The Birmingham Back Pain Clinic

Your session at the Clinic

Conditions treated

A wide range of conditions are treated here at the Birmingham Back Pain Clinic, including lower back pain, upper back pain, neck pain, sciatica, whiplash, shoulder pain, knee pain, and sports injuries.

It is a frustrating fact that the majority of painful problems in the population begin for no obvious reason. In contrast, the minority are due to specific events, such as sporting injuries or road traffic collisions. Many people will have symptoms that recur from time to time while others may just experience a one-off episode. Once present, however, many of these problems are aggravated by unavoidable long working hours, repetitive activities (e.g. running) or poor posture. With more than two decades of successful clinical practice at the Clinic, which has included the management and treatment of people from a variety of backgrounds, from professional athletes to sedentary workers, you can rest assured that your problem will be dealt with with care, knowledge and experience.

Assessment

On your first visit to the Birmingham Back Pain Clinic you will undergo a thorough assessment, prior to any treatment. This will involve you being asked several questions about the problem that you currently have as well as your general medical history. You may then be asked to perform a series of simple movements and tasks to see if any of these are painful or restricted. This assessment is important for gaining an understanding of the nature of the problem and so that factors contributing to the pain can be identified. It is also important for ruling out serious health problems before any treatment commences.

We will usually have to visually assess and palpate (feel) the area that is painful. It is therefore common for you to have to remove some items of clothing during your session. However, we do understand that many patients often feel more comfortable just wearing accessible clothing, such as a pair of shorts, loose tracksuit bottoms, or vest-tops (for female patients). This is absolutely fine with us - if you are comfortable, then the session is a much more pleasant experience for you.

Treatment

Once the assessment is complete, your problem will be explained to you. You will then be given a recommendation as to the course of action that is most likely to help you, including what treatment we can offer. You are never obliged to receive our recommended treatment so you will be asked if you are happy to do so, and only then will any treatment commence.

The treatment that we offer is based on a 'hands-on' approach that includes highly-skilled and accurate manipulation of pain-generating joints, and pain-modulating interventions such as neuromuscular soft tissue techniques and acupuncture, all of which are used with the aim of providing rapid pain relief so that you can return to your everyday activities. Before any treatment is given, exactly what is entailed and how each treatment works will be explained to you so that you have an informed choice of whether you want to receive the treatment. Even though we will always recommend what we think will work best, the final choice is ultimately down to you, the patient.

Returning patients to full activity following an episode of pain is a priority of good patient management. The role of hands-on treatment is to get you back to your usual activities. Therefore, all patients at the Clinic are given advice and, where necessary, exercises aimed at restoring physical health and with the aim of reducing the likelihood of re-occurrence.

Safety

Your safety comes first. The treatments that we offer are very safe and have been tested for many years in routine clinical practice all over the world. In addition, we only use treatments that have been formally tested for safety and effectiveness in research studies. We also adhere to good practice that is recommended in clinical guidelines and professional regulations.

Your written case history and a physical assessment is used to gain an understanding of why you have your pain. Very rarely, this could be due to something serious, that will require further investigation. To rule out this possibility, you may require a referral to another clinician, usually your GP, for a test (e.g. blood test) or scan (e.g. MRI scan). If we suspect that a referral is necessary, we will usually prepare a letter of referral for you, which will be sent to you as soon as possible so that you can take it to your GP (for NHS referrals) or another service. It may not be sensible to give you any treatment until these investigations have been performed and the results are known.