Two reasons:

1. Normal muscle firing and strength protects bones, joints, tendons, ligaments and the muscles themselves from excessive strain and damage. With poor muscle control, even normal activity can lead to injury, pain and inflammation. Although the pain may subside with rest and treatment, such injuries tend to become chronic or recurrent, and may lead to arthritis if the cause of the weakness is not corrected.
2. Muscle weakness indicates a failure of healthy or normal proprioception. For normal proprioception to fail, there must be either too much input into the brain or too little. Too much input might come from foreign bodies like a gold crown rubbing the gum line of a tooth or a piercing through the navel fascia that fires off mechanical receptors during activity; too little could come from a joint fixation or a lack of exercise. For optimal function and great health, it is essential that proprioception works without interference.

Muscles are an important key to great health. Poor muscle tone causes poor posture, most musculoskeletal injury and many types of pain. It also has possible implications for chronic fatigue, tiredness, weight gain, osteoporosis, arthritis, headaches and high blood pressure.

That depends on what outcome measures you are using to define your success and what you are willing to do to achieve it. Our mission is to help everyone be totally pain-free, full of energy and immune from relapsing into their injured state no matter how stressful their environment. What are your goals?

We want to strengthen you to match your environment, not just modify your environment akin to wrapping you in cotton wool – even metaphorically speaking that’s unsustainable and impractical.

If you are totally committed to reaching your goal and therefore willing to do whatever it takes, our success rate is as high as the laws of physics will allow. With longstanding, complex and difficult to treat conditions, most people will be 80% better in 6 to 12 visits, but it takes effort and time on your behalf to get the extra 20%. You must be willing to look at every aspect of your body and your lifestyle, keep your appointments and commit to a healthy way of life. Giving up or being unwilling to change will definitely limit your chances of success.

Yes. Although, the standard qualifications needed to be a Chiropractor or Physiotherapist qualify the practitioner to be able to diagnose and manage musculoskeletal conditions of the pregnant female, in addition to this, both our Chiropractors and our Physiotherapist have undergone post-graduate training in this field as well.

If your pregnancy is complicated by certain medical disorders, for example, placenta previa, please ring through and chat to a practitioner for free so we can ascertain what relative contraindications there may be to certain treatments so that you are informed of what options are available to you before booking an appointment. Usually, there is always something that can be done to dramatically help with your discomfort. If driving is a risk, we still may be able to do a house call and give gentle hands-on work to release unhelpful tensions in the pelvis and associated musculature without any increased risk.

Yes, but only if the xray is clinically necessary. We take the decision to expose a patient to ionising radiation very seriously. To find out if this is the best way forward for your health we will need to clinically evaluate the situation and the need for an xray by conducting a consultation and physical exam. If we agree that an xray or another form of imaging is warranted we will arrange your imaging immediately. Once in receipt of the consultants report we will explain the findings in detail and what it means in the future management of your symptoms for you to decide how to best proceed.

• Cash
• Debit Cards
• Credit Cards (excluding American Express)
• Bank Transfer
• Payments over the phone by card
• Payment Plans and Accounts are available upon request

No, you do not need to contact your GP unless you wish to. However some insurance companies require a GP referral letter if you are seeking to claim the cost of your chiropractic or physiotherapy treatment from your insurance company.

Most private health insurance policies will cover chiropractic and physiotherapy treatment. Please contact your provider to pre-authorise your desired treatment prior to arriving for your first appointment. Active Health’s chiropractors and physiotherapists are registered with all major health insurance companies.

Chiropractors at Active Health are registered by the General Chiropractic Council, and insured through membership of the British Chiropractic Association. Physiotherapists here are insured through the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and are registered with the Health Profession Council. Personal trainers are registered with the Register of Exercise Professionals, and have individual indemnity insurance.

Your practitioner will need to have access to examine and treat the symptomatic area. Often they will need to examine and consider treatment of other body areas that mechanically relate to the problem area. For example, a painful knee, at the very least would need the foot and hip and lower back also examined. We therefore suggest that patients wear something that is thin and flexible and allows as much movement in as possible. We want you to be comfortable and confident as otherwise the examination can be misleading if the patient feels inhibited from moving freely. Many people are comfortable being examined in their underwear. For men, if you are not comfortable being examined and treated in the clothes you arrive in, we suggest you bring a small pair of jogging shorts or something similar to change into. As a general rule for women, a strap crop top and thin jogging shorts are usually ideal as well.

