Latest / The STA Clinician Podcast / Ep.222 'A Therapist’s Guide To Hypermobility’ with special guest Bonnie Southgate
Transcript
- 0:00You're listening to the Sports Therapy Association podcast, putting evidence
- 0:05back into soft tissue therapy.
- 0:07Music.
- 0:17And we're live. Hey people, how are you doing? My name's Matt Phillips,
- 0:21RadioFrontShotLive.com,
- 0:23and this is episode 222, my favourite number,
- 0:27of the Sports Therapy Association podcast recorded as
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- 0:58i'm tuned in an engaging sponge mode on brain for
- 1:00bonnie's bombs of bendy wisdom beautiful alliterations
- 1:04as always then metaphors fantastic good to
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- 1:15logos it's great for networking etc etc however this
- 1:19is the last episode of 2024 we'll be
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- 1:25season five isn't that incredible um 222 weeks in a row since covid basically
- 1:31amazing and we'll be kicking off in january with a focus on business month with
- 1:36four episodes of priceless information with expert guests on the subjects of
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- 1:50Be on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, whatever suits you best.
- 1:54So yes, in this final episode of 2024, A Therapist's Guide to Hypermobility,
- 1:59my special guest coming up very shortly is Bonnie Southgate,
- 2:04a specialist in hypermobility syndrome and MSK advisor to the charity SEDS Connective.
- 2:10Bonnie is going to be discussing the do's and don'ts of working with hypermobility along with the clinical.
- 2:14Music.
- 2:23So, whether you've joined us live or you're listening to the podcast recording,
- 2:27kick off your shoes, sit back and enjoy.
- 2:30As I bring up special guests for this episode, 222, Bonnie Southgate of Movement
- 2:35Anatomy Essentials.co.uk.
- 2:41Hey, Bonnie, how are you doing? Hello, I'm very well, thank you.
- 2:45Looking wonderfully Christmasy. If people listen to the podcast,
- 2:48you can't see this festive delight.
- 2:49But you should go to youtube now and check out
- 2:52the jumper in the background it's all very christmasy thank you for making it
- 2:55for making it feel festive i've i feel totally underdressed now in
- 2:58my brandy but anyway how are you doing i am doing very well yeah i'm american
- 3:03so you know we like to get over the clock for christmas and long may it last
- 3:08but you're not in america now what part of the uk are you in i am in dorset
- 3:11i've been here i've been here for 36 years though So my accent's a bit confusing.
- 3:16An American in Dorset. That would be a beautiful film.
- 3:19I'm just going to say hi to people who are joining us now. Cecily Hislops is
- 3:22Evening My Answers. Thank you very much for joining us.
- 3:25Cecily and Sir Glenn Murphy, MBE. So it's one to go. Wow, I know, Glenn.
- 3:29And I think you've probably been to about 220 of them. So thank you,
- 3:31Glenn, for joining us once again.
- 3:34So fantastic. Thank you so much, Bonnie, for joining us.
- 3:38I'm sorry it's taken me three years and two months to call you back.
- 3:41I was busy. What can I say?
- 3:44I was busy too you were one of the forerunners to
- 3:47the podcast you you were in episode 41 um
- 3:50yeah those three years shot by completely i'm not going to ask what you've been
- 3:55doing for three years but i think what we would like to do is for people who
- 3:59aren't aware of your background we'll jump straight in maybe and ask how and
- 4:04why did you end up being a specialist in hypermobility syndrome?
- 4:09So my background started as a ballerina. So I originally danced both in America and the UK.
- 4:15I danced with the Royal Ballet as a first soloist. And I didn't know I was hypermobile
- 4:21because everybody I worked with was.
- 4:23And I then, after I left my career, due to a lot of odd injuries and surgeries,
- 4:30became a Pilates teacher.
- 4:32And for my essay, I didn't know what to do. And my mentor said,
- 4:37why didn't you do it on hypermobility?
- 4:38And I was like, why? Why would I do it on that?
- 4:41Anyway, I started looking at hypermobility and then I started realizing that
- 4:45I ticked a lot of boxes for a connective tissue disorder, which is called the
- 4:51hypermobile type of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
- 4:53So I then went and was diagnosed with the condition and,
- 4:58And it took me a number of years to work my own body out. I really,
- 5:04I had a lot of dislocations.
- 5:05I was a dislocating hypermobile and I didn't find people were helping me.
- 5:11So I really, I tried to work things out.
- 5:15I went on sports therapy training with Mike Grice. Everybody knows the wonderful Mike Grice.
- 5:20And actually a lot of the techniques we did were really helpful to me.
- 5:25And I just kind of, it went from there. it just spiraled as an interest.
- 5:30And I continued trying to work with my clients, learn from myself.
- 5:35I then joined something called the EDS Society, and they have an ECHO program,
- 5:39which is a worldwide program.
- 5:41We're really the top experts in the world on the subject.
- 5:45The people who write the criteria for diagnosis are all on there.
- 5:49And I've been part of that now since it started.
- 5:52So that's quite a number of years. I also started writing a book six years ago.
- 5:58So I've done a lot of looking at literature and research, and I've done a lot of clinical practice.
- 6:05And over the years, I became quite well known for working with clients.
- 6:09So I get a lot of people coming to me from different parts of the UK.
- 6:14I also have an interest in dancers. So I recently did an MSc in science because
- 6:20I wanted to get into the research side of things.
- 6:23And I knew that that would be a plethora of hypermobile
- 6:26people for me to work with which did turn
- 6:29out to be really interesting like for my thesis we did
- 6:32our own research project and it was
- 6:35really interesting so that's kind of the story
- 6:39the long story so far and once again it's a story we've heard quite a lot particularly
- 6:44in cases of these systemic syndromes or diseases is or situations where they
- 6:52go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed for so long.
- 6:56So it wasn't something where you were told this is the problem,
- 6:59it's something you had to discover yourself.
- 7:02Has it got better or is it still something where you think people are going
- 7:05misdiagnosed or undiagnosed?
- 7:07I think it's really poorly diagnosed, but I want to clarify because I think
- 7:12one of the problems is hypermobility in itself doesn't really mean that much.
- 7:20And my research really pointed this out because when you look at dancers,
- 7:24and I used to get a bit cranky because all these top physicians and experts,
- 7:30whenever they would give conferences, they would talk about the benefits of
- 7:34hypermobility and all these non-symptomatic dancers.
- 7:37And I thought to myself, well, I wasn't non-symptomatic. I was wracked with
- 7:43issues that I didn't understand related to my condition, but not very many people
- 7:50were like me in the dance world. So yeah.
- 7:53I recognized that actually there were a lot of hypermobile dancers that didn't have issues at all.
- 8:00And I think that one of the things that I would like to do going forward is
- 8:05to try and clarify why we have all these non-symptomatic athletes, dancers,
- 8:12and then we have other people wracked with symptoms.
- 8:15And it may be that there's a connective tissue disorder
- 8:19and then there's just people at the high
- 8:21end or they're training it in because we
- 8:24know that ligaments have creep like tendons
- 8:28and you can get cumulative creep so whether they're being it's trained in so
- 8:33it's a very different condition completely i think they're they're going forward
- 8:37needs to be more clarity between the two because somebody with just sort of laxity in their joints,
- 8:45you may not need to treat them very differently.
- 8:47But when they get things, comorbidities or co-occurring conditions with it,
- 8:53then the body behaves really differently.
- 8:57And there's quite a lot of research around that to say that things are different.
- 9:01So it's recognizing what's just lax joints as to something systemic.
- 9:07And I think that's like the message that needs to get out there.
