, come and get them sorted at The Chart Clinic so you can get through your work day pain free and actually enjoy it (perhaps that might be pushing it!)