After the initial examination, on treatment visits usually only the body parts that need direct treatment need to be accessible, often this can be done through work clothes. Most of our patients need not change save for untucking a shirt or loosening a buckle or button here or there. However, sometimes there is no substitute for treating with hands on skin for contact as it always gives the practitioner the best feedback and greatest control over the treatment.

If you would feel more comfortable bringing a friend then please do, we want you to feel as comfortable as possible. Often a separate pair of ears can also help remember and discuss points of interest after your appointment that you may find of benefit.

Yes. However, as these usually require a considerable amount of time out of our daily clinic hours, this is a discretionary service and we usually charge a call out fee. For more information see our Fee pages for your chosen practitioner.

Yes, all the evidence is that chiropractic care, with its large range of conservative treatments is a safe and effective form of care for all ages from infants to 100+ years old. This is why it features in relevant European and National Institute of Clinical Excellence guidelines, as well as the Department of Health’s Musculoskeletal Services Framework. Any side effects of treatment are normally minor and don’t last very long. For example, some patients may temporarily feel more uncomfortable, stiff or tired for a day or so. On the other hand many patients feel more energetic.

This will depend on:

• Your particular condition
• How severe it is
• How long you have had the condition
• Your treatment response
• How much of your chiropractor’s advice you follow.
• Your age

Your chiropractor will explain this to you and design a treatment programme which best suits your needs. All current research states that chiropractic is exceptionally effective if the condition is treated within the first six weeks of the injury.

Two reasons:

1. Normal muscle tone protects bones, joints, tendons, ligaments and the muscles themselves from excessive strain and damage. With poor muscle tone, even normal activity can lead to injury, pain and inflammation. Although the pain may subside with rest and treatment, such injuries tend to become chronic or recurrent, and may lead to arthritis if the cause of the weakness is not corrected.
2. Muscle weakness indicates a failure of normal proprioception. For normal proprioception to fail, there must be either too much input into the brain or too little. Too much input might come from foreign bodies like a gold crown on a tooth or a piercing through the navel; too little could come from a joint fixation or a lack of exercise. For optimal function and great health, it is essential that proprioception works without interference.

Muscles hold the key to great health. Poor muscle tone causes poor posture, most musculoskeletal injury and many types of pain. It also has possible implications for chronic fatigue, tiredness, weight gain, osteoporosis, arthritis, allergies, headaches and high blood pressure.

That depends on what you mean by success and what you are willing to do to achieve it. Our mission is to help everyone be totally pain-free, full of energy and immune from relapsing into their injured state no matter how stressful there environment. We want to strengthen you to match your environment, not just modify your environment to wrap you in cotton wool. What are your goals? If you are committed to reaching your goal and are willing to do whatever it takes, our success rate is as high as the laws of physics will allow. With long standing difficult conditions, most people will be 80% better in 6 to 12 visits, but it takes effort and time on your behalf to get the extra 20%. You must be willing to look at every aspect of your body and your lifestyle, keep your appointments and commit to a healthy way of life. Giving up or being unwilling to change will definitely limit your chances of success.

No, you do not need to contact your GP unless you wish to. However some insurance companies require a GP referral letter if you are seeking to claim the cost of your chiropractic or physiotherapy treatment from your insurance company.

Most private health insurance policies will cover chiropractic and physiotherapy treatment. Check with your provider. Active Health’s chiropractors and physiotherapists are registered with all Major Health Insurance companies.

Yes. Some people wrongfully assume Chiropractic Care is a technique of adjusting joints and not Care delivered by a regulated profession that scientifically selects the best hands-on, exercise or conservative management techniques that will help a patient. Whether joints are mobilised or not, does not constitute the delivery of chiropractic care to a patient. Chiropractors have the training to use many more techniques or ‘tools’ than just joint mobilisation to functionally improve a patient. Manipulation of a joint is just one of the tools Chiropractors are trained in using – at Active Health our Chiropractor knows well that not all jobs need just one tool.