- 9:11I think that there's, it's, it takes an average of 10 years for diagnosis.
- 9:16I think it is getting a little bit better. It's still not great.
- 9:21They still don't, a lot of people I know get diagnosis and they get handed a sheet.
- 9:26I've had a girl that was told she'd grow out of it. You don't grow out of it.
- 9:30So there's a lot of people out there struggling with.
- 9:34The EDIA Society has worked super hard to try and inform physicians,
- 9:39and there is just ongoing work.
- 9:42So it is becoming more recognized.
- 9:45It seems to be more prevalent, and they're not sure why and whether it's the
- 9:49recognition of it or whether there is something going on.
- 9:52Nobody really knows. So every person who does listen to this will have someone
- 9:59come to them as sports therapists.
- 10:02They will walk through your door so it is good to
- 10:05be armed with knowledge really that's great
- 10:08so i mean already so the first kind of maybe number
- 10:12one in a therapist guide to hypermobility is is
- 10:15maybe understand the hypermobility is an umbrella term
- 10:18and not that useful by itself and actually part of the problem
- 10:21and it doesn't kind of explain enough that
- 10:24the different things which could be involved i've just got there's a bit of
- 10:28a pen clicking going on can you have you got a pen you have a pen in your hand
- 10:32i'm sorry that's fine i started just because i don't want anything to get in
- 10:35the way of the great information you're putting out there i'm always getting
- 10:39accused of that's nice to tell someone else yeah i'm ready so that's fine,
- 10:44so yeah so that's really interesting so to start off then as therapists we need
- 10:49to realize that we're going to get people who are hyper mobile and they could
- 10:54excel in their sports and maybe not have any particular issues more than the
- 10:59person who's not hypermobile.
- 11:00And we need to separate that word from something else, which essentially is
- 11:05hypermobility, but with what you mentioned as a heritable connective tissue disorder.
- 11:12Yeah. So we would just say symptomatic or non-symptomatic.
- 11:16And they have the hypermobile type of Ehlers-Danlos.
- 11:21Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is
- 11:22a group of syndromes. There's 14 different types. One hasn't been named.
- 11:28It's a very strict criteria. A lot of people don't actually meet that criteria.
- 11:32So in 2017, they had a consortium and they created something called hypermobility
- 11:38spectrum disorder, and it's a spectrum.
- 11:41And like the sort of, you go from somebody having a hypermobile joint,
- 11:46not particularly bothered, going to somebody who may be racked with issues,
- 11:50but doesn't quite fit the EDS category.
- 11:54And so you can get people who get diagnosed with HSD and you have to treat them.
- 12:00There's a lot of controversy. They still don't know whether it's the same thing or not.
- 12:04And people just haven't got all the symptoms in the criteria.
- 12:10A lot of times it happens sort of over age.
- 12:14But I think it's really important when you get people in your clinic and you're
- 12:19working with them maybe as a manual therapist or an exercise specialist that
- 12:24just because you see someone bendy that you don't give them problems they don't have.
- 12:30But also to realize that in my intake or my list when they fill out my forms,
- 12:38I'll have things like gastric issues or are you dizzy when you stand up or sit up?
- 12:46Things that might relate to comorbidities that they might not themselves know
- 12:51relate to the hypermobility.
- 12:54Allergies, mast cell issues, neurodivergence.
- 12:57So there is a link now they know that I think The statistic was if you were
- 13:02diagnosed with, say, ADHD or autism, you are 80% likely to be hypermobile.
- 13:09It's different if you're hypermobile. It doesn't mean you're that likely to
- 13:12be a neurodivergent. But there's a lot of links they're now finding out.
- 13:16Long COVID was linked to hypermobility by Jessica Eccles and specifically morphonoid
- 13:25type of characteristics. So you might find people coming in with long COVID.
- 13:30You might also look at them for hypermobility. So there's a lot of new research out there.
- 13:36On the subject, linking things, because they're working really hard to try and
- 13:41sort of work out causation.
- 13:44Which is, we were talking a little bit about that off air. It's kind of exciting,
- 13:47isn't it? I mean, there's a lot of suffering, obviously. We must never take away that.
- 13:50For example, Jessica Janeman, I'm sorry if I mispronounced your last name,
- 13:54but Jessica Janeman says, it took me 40 years to get diagnosed.
- 13:58Which is pretty extreme.
- 13:59Jessica, if you want to share some details of that in the comments,
- 14:02if you don't, then that's fine.
- 14:03But if you do want to put something in there then that would be very interesting to hear
- 14:05about but yeah it's there is an exciting time there
- 14:08is some research coming out isn't there and you've been very much involved in
- 14:11that you've just completed was in october a master's research in
- 14:14dance science so before that opened your eyes to all
- 14:17sorts of wonderful information that you can't wait to
- 14:19get out oh we should mention as well talking of getting information out well let's
- 14:23do it in order let's not get to it i always get so excited when i'm talking
- 14:26to somebody i know so much it's got so much to share but for the
- 14:28people who love the visuals you can't see this if you listen to podcast but
- 14:31I'll put them up on the screen so the website for
- 14:34you to check out if you want to see and and understand
- 14:37some of the stuff Bonnie's talking about then go to movementanatomieessentials.co.uk that's
- 14:44movementanatomieessentials.co.uk and
- 14:48that is Bonnie's website there's blogs on there there's
- 14:51a few videos and links to YouTube and everything so that's
- 14:54a good place to start and also the
- 14:57youtube channel which i believe is going
- 15:00to be updated a little bit soon but even
- 15:03before the update there's still like one and a half thousand subscribers and
- 15:06nearly 100 videos all to do with eds and
- 15:10rehab if such and then on the website as well there's a little bit of a reminder
- 15:14that you've got this book coming out which is where i was going to it this the
- 15:17hyper mobile universe tell us a little bit about that if you could this is the
- 15:21six years project is it This is the six years project that I was going to have finished so long ago.
- 15:27Yeah, because when I, well, throughout my own journey,
- 15:32working out my own body, I really didn't feel like people were helping me and
- 15:38I had to work out a lot myself.
- 15:41And then I became involved in the ECHO program and I decided that I just wanted
- 15:46to share something for, it's aimed at sports therapists and physiotherapists
- 15:51and exercise professionals.
- 15:53It's not an academic book. It's not a medical book because I think at the moment,
- 15:58what you get is either books that are about people's own experiences with the
- 16:02condition, or they are medical and there is a real gap in the market for something
- 16:07that's understandable.
- 16:09And each of those planets is a comorbidity attached to hypermobility.
- 16:16And the book takes you through what it is to diagnostic criteria.
- 16:22I cover Marfan because you have to be way more careful with Marfan.
- 16:28We cover vascular EDS and classical, but we then focus mainly on hypermobility
- 16:35spectrum disorder and hypermobile type of EDS.
- 16:38And I'm trying to cover everything possible.
- 16:41I can think of gynecological to just mast cell issues, everything that might
- 16:48walk in your door that someone might have.
- 16:52And sometimes it's just piecing together these bits that can be really liberating
- 16:58for somebody who's struggling.
- 17:00Because these days you go to a physician and you're allowed,
- 17:04what, seven minutes to talk about one thing.
- 17:06And if you have a syndrome, which it is, you're not allowed to talk about the multiple aspects of it.
- 17:13And so it doesn't get diagnosed, it gets missed so often.
- 17:18And, you know, really, unfortunately, our system then throws you to lots of
- 17:23different medical people and nobody really works together. And it's actually
- 17:29putting the whole thing together that, you know,
- 17:32In my experience of working with people, and I've now worked with people for
- 17:36about 20 years, it's often their history.
- 17:40When maybe things start going downhill, you look at that aspect because it's
- 17:46like parents that have children. If you can tackle sort of what came first,
- 17:51a lot of stuff calms down.
- 17:54And it's so much. It's so huge, really.
- 17:57I wanted to get something out there. And it has taken me six years because research
- 18:02and new evidence is appearing all the time quite rapidly.
- 18:09And so I look at it and I'm like, oh, no, I have to rewrite that section.
- 18:12I have to rewrite that section.
- 18:14I have given myself a date for March. It will be out in March. That's it.
- 18:20I'll have to write another book after that. You've got proof of that now. You're committed to it.
- 18:23I know. I am committed. i have my my illustrator
- 18:27and and formatter and
- 18:30she's sort of keying finishing it and we have
- 18:33discussed that if it takes us every weekend until
- 18:36march that's it amazing and as good
- 18:39did you say off air i think you said there's gonna be two volumes such
- 18:42as the size of this universe or well because the book is
- 18:45too big yeah yeah yeah yeah understandable
- 18:48no very exciting i mean it is a
- 18:51topic that i don't know it's the bubbles we move in and everything
- 18:53but i do get the sensation from the feedback we guess and
- 18:56the people we talked to the podcast and therapy expo that
- 18:59it's on people's radars now which is great you know
- 19:02people are talking about it along with kind of
- 19:05because it's not just women but it is something which obviously affects a lot
- 19:08of women and that's in people's minds now both in male and female therapists
- 19:12of having to treat the person in front of you and sometimes whether they're
- 19:16male or female can make a big difference on what you are kind of thinking about
- 19:19and putting onto the table and stuff so it seems to be out there but Now,
- 19:23just because something's out
- 19:24there doesn't mean that all the information we see is going to be great.
- 19:27In fact, it might open the door to letters of misinformation.
- 19:29But I reckon your book slash two books, yeah, it's going to be a fantastic guide for therapists.
- 19:36Jessica's come back here. So,
- 19:37Jessica, thanks for sharing. I think this is really cool to hear from you.
- 19:42Obviously, everyone's individual story is going to be different,
- 19:44which is one of the things which we've already mentioned. And we'll probably
- 19:47go on to talk about connective tissue disorders.
- 19:50It's very individual based. But Jessica Jernman, who said it took me 40 years
- 19:54to get diagnosed, she says, I was diagnosed by a geneticist last year with hypermobile
- 19:59ADS after battling for a diagnosis for a daughter who dislocates subluxates.
- 20:03Everything we'll chat about dislocation and subluxation later on.
- 20:06Jessica continues, we're a good example in some sense because I present very differently.
- 20:11I don't dislocate, but I have a leaky heart. My retinas are both detached,
- 20:14which we will talk about as well.
- 20:17And the link with all the different organs, sadly, in the body,
- 20:20which can be affected by this.
- 20:21But there are many, many, many other symptoms that seem unrelated but really aren't.
- 20:25Which obviously is, yeah, part of it. And Jessica terminates her sharing with,
- 20:31I'm so excited for Bonnie's book. I'm sure.
- 20:34Of course, I'm thinking how useful it will be for therapists who want to help people.
- 20:40But it must be a hugely well-received book for people who are suffering from
- 20:44it as well, who have finally got somebody who is making sense of the disorder
- 20:48they've had for so long without receiving much help.
- 20:51Does that excite you as well, having the actual person with it reading it?
- 20:55It does. And it will be profound, I think, when people go to see that therapist. I have so many people.
- 21:03And after the first session, there's a lot of tears because they actually have
- 21:07somebody not only who understands them, but believes them.
- 21:11And they've struggled and struggled and struggled with so many different areas.
- 21:15And if you can just sit there and help them make sense of it and just have discussions.
- 21:22And I think for tonight, what I definitely do want to cover as it's for therapists
- 21:28and sports therapists is certain things that I know I've had clients come to
- 21:35me where they've seen other therapists and things have gone wrong.
- 21:39And I think it's really key just to note a few things in some of the common comorbidities.
- 21:47So there is something called a triad, but a lot of them, a lot of people with,
- 21:52say, EDS or HSD will have what they call mass cell triad.
- 21:56Activation. And this is like, it's down to a set of cells that are meant to
- 22:02be your first offenders in the body.
- 22:04And to be diagnosed with it, you have to have issues in two areas.
- 22:09So it would be like eczema, skin issues with respiratory issues or gut issues.
- 22:15So you would have more than one issue in the body. And that would be a telltale sign.
- 22:20And the problem with the mast cells is that what they do is they help our body
- 22:24to heal and they help our body to fight things.
- 22:26So they interact with thousands of different enzymes and different things,
- 22:31but they open, they work with elastin and so they can open tissue up and make
- 22:36it more lax and they also interact with heparin.
- 22:40So you can get a lot of easy bruising and you can also get a lot of allergic reactions.
- 22:47What I think is really important for therapists to know that like if you get
- 22:52somebody, say if you have on your intake form that you put allergies on there,
- 22:57you really need to look at the different systems, gastric issues.
- 23:02Respiratory issues, asthma, skin, eczema.
- 23:04If they ever tick two of those boxes, then be a little bit more careful with
- 23:09them because they may, number one, have reactions to all kinds of things.
- 23:14And it could be, it could change hour an hour day to day. It can be really random.
- 23:19And also just know that the bruising, you might feel like you're doing nothing.
- 23:25They also can get a lot more small fiber neuropathy is shown in biopsies.
- 23:32And that will be, if you think about healing, whenever you heal,
- 23:36you get more blood vessels and you get more nerve endings.
- 23:39So if you've got tissue that's being sort of damaged or the mast cells are overreacting
- 23:46and you've got a lot of histamines and inflammation, then they're going to be more sensitive.
- 23:53So approach them more conservatively and then just feedback,
- 23:58feedback and working with that client.
- 24:00And also really don't just rub out everything that feels tight,
- 24:05especially the upper trapezius.
- 24:07A lot of these people have what is known as POTS or
- 24:11dysautonomia and the reason they're tight
- 24:14up there is a lack of blood flow because when they
- 24:17stand up the blood doesn't make it back up to the brain or
- 24:20that area and they all want rubbing out and it's like the worst thing you can
- 24:25do a lot of times their shoulders are hanging off you'll see the the upper traps
- 24:29are lengthened and the last thing you want to do is that I tend to wake them
- 24:33up from underneath and then approach it as a bringing blood flow to the area,
- 24:39not as a, I need to rub this out because,
- 24:44well, we know we don't do that anyway, but it's,
- 24:47I have a lot of people and then they become unstable in their cervical spines.
- 24:52So it's just, those are like really key watch out points.
- 24:55That's really, that's so important, isn't it? It's so important because we are,
- 25:01maybe as humans or the way we're educated, we tend to see everybody the same.
- 25:05If someone says, oh, I feel really tight up here. We just can't wait to get
- 25:08our hands on them and massage them and do all these wonderful things.
- 25:12And this is a classic example is if you do your homework and you do your subjective properly,
- 25:16before going into that kind of objective and
- 25:19the actual service you're going to give them you'd realize hold
- 25:22on and then i should not be doing that it's equivalent of maybe
- 25:25other things that come to mind is we had uh with the way hip dysplasia or something
- 25:30where and therapists have got this urge to stretch the hip flex always and often
- 25:33that's the last thing that you need to be doing is trying to stretch the hip
- 25:36flex it's just going to lead to more subluxations or something and give them
- 25:39more pain so it's such a responsibility isn't it we were talking off air.