Treatment is always specifically tailored to the individual patient. Age is one way patients can vastly differ, we manage neuromusculoskeletal dysfunctions in a baby or child very differently to that of a healthy adult. Likewise the very old suffer from very different problems, often complicated by a weakening of their bones and arthritic conditions as well as other health disorders, these require different treatments and management to restore function.

For example take heal pain; a 10-year-old with heal pain may need to avoid stress to the growth plate and need a management plan consisting of rest and then gentle ankle stabilising exercise, whereas the adult with heal pain often requires an exercise program of, at times potentially painful, increasing load-bearing exercise to stimulate healthy tissue formation and may benefit from Shockwave Treatment – this combination in the child would be contraindicated as it would likely injure the patient further!

Older patients, through chiropractic care, have reported improvement in arthritic symptoms and other chronic ailments often associated with the ageing process. Obviously, we cannot turn back the hands of time or change the shape of arthritic joints but the stiffnesses and dysfunction that caused these issues can often be ameliorated and improvements can be made to how joints function and therefore how they feel.

Chiropractors are trained in neuromusculoskeletal sciences and then specialise in diagnosing neuromusculoskeletal disorders and conservatively managing them. Conservative in this regard means we do not surgically or pharmacologically intervene ourselves, but rather use manual “hands-on” treatments, self-movement/exercise prescription and lifestyle advice such as, but not limited to, ergonomic advice. By law Chiropractors continually have to undergo professional development year by year, so as the scientific evidence base grows and new research corrects or improves previous knowledge, Chiropractors are kept abreast of these advances and therefore can continue to provide the best hands-on techniques and exercise management strategies known to help.

Finally, regardless of the patient’s age, Chiropractors are trained to know the limits of their functional care and should you present with a disorder that following consultation and examination is outside their scope of care they are duty bound to refer the patient onto a more relevant specialist for care. In the elderly, this might be referring a severely arthritic hip that will not respond to conservative care for a surgical opinion. In any age group, if we feel the problem is beyond our area of expertise we will refer, in most cases this will be a letter to your GP to aid ongoing investigation or management.

Chiropractors at Active Health are registered by the General Chiropractic Council, and insured through membership of the British Chiropractic Association. Physiotherapists here are insured through the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and are registered with the Health Profession Council. Personal trainers are registered with the Register of Exercise Professionals, and have individual indemnity insurance.

This will depend on:

• Your particular condition
• How severe it is
• How long you have had the condition
• Your treatment response
• How much of your physiotherapist’s advice you follow.
• Your age

Your physiotherapist will explain this to you and design a treatment programme which best suits your needs. All current research states that physiotherapy is exceptionally effective if the condition is treated within the first six weeks of the injury.

Two reasons:

1. Normal muscle tone protects bones, joints, tendons, ligaments and the muscles themselves from excessive strain and damage. With poor muscle tone, even normal activity can lead to injury, pain and inflammation. Although the pain may subside with rest and treatment, such injuries tend to become chronic or recurrent, and may lead to arthritis if the cause of the weakness is not corrected.
2. Muscle weakness indicates a failure of normal proprioception. For normal proprioception to fail, there must be either too much input into the brain or too little. Too much input might come from foreign bodies like a gold crown on a tooth or a piercing through the navel; too little could come from a joint fixation or a lack of exercise. For optimal function and great health, it is essential that proprioception works without interference.

Muscles hold the key to great health. Poor muscle tone causes poor posture, most musculoskeletal injury and many types of pain. It also has possible implications for chronic fatigue, tiredness, weight gain, osteoporosis, arthritis, allergies, headaches and high blood pressure.

Physiotherapists at Active Health are insured through the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and are registered with the Health Profession Council. Chiropractors here are registered by the General Chiropractic Council, and insured through membership of the British Chiropractic Association. Personal trainers are registered with the Register of Exercise Professionals, and have individual indemnity insurance.