- 25:43How massage therapists in particular hands-on therapists are so important in health care,
- 25:51because people suffering from these systemic diseases especially or disorders
- 25:56especially if they're going undiagnosed and they're frustrated they're going
- 26:00to go a lot forward but a lot of them are going to go for massage on that for
- 26:03an hour to get away that trust with you to lie down and just kind of just think
- 26:07okay i can deal with life just the next hour just by relaxing.
- 26:11So on top of giving them that, you can also ask the right questions and side
- 26:16post them to the right people.
- 26:17It's huge responsibility, isn't it? It is. And I do think we are a huge part
- 26:23of actually what could be a great part of treatment.
- 26:27Like you said, they come in and they want that time. A lot of the issues will
- 26:32cause a sympathetic nervous system to go into overdrive And actually anything
- 26:37that can calm that system down and calm everything down.
- 26:41Even if it's just talking, anything that makes that body feel a little bit safer
- 26:48or a little bit more comfortable can be just a huge thing.
- 26:51And I don't think there's a problem in seeing someone repeatedly for that when
- 26:57you have got a condition like this.
- 26:59And, you know, it's like having a warm bath or lighting a candle,
- 27:03whatever it is that makes that nervous system calm down.
- 27:07We really have such a good...
- 27:10Position to be helpful to people like this.
- 27:14And also you can signpost and you can put things together for them.
- 27:19You can advocate for them for their GPs if they're not being listened to particularly well.
- 27:26There's so many things that we can be useful for.
- 27:29Also, and I know I mentioned this to you earlier, there was a bit of new research
- 27:33done by a woman named Tina Wang and And the Stecos, who, I think it was Antonio
- 27:39Stecco, they did some fascial research.
- 27:42And I think he originally did research looking at pain.
- 27:46And he found that people that had pain had slightly thickened fascia.
- 27:51But she found that the fascia in the hypermobile type of EDS was thicker than
- 27:58people who had pain and that it didn't glide.
- 28:00So there was a thickening. It was a deep fascia, which is actually only just
- 28:04under the skin. It's not that deep.
- 28:06But actually some techniques just to glide the top, to glide those tissues that
- 28:13bring in fluid, it's moving fluid around, can be really beneficial in terms of bringing relief.
- 28:20It's not going to be permanent, but it can bring a good deal of relief.
- 28:25So always thinking in terms of that sort of light movement.
- 28:30Maybe rolling of the skin type of
- 28:34thing can be really rather than thinking muscles thinking
- 28:37more on that level of working
- 28:41with these clients can be really beneficial very exciting
- 28:44that's very exciting time i think for hansel therapists
- 28:48and massage therapists as long as you've ever
- 28:51done this is the thing isn't it i mean again we
- 28:54talked about you can get by you don't have to
- 28:57be it might not be your thing to look at the research and be in academia but
- 29:00you need to be aware of it you need to have that kind of foundation
- 29:03of this is where we are at the moment i'm going to still use all these other
- 29:06things and that but because otherwise you could do people harm
- 29:10essentially and we'll come to some of that later you've already
- 29:13mentioned like with the trapezias and stuff and in that situation but
- 29:15there's other things you do especially when it comes to exercise prescription great stuff
- 29:19i'm so excited in fact i want to say now because you're you're you're
- 29:22already dropping such clinical bombs here and delight
- 29:26that you have got a course coming out next year oh
- 29:28it'll coincide with the book won't it hopefully in march you're at
- 29:31that's that's the idea yes the
- 29:34sd school and the course is going to
- 29:37be on the 22nd and 23rd of march
- 29:40fantastic and that's going to be in exeter then
- 29:43yes i believe so the details
- 29:47haven't been completed but yes it should
- 29:50be on her her website i believe it is i
- 29:53believe it is if you're interested i am probably
- 29:56only teaching that course next year.
- 29:59Just to let i i i yeah.
- 30:02I have a lot going on so okay get
- 30:06that out people there you go you've been warned i'm just yeah i am warning because.
- 30:10I'm i'm thinking phd i don't know probably doing a little bit of research with
- 30:16an snc coach looking at load and things like that and i time is limited when you're also practicing.
- 30:24I'm glad i'm a real man managed to call you a therapy expert
- 30:27then and force you to sign the dotted line because that would be that'd
- 30:30be amazing i actually did i don't know i can
- 30:33see in my mind now amazing and right we've got you
- 30:35are really generating a lot of chat here apologies for i'm not getting
- 30:38to chat straight away people but i understand that there's
- 30:41a lot of things that people want to say in here let me move
- 30:44to let's have nikki mansfield first of all
- 30:47nikki mansfield says as a bendy with a capital b as
- 30:50a bendy with a scary amount of autonomic comorbidities i
- 30:53see too many bendy clients cut loose by docs who think that
- 30:55diagnosis is the end rather than the start of their journey
- 30:58to wellness yes but communication
- 31:01is so important as well with anybody in pain but especially
- 31:04somebody with a systemic disorder like this or something
- 31:07i imagine that's something which you'll touch on as well in the courses and
- 31:10the communication with people and yeah very much so I mean I I did run a support
- 31:16group in Bournemouth for many years and I am the advisor to a charity so we
- 31:21do advocate and there is things that you can do to help,
- 31:27advocate for your clients with their physicians, but it has to be done in an
- 31:31appropriate way with the physician. Yeah, definitely.
- 31:36Tomato and basil soup. Lovely name. Fantastic. Is that the name of your therapy
- 31:39clinic as well? I'd love that. I'd definitely go there.
- 31:42I'm seeing Bonnie for you or so. Open my eyes to what was going on after treating
- 31:46a fibromyalgia diagnosis was doing nothing.
- 31:49Her experience and knowledge gave me a good starting point to better understand,
- 31:54and not quite yet manage what's happening. I cannot wait for the book, Bonnie.
- 31:57This is Sarah from Tomato and Basil Soup.
- 32:00I need to know if that's the name of the clinic. What a great place for,
- 32:03unless you're allergic to either of those.
- 32:06But anyway, yeah, thanks for sharing that, Sarah. Amazing stuff.
- 32:10Nikki Mansfield's come back with Robert Schleip, currently involved in research
- 32:14about the abundance of mast cells in superficial fascia. It's not just deep fascia involved.
- 32:18Indeed, and also talking of fascia, I can't say fascia without saying Dr.
- 32:22Claire Boucher, who spoke with the therapy expert. She's actually on the Fascia
- 32:26Research Council along with Tina Wang.
- 32:28She was mentioning as well how exciting it is for people working in the research
- 32:33about fascia and how they're realising that's thicker.
- 32:37People in certain pain that could have implications and the
- 32:40idea is that we can do more now maybe with hands-on work
- 32:43than we once sought when we were all kind of quoted charity
- 32:46papers and saying oh you can't change fascia didn't
- 32:49you know it takes 1200 newtons or
- 32:52something we've moved on since that i'm pleased to
- 32:54say and it's we're kind of going into a nice exciting stage now with
- 32:57a bit more of an open mind so exciting stuff
- 33:00right i've got so much on my sheet here i want to.
- 33:03Talk about with you so okay let's let's really back
- 33:06a little bit to the clinician because one of the
- 33:08things i'm interested in is you've already mentioned
- 33:11the other systemic symptoms which we need to
- 33:14be aware of but i think it's also
- 33:17interesting to be aware that a lot of the people we
- 33:20see who are suffering from
- 33:22hypermobility don't even know they're suffering and they don't even know it's a
- 33:25thing i think we talked to them three years ago about asking
- 33:28if they've got any party tricks and kind of like a series of questions
- 33:31which they might think is totally innocent it's just the way they are when
- 33:35really if we ask the right questions then we can
- 33:38start opening up and asking about some of these comorbidities and
- 33:41things so what should we be looking out for
- 33:44because there's different tests in there for hypermobility i think some of them
- 33:46are more worthwhile some of them are less but a patient comes in
- 33:49and they've ticked a box oh they've said oh yeah i'm very i'm hypermobile
- 33:52where should we go with that in our line of questioning so
- 33:56so on my intake form i will
- 33:59have i will have questions like did you ever do party tricks when you're younger
- 34:03yeah a little bit of sort of and also historical did anyone has anybody in your
- 34:10family being diagnosed with it but i asked the question of the allergies hernias
- 34:15prolapses They're on the diagnostic criteria.
- 34:20Mass cell also allergies. Gut gastric issues is a big one because a lot of the
- 34:26people struggling will have either sort of chronic inflammatory bowel stuff going on or gut stuff,
- 34:34or they'll have really slow motility. So.
- 34:39Gastric issues is a really big
- 34:41one. And I think that I shouldn't say this because I don't really know.
- 34:46They're going to come out with new criteria probably in 2025.
- 34:50But I think some of these things will be added into the criteria of diagnosis
- 34:55because it's so obvious that there is a connection.
- 35:02A lot of the slow motility because maybe because the sympathetic nervous system
- 35:08is in overdrive, which shuts it down,
- 35:10but also that the sort of contractions aren't as great or as quick.
- 35:18And so they can get a lot of things like food sitting in the gut that then ferments
- 35:23and they can get things like SIBO.
- 35:25So you ask these questions and a lot of times they'll go to the GP or they'll
- 35:31get reflux. A lot of them will have reflux.
- 35:34So they go to the GP and they're given, And of course, well,
- 35:37a lot of imaprazole, which then sort of inhibits absorption, which isn't great.
- 35:44I've seen people on drugs for years and years.
- 35:47And, you know, you sit there and you start to look at these things.
- 35:52And I usually, if I see a list of symptoms, then I just sort of casually am
- 35:58like, well, let's look at your little finger.
- 35:59So there's the Bayton criteria, which is the diagnostic criteria that the physicians use.
- 36:06It's not great. It only looks at, you know, fingers and bending over and elbows
- 36:14and knees. It doesn't include hips.
- 36:17It doesn't include shoulders. There are...
- 36:21Validated criteria for shoulders
- 36:24for lower limb and upper limb but they take too
- 36:27long so nobody uses them but it's interesting
- 36:30because i think the baits and criteria they might not know it's but i think
- 36:33and correct me wrong people in the live lounge if you're listening and i think
- 36:37quite a lot of therapists are probably once the patient says hypermobile they're
- 36:40doing the finger bending test they're maybe getting them to touch the floor
- 36:44without flexing their knees and also skin Is that still relevant?
- 36:49Is the skin one something you should do?
- 36:51The skin has actually been a funny one because I know a lot of people who went
- 36:57to rheumatology and they went, well, your skin isn't stretchy enough.
- 37:00Now, Professor Rodney Graham is really the person who put it on the map.
- 37:05And he first started looking at scleroderma.
- 37:08When he was looking at different patients and stretching their skin,
- 37:11he noticed a difference in the stretchiness of the skin.
- 37:16Hypermobile type of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome doesn't have the classical type of super stretchy skin.
- 37:22That's a specific genetic alteration that affects the skin.
- 37:27What he says, though, is that when you go to stretch the skin with somebody
- 37:33with, say, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, it stretches around the hand.
- 37:37You can see how it's stretching from different parts of the hand.
- 37:43So the stretch sort of comes from everywhere, where in a normal person,
- 37:48if they stretch it up, it's just like it's a line where it stretches up.
- 37:52It doesn't start to pull from other parts of the hand. And that's what he explained
- 37:57you would be looking for in hypermobile type of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
- 38:01So it's not this crazy, stretchy skin thing.
- 38:06That they're looking for. It's how it stretches, really.
- 38:09That's good. But you also get, I think they recognize that there's going to
- 38:13be many, many, many, many more types of EDS probably that they find genetically.
- 38:19And when I look at my clients, you get two very different types.
- 38:22You get people that have like, their skin literally is like putting your finger
- 38:27in dough. It feels really different.
- 38:30Or mine, which is super thin, and you can just see all of the vasculature.
- 38:36And there seem to be like a couple of different types that I see come to me with diagnosis.
- 38:43And they all have the hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos type of diagnosis,
- 38:46but I'm sure that as time goes on, they're going to start separating more.
- 38:52So the skin, you can still get an indication with the skin.
- 38:55If it doesn't stretch from around the hand or it doesn't seem stretchier,
- 39:01then it probably isn't an issue.
- 39:04Okay. So the message is do these tests, which I think a lot of you are doing,
- 39:08but the biggest message is don't think of high availability.
- 39:11It's just about getting a positive on those things. The questions then have
- 39:14to be asked about the other systemic things like you've mentioned with the gastric issues and so on.
- 39:21Excellent. And I think obviously joints. The joints are the obvious one for
- 39:27therapists in our position.
- 39:29Sometimes they don't know they've got a subluxed joint. I have plenty of them
- 39:33that come in with their shoulders subluxed and they don't even know they are.
- 39:37They just know they're in a lot of pain.
- 39:39And you start sort of dealing with them and then all of a sudden it's like,
- 39:45boom, I can actually lift my arm without pain with correct movement and positioning.
- 39:53So it's all in the book. All in the book. It should be as well.
- 39:57Everything. I was expecting everything to be in this book. It's got to be.
- 40:00That's why it's taking six years.
- 40:03One of the questions that came
- 40:05up, actually, you mentioned joints and obviously the range of movement.
- 40:08One of the questions that came up and wasn't quite solved, and maybe that's
- 40:11because it depends on the individual and individual.
- 40:14Kind of movements they need in their sport everyday life because i
- 40:18think it was in tim stevenson who of dynamic shoulders
- 40:21he had a great presentation therapy expert he was he's had
- 40:25subluxations and i think two dislocations to his shoulder
- 40:27he was a rugby player and he was
- 40:31talking about basically his stance was quite with
- 40:34regards to when he's working with elite athletes who are going
- 40:37to get impacted rugby players who are whatever happens
- 40:40their arm's going to be put into that extra range of
- 40:43movement he was saying if you are doing strength training which
- 40:46ticks the boxes depending how it's done it needs to
- 40:48be graded but strength training is key in a lot of these situations he
- 40:52said you need to strengthen that extra range
- 40:55and he was not a supporter of going just into neutral
- 40:58because if you're going to neutral and you know that
- 41:01person is going to be going into that extra range in
- 41:04their activity particularly in the case of sports people
- 41:07then they've got to be prepared for it otherwise it's always going to be a danger area and
- 41:10there's a little bit of murmuring and shuffling in
- 41:13the audience because they were like oh no you don't want to you don't want to train them
- 41:16to actually be into nutrient and to learn to stop it you should not go
- 41:18any further so does it depend is that the answer or what are your views on that
- 41:23no i'm a i'm 100 on board with him and when i was dislocating and i used to
- 41:31work with a physiotherapist when i first did the pilates she was the only one
- 41:34who let me go into range If you don't train the range,
- 41:37they're not going to get support outside where you train them. It's not going to...
- 41:43The hypermobility, when you train somebody, so if I train my legs and I have
- 41:50done lots of training, you don't lose the hypermobility and the laxity.