That depends on what you mean by success and what you are willing to do to achieve it. Our mission is to help everyone be totally pain-free, full of energy and immune from relapsing into their injured state no matter how stressful their environment. We want to strengthen you to match your environment, not just modify your environment to wrap you in cotton wool. What are your goals? If you are committed to reaching your goal and are willing to do whatever it takes, our success rate is as high as the laws of physics will allow. With long standing difficult conditions, most people will be 80% better in 6 to 12 visits, but it takes effort and time on your behalf to get the extra 20%. You must be willing to look at every aspect of your body and your lifestyle, keep your appointments and commit to a healthy way of life. Giving up or being unwilling to change will definitely limit your chances of success.

No, you do not need to contact your GP unless you wish to. However some insurance companies require a GP referral letter if you are seeking to claim the cost of your chiropractic or physiotherapy treatment from your insurance company.

Most private health insurance policies will cover chiropractic and physiotherapy treatment. Check with your provider. Active Health’s chiropractors and physiotherapists are registered with all Major Health Insurance companies.

The physiotherapists at Active Health treat children from the age of 5, but we do not specialise in the treatment of babies, we recommend seeing the chiropractors, as their training is more extensive in neonatal development. Treatment is always specifically tailored to the patient. Older patients suffer from very different problems, often complicated by weakening of the bones and arthritic conditions, these require different treatments to restore function. No matter what your age, we all suffer from proprioceptive complaints. Many childhood health complaints that are brushed off as “growing pains” can often be traced to the spine. Regular physiotherapy checkups can identify these problems and avoid health complaints in adulthood. Older patients, through physiotherapy, have reported improvement with arthritic symptoms and other chronic ailments often associated with the aging process.

The physiotherapists at Active Health treat children from the age of 5, but we do not specialise in the treatment of babies, we recommend seeing the chiropractors, as their training is more extensive in neonatal development. Treatment is always specifically tailored to the patient. Older patients suffer from very different problems, often complicated by weakening of the bones and arthritic conditions, these require different treatments to restore function. No matter what your age, we all suffer from proprioceptive complaints. Many childhood health complaints that are brushed off as “growing pains” can often be traced to the spine. Regular physiotherapy checkups can identify these problems and avoid health complaints in adulthood. Older patients, through physiotherapy, have reported improvement with arthritic symptoms and other chronic ailments often associated with the aging process.

You may or may not feel the insertion of the needle. The specific needle manipulation is intended to produce a local twitch response that can elicit a very brief (less than a second) painful response some patients describe as a deep ache or cramping sensation. Again, the therapeutic response occurs with the elicitation of the local twitch response and is a desirable reaction.

We are looking to get improvements even from the first visit such as increased range of motion, ease of movement and decreased signs/symptoms.

Many patients report being sore after the treatment in both the area treated and the area of referred symptoms. Typically this soreness lasts between a few hours and two days and there is occasional bruising. Soreness may be alleviated by applying ice or heat to the area and performing specific stretches for the treated muscle.

No, you do not need to contact your GP unless you wish to. However some insurance companies require a GP referral letter if you are seeking to claim the cost of your chiropractic or physiotherapy treatment from your insurance company.

Most private health insurance policies will cover chiropractic and physiotherapy treatment of which Dry Needling can form part of depending on your wish all of your therapy. Check with your provider. Active Health’s chiropractors and physiotherapists are registered with all Major Health Insurance companies.

Yes. Although, the standard qualifications needed to be a Chiropractor or Physiotherapist qualify the practitioner to be able to diagnose and manage musculoskeletal conditions of the pregnant female, in addition to this, both our Chiropractors and our Physiotherapist have undergone post-graduate training in this field as well.

If your pregnancy is complicated by certain medical disorders, for example placenta previa, please ring through and chat to a practitioner for free so we can ascertain what relative contraindications there may be to certain treatments so that you are informed of what options are available to you before booking an appointment. Usually there is always something that can be done to dramatically help with your discomfort. If driving is of risk we still may be able to do a house call and give gentle hands-on work to release unhelpful tensions in the pelvis and associated musculature without any increased risk..

As much as possible. We need time to take any details not taken over the phone, listen to what you want massaged and ask relevant questions to ensure you are fit for a massage. Then you need to sign a consent form. Bear in mind we also need to allow time to let you change both before and after your massage and if you are seeing our massage therapist at our satellite clinic at Fitness First, then we need time to take payment and if desired book your next treatment. Subsequent visits will feel more streamlined and will allow for greater massage time.