- 41:56Like, you can pretend it's not there, but it's always there.
- 41:59They're always going to be at risk of going into that extra range.
- 42:04What is key, so say with the shoulders and what he was doing,
- 42:08what I would be saying is that.
- 42:11When they start to take that arm back there is that they're integrating the
- 42:15scapula with it because it's the, it's the stocket.
- 42:18So, and this is where with the hypermobiles, they're really good at not having
- 42:23their movements connected.
- 42:25So I often work from the bones rather than focusing too much on the musculature.
- 42:31If you get the bones moving cohesively together, the muscles fall into place.
- 42:36So if I take my arm out here and my scapula moves into retraction, I'm not at risk.
- 42:43If I do that and I've now internally rotated my shoulder and I haven't moved
- 42:51my scapula, I'm at much bigger risk.
- 42:54But I would be training the strength
- 42:57as long as I know they're moving correctly in
- 43:01full range of movement because and you
- 43:04might take it there but you you start to
- 43:07teach for me I start to teach movement
- 43:10and then I take the movement into strength
- 43:14and that's how I ended up really becoming stable
- 43:17because I dislocated both shoulders all the time as well
- 43:20and I never had surgery but I would wake up
- 43:23in the morning and my right arm was like down to the ground and out
- 43:27of the socket and I like put it back in
- 43:29and this one yeah both shoulders
- 43:32were a mess and I did find
- 43:35I have found it will be in the book patterns patterns
- 43:40with these really unstable shoulders and I highly recommend lovely Jo Gibson
- 43:46the real she's yeah she said I went to one of her courses and I had a chat with
- 43:53her and her exercises are fantastic.
- 43:57And I've kind of, from those exercises, started to work out patterns that I've
- 44:02seen in my clients with the unstable shoulders.
- 44:05But I'm fully on board with him in terms of taking things to range.
- 44:11It's just knowing that one bone, it's never one bone moving independently.
- 44:16There's always a series of bones moving. You know, if the ribs can't move and
- 44:22the scapula can't move, like you have to integrate all of it,
- 44:26really, to get really good, safe,
- 44:30to work safely with them.
- 44:33Hopefully, I'm going to do some research with S&C. That would be exciting. Yeah.
- 44:38Yeah, he was very much, I mean, this is what he's, he, basically,
- 44:42he was a similar story after the, not being able to play rugby and he was a very high level.
- 44:48His rehab was rubbish it just wasn't helping at all and then he discovered eventually calisthenics,
- 44:54which a lot of people are like that's just designed for you know
- 44:57super strong people but but he was always talking
- 45:00a lot about the rings which he's very much into functional movement
- 45:03physical literacy and that sort of stuff and people like surely you're
- 45:06not to put somebody who's hypermobile on rings because and he's oh
- 45:09i think that sounds great yeah as it's even
- 45:12though you can progress you can regress it easily if
- 45:15it's just down on the ground you're just getting them to hold it there gently and
- 45:18they're safe you know it's no different than you know anything
- 45:21they're going to do in their real life but it involves everything that proprioception
- 45:25and it was yeah it was very interesting how tied it i think i
- 45:28think you know when you start to work like i do with this the range of clients
- 45:33i have people that have been in bed for two years like you're not gonna put
- 45:37them on rings but if they're like he was athletic and they've had these multiple
- 45:43discations and you're probably pretty safe doing all that.
- 45:47But, you know, you're going to see a range. We'll see a whole range of people. And we all are smart.
- 45:54And we're going to know where you've got to start. And it's about listening
- 45:58to the client. It's always just about listening to that client.
- 46:01I think that's where the smartness comes from, isn't it? You know,
- 46:04which I'm sure will be in the book. We're smart as long as we listen to the client.
- 46:08It's 100% about that. I always say to my clients, everything you tell me.
- 46:15Because they get gaslit a lot.
- 46:18And I say, you're absolutely right with everything you tell me.
- 46:22If i listen they're always
- 46:25right right i've got
- 46:27a big question here that i wanted to ask you if actually it was emailed to me from
- 46:31a massage therapist who realizes that as they need
- 46:35to do some strength and conditioning courses which is where people like joe gibson
- 46:38and then tim stevenson and the other great strength and conditioning coaches
- 46:41we know can help but they were asked me
- 46:44if you are doing strength training with these clients okay
- 46:48and it's within your scope of practice and you've got certification and stuff what
- 46:51is the likelihood that they are going to have a
- 46:54subluxation or a dislocation even and what should you do if it happens because
- 46:59she's read that the last thing you want to do is go to A&E because they'll just
- 47:03try and pull on it and that could make it even worse what what how likely is
- 47:07it to happen and what should they do if it does well they it shouldn't ever happen it's,
- 47:12It won't happen on my watch, I can tell you. That's great. Like… Or what would
- 47:16you do? What have you done wrong if it does happen?
- 47:19Not listen, I guess, to the client, not progress. No, then you don't know your
- 47:22anatomy well enough. Okay.
- 47:25Like you… And this is… It is a big thing.
- 47:29I think you do have to become more detailed.
- 47:32And I, with my own experience with my body and my clients.
- 47:39When i first did my pilates training and
- 47:42we had to do another essay because that was for the equipment training
- 47:45i went to the physio you taught us anatomy and
- 47:48i said well where's the book that tells me when i move this bone how the next
- 47:52bone moves and how the next bone moves and how the next bone moves and how the
- 47:54next bone moves and she just laughed at me and she said i think you should just
- 47:57take a joint but she missed the whole concept that in actual fact we do move
- 48:02we're capable of tons of different movements,
- 48:05but we, there is, that's why we've got ligaments.
- 48:09You get to the end of a range and then something else has to move.
- 48:14And like, I, I went on a really fantastic course, anatomy and motion,
- 48:20and it was really detailed movements of the bones.
- 48:25And I started about getting too detailed or too specific. It's just understanding
- 48:37that things move and they move together.
- 48:40And I sort of use that with my hypermobile clients because they are the people
- 48:45that can take a joint and let it spin, where it doesn't then move naturally
- 48:50into the other joints, which with the average person, it just happens anyway.
- 48:55But with the hypermobile clients, They can do some pretty weird things.
- 49:00And sometimes it's just going, let's look at the joint and see how it works
- 49:05with the rest of the body, not just independently and in an isolated manner.
- 49:10And if you do that, it's not so risky than loading up.
- 49:17In my in my sort of clinical practice
- 49:20that's what i found so when you mentioned earlier
- 49:23that you kind of woke up and your knuckles were dragging along the
- 49:26floor is that because you whilst you're asleep you've
- 49:29moved and you have kind of taken it into a very weird situation
- 49:33and you just roll on it and they pop out
- 49:36yeah so it can happen that easily when someone's asleep but as
- 49:39long as oh it's very common pretty common but
- 49:42when you're doing i think her fear comes from if she's doing strength and
- 49:45conditioning with them if you can come out while you're asleep and she's
- 49:48putting weight in the hand so the thing
- 49:50is if if they're coming out when they're asleep
- 49:53you have to start with you don't start with strength and
- 49:56conditioning you start with basic movement the joe gibson stuff is really good
- 50:02as a starting point using therabands using stuff for pro-perception yeah i i
- 50:08had one woman who came to me and she had really severe problems with dislocating shoulders.
- 50:14And I spent, oh, I don't know how many sessions trying to get her to understand
- 50:20that her arm is a long bone. And if her elbow goes up, it needs to drop back
- 50:24at the other end, doesn't pop forward.
- 50:27And so it was like, you have a little boy on the seesaw. And when this one comes
- 50:31up, that one goes back to just like keep it in the joint.
- 50:34And we literally started with hands under her shoulders, getting her to understand
- 50:39the correct movement pattern.
- 50:41Then we got her upright against a wall when you lift your arm.
- 50:45That's the movement pattern. And then from there, we loaded it.
- 50:48And then she went on a cross training, cross hiking, and you go from there.
- 50:56And then there are certain things, it's easier to load them on their backs because
- 51:01a lot of times I had somebody with a grade three severely dislocating shoulder.
- 51:06She was a little dancer and she'd been,
- 51:10in-house to Stanmore, which is a clinic for hypermobility, and hadn't had any progress.
- 51:17And what I found was you could get her to move when she was sitting and you
- 51:21could get her to move and load it when she was lying down.
- 51:24And the minute she stood up, it all went haywire.
- 51:28And what I did find was when she stood up, she hyperextended her knees massively,
- 51:34her pelvis tipped forward over her hips, and her lats just grabbed and then
- 51:38her scapula stopped moving.
- 51:40So we had to get her to actually adjust things so that actually we could get
- 51:46movement because the body's looking for stability. They're not like anybody else.
- 51:51The muscles will go into spasm and
- 51:54behave a bit weirdly because they're protectively trying to hold things.
- 51:58So I think the best thing you can do if you're going to try and strengthen somebody
- 52:03is not to over-focus on one joint and to make sure you work the entire body.
- 52:09That would be my big takeaway. Start low, see how they respond, and then go from there.
- 52:18When I go strength and conditioning, I don't do an upper half day and a lower
- 52:24leg half day. I tend to do a whole body day.
- 52:27I would rather do less and do it that way because it seems to be more integrated and work better.
- 52:35So like addressing the whole, the whole body. That'd be interesting as well.
- 52:40I don't know if you've planned to put this into the book and I'm sorry if this
- 52:42pushes you forward to April, but will you be including where you've come from
- 52:47in terms of ability, your strength and conditioning routine to where you are
- 52:50now to show like, to give people an idea?
- 52:55That's book two. That's volume two. Volume two doesn't come out in March.
- 52:59Oh, really? I didn't say that initially. Okay.
- 53:01It's two volumes and volume one is very much. And I did this specifically because
- 53:06it was going to be like a thousand page book.
- 53:08And then I'm like, no, because nobody's going to read the front half of it.
- 53:13They're going to go straight to the exercises and to the rehab.
- 53:16And so I actually went, no, I need these people to understand the comorbidities
- 53:21and all about the condition before I let them actually see then how to deal with it.
- 53:26Because it's really important that people do take that in, in working with them.
- 53:32That's a good idea. Yeah, great.
- 53:34But what do you what are you lifting what are you bench pressing bonnie
- 53:37and what i don't think no i don't i don't
- 53:41i don't do it i tend to work more on cable based machines or i do i do a bit
- 53:49of lifting i haven't done a lot an awful lot though through my msc it must be
- 53:54said although i did although i did do the snc module on my course.
- 54:01But with cable stuff. I don't know. You know what? I'm not really good. I don't note it down.
- 54:06For me, it's more about taking myself to fatigue than worrying about the weight.
- 54:12It's knowing that I've reached my fatigue level.
- 54:16I have a really fun friend who I work with, and she's on here tonight,
- 54:20Maria. This is a shout-out for Maria.
- 54:22She's also the illustrator of the book and the format. Oh, wow.
- 54:25Maria definitely needs to be here.
- 54:27She's doing her level four S&C. and we go
- 54:30to the gym together and she sits there and she monitors
- 54:33me a little bit like that shoulder is doing something
- 54:36really funky that looks not great
- 54:39as i i know enough like if i'm doing a bicep curl and i try and turn my arm
- 54:45that way if it won't rotate i know my shoulder's not in the socket correctly
- 54:49it affects everything wow so like there is an awareness i feel really safe I'm
- 54:55so happy to lift weights,
- 54:58but only because I know how my body functions.
- 55:02And I think if you're working with somebody and you're worried about working
- 55:07with them, conversation, conversation.
- 55:09If something doesn't feel right to them, it probably isn't. That would be my advice.
- 55:15So if they're not super comfortable, then either back off the weight or check
- 55:22out the motion and it's not about rubbing it out.
- 55:27It will be coming from somewhere else. Probably.
- 55:30Look at, look at the chain. Great advice.
- 55:34And I just realized now what Maria was saying, which says it will be done.
- 55:39That's great. It's applying to Mark. The only decisions are going to be done by Mark.
- 55:43It will be done. It's brilliant.
- 55:45Oh, look at the time's going now. I've already been there. I just wanted,
- 55:48I've got a note here just to mention, I think you mentioned it before,
- 55:51with vascular EDS and Marfan syndrome, then that does bring in other criteria,
- 55:55doesn't it, with terms of how much you're exerting yourself rather.
- 56:01Can you tell us a little bit about that? If you are working with somebody with
- 56:03either of those, what do you have to keep an eye on?
- 56:05Oh, well, yeah, weight and how much you load them.
- 56:09There is a table. You can go like on the Marfan Society or the organizations
- 56:15there, and there is recommended sort of exercises, different levels that is acceptable.
- 56:23You wouldn't stick weights on somebody with Marfans.
- 56:27You don't want to increase. They say it should never create pressure like the
- 56:33valve, solve, and maneuver.
- 56:34So anything that makes them hold their breath and creates pressure can just blow stuff.
- 56:39I would also say if you have a hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos patient who has had
- 56:45vascular issues, then be careful with them as well.
- 56:49You do want to look at the weight. So you would be asking about like how easily
- 56:54they bruise or if they've had bleeds in the past or the heart.
- 57:00So some of them can have heart issues.
- 57:04And you just, that could be, if you've established that they're maybe have a
- 57:08connective tissue disorder, then these questions are important to ask.
- 57:12Because it just varies. They vary so significantly from person to person. Amazing.
- 57:18And would that go forward as well? Well, what about if we haven't really talked
- 57:21much about exercise, but if you're doing a massage and hands-on treatment in
- 57:25terms of pressure and degree of pressure, does that have to be taken into account
- 57:29as well, especially if you're pushing down on joints and things? Yeah.
- 57:33Well, what I have found is METs, muscle energy release techniques,
- 57:38are amazing for anybody with hypermobility because you've got contraction at the same time.
- 57:47It's like a reset for the brain. It's proprioceptive.
- 57:50I think I usually start with that before I do anything else to see if I can
- 57:55make the change. I wouldn't do that with a neck.
- 57:58Like if there's cervical, if you suspect cervical instability and they will always feel tight.
- 58:06You have to be super careful. One thing I do, and I'm going to put this out there as well,
- 58:10is when I first get somebody and they either have a diagnosis or you suspect
- 58:15they might have more than just hypermobility, I will put my hand on top of their
- 58:21head and I'll have them push up.
- 58:23So I give them a bit of axial lengthening and I'll do a bit of muscle testing.
- 58:27If they test weak and that helps increase the strength instantly,
- 58:34then I don't touch their necks because there may be a bit of instability in there.
- 58:40And the first thing they get is then axial lengthening exercises with like a TheraBand.
- 58:46The other one is to push their chin down without clenching their teeth because
- 58:50we don't want to use the master.
- 58:52So you're either getting the neck flexors working or say the multifidus in the
- 58:57back, if that changes their strength and it's quite amazing how it can really alter things,
- 59:05then I know that they've got a degree of instability in the cervical spine and
- 59:11that has to be addressed first.
- 59:13And then I'll do other strength exercises from there.
- 59:17So that would be like a top tip to take away. And I do that with all of them.
- 59:23Because they won't build, this is the thing, they won't build strength anywhere
- 59:28else if they're not plugged in at the big microchip at the top.
- 59:31And also things like gastric issues, if they can't absorb their nutrition,
- 59:36you're going to really struggle to get them to build muscle.
- 59:40So there are certain things that I really make sure are okay before I try loading them too much.
- 59:47Some of my hypermobiles love load, more the better.
- 59:51Some really can't tolerate it those
- 59:54tend to be the people with pots more they seem
- 59:58to be less happy to load too
- 1:00:01much but that's just an observation not
- 1:00:04research-based lots of research needs to
- 1:00:07be done still excellent loads in
- 1:00:10there loads of people hopefully got your notepads firing away
- 1:00:13and steam coming from them and we've reached the time nikki you okay for one
- 1:00:17more question bonnie yeah yeah i've got a question and nikki i saw this question
- 1:00:20and i think it's a great question uh nikki says have you come across chronic
- 1:00:23urinary retention like gastroparesis for the bladder as a symptom of mcas mast
- 1:00:28cell activation syndrome or of hypermobility in general.
- 1:00:32So you can definitely get bladder issues it can it could be from mast cell it
- 1:00:38could also be from pots it could be from pretty much anything that causes the
- 1:00:43nervous system to go into sympathetic overdrive.
- 1:00:46So you tend to get like a holding in the pelvic floor area,
- 1:00:51with all of that. So yes, definitely.
- 1:00:55Also, they don't get the messaging from the stretching of the bladder.
- 1:00:59So you end up with the bladder being super full and they still haven't got,
- 1:01:05because they don't get the sort of signaling from the nerve endings because
- 1:01:09it's all too stretchy. So you definitely get that.
- 1:01:14You also have this degree of neurodivergence where actually
- 1:01:17the sensory perception can often
- 1:01:20be altered because of that so you are
- 1:01:24dealing with a whole spectrum of things that can cause
- 1:01:27that it's all in the book it will be that right look it's 905 thank you so much
- 1:01:35for your time if people want to well we mentioned already you're going to be
- 1:01:39Anna Maria's the SC school in Exmouth I always get Exmouth and Exeter confused
- 1:01:43it's Exmouth it's One nearer the coast, yeah.
- 1:01:45In Exmouth, March the 20... 22nd and 23rd. It'll be a two-day course.
- 1:01:51Wonderful. That's great. If people... I'm sure that people will...
- 1:01:55Hopefully people are going and signing up now because I'm sure there'll be a
- 1:01:58big demand for that because I think it's one of the only ones you're going to do in 2025.
- 1:02:02You've got the book coming out as well, which should be around in March.
- 1:02:05And we'll be sure to let people know when that is available.
- 1:02:09It can be pre-ordered or whatever the situation is.
- 1:02:11And if other people want to follow you, we've mentioned the website already,
- 1:02:15moving to nationalessentials.uk.
- 1:02:17We've mentioned the YouTube channel, Heads Rehab or H-E-D-S Rehab.
- 1:02:22And then you're also on Facebook.
- 1:02:24I am. I'm not very good at social media. I have to be honest.
- 1:02:27But what I am really happy to say to everybody on this podcast is that if you
- 1:02:32are struggling with client or you have questions, because I do a lot of charitable
- 1:02:36work, I am super happy to have a Zoom meeting,
- 1:02:40because I would just rather help.
- 1:02:43Than let somebody just run there well it's
- 1:02:47true i'm sort of getting old and nearing retirement
- 1:02:50but i do a lot of online stuff for
- 1:02:53for different charities and if you
- 1:02:56have a question you can
- 1:02:59go like on the sports therapy and put
- 1:03:02it in there and or try and even message me
- 1:03:05i'm really happy to help what's the best way to message you
- 1:03:08going to the website is there a i do have two facebook
- 1:03:11pages actually I have one called HEDS rehab
- 1:03:15and I have one called exercise hypermobility exercise and education you can
- 1:03:21join either of those and you can message me through those okay I will hopefully
- 1:03:28now my MSC is out of the way I'll get better and get back on social media and
- 1:03:32get everything going again,
- 1:03:34We'll make sure we give links to those Facebook pages and also the website and
- 1:03:38everything on there. And even Instagram, maybe. Who knows?
- 1:03:43I've got to get better at it. We don't have to. It depends. We'll get someone
- 1:03:48to look after you for you. Lots of people would love to do that.
- 1:03:51Amazing. Right. Thank you so much. I think Jessica has summed it up here.
- 1:03:54Jessica Janiman says, thank you so much. I'm going to listen to this over and over again.
- 1:04:01That's great. Okay. Well, that's it, people.
- 1:04:04We will be back in 2025 we're finished
- 1:04:07now for this year because the way the day's full and the tuesday's full i
- 1:04:10think it's like christmas day and new year's eve or something on a
- 1:04:12tuesday so we're back in 2025 the brand new season
- 1:04:15like i say kicking off in january with a focus on business month four
- 1:04:19amazing episodes guests all sorted out already talking on coaching
- 1:04:22skills communication client attention use of social media and much
- 1:04:25more so if you are listening to this or you've done
- 1:04:28us the pleasure of joining us live do make sure you are subscribed for
- 1:04:31free to the sports therapy association youtube channel and
- 1:04:34make sure you're following us on social media whether it's facebook instagram linkedin
- 1:04:38or whatever suits you best but as far as tonight goes and this year goes just
- 1:04:42once again thank you so much bonnie southgate what a lovely way to finish the
- 1:04:45year with yourself i really appreciate your time bonnie thank you well thank
- 1:04:48you and thank you for all the podcasts like your work is amazing and these podcasts
- 1:04:53are so enjoyable and informative like i have always.
- 1:04:57Thought you were amazing amazing that's so nice thank you very much that's very kind,
- 1:05:03and thanks everyone who joined us live if you do listen to the podcast we
- 1:05:06don't get to hang out together so maybe next year one of your new year's resolutions
- 1:05:09will be i'm going to do something in real time maybe that's
- 1:05:12a form of mindfulness you could be working on to actually do something
- 1:05:15in real time instead of clicking on record and play that
- 1:05:18might be healthy for you and hang out with other people and ask questions generally we
- 1:05:21know that you learn more and you engage more if you are mixing
- 1:05:24with other people not everyone especially if it's behind your
- 1:05:27own keyboard so it might be something for you to think about but if you are listening to
- 1:05:30the podcast and do us a good favor of leaving a rating and a review if
- 1:05:33you've enjoyed it and that really helps us just go higher and
- 1:05:36google search results and if somebody puts in hyper mobility then
- 1:05:39bam bonnie southgate episode 222 will be at the top if
- 1:05:42you leave a review so that's something which you need to do before christmas and
- 1:05:45if you do decide to join us live and fantastic we'll
- 1:05:48get together and we'll chat in 2025 but until then
- 1:05:52i guess i can't believe i'm saying this again it's come
- 1:05:54so quickly have a lovely time over the festive holidays
- 1:05:57everybody we're there again yeah god but anyway yeah enjoy yourselves whatever
- 1:06:01you're doing over christmas especially if you're having to work i'll be fine
- 1:06:04a few moments just to have a smile and share maybe a little chink of glasses
- 1:06:08with somebody somewhere if you are working thank you for working especially
- 1:06:10everybody who's working healthcare and as always take care of each other and
- 1:06:14we'll see you very soon thank you very much bye-bye.
- 1:06:17Music.