SO GLAD YOU COULD JOIN THE REVOLUTION A quick tutorial: Menopause: the date on which a woman has not menstruated for one year. Menopause is literally one day in our lives.  Post-menopause  – what comes after. Accompanied by a drop in both estrogen and progesterone. Generally feels better than peri-menopause. Women still often benefit from long term hormone assistance with guidance from a clever clinician.  Peri-menopause  – the time before, initial increase in estrogen and dr

When you seek medical care, you want more than just a diagnosis or prescription. As rural people we don't make the effort to see a healthcare provider without consideration and good reason. We want to make sure we are not only listened to but heard, understood, and supported throughout. In my opinion, high-quality healthcare goes beyond technical skills and treatments. Those are important, but best practice needs involve compassion, clear communication, patient education, a

Our family often does fun games at Christmas, so here is my gift to you. This is a body challenge - it's easy to do, and has a surprising wee outcome at the end. It also only takes 45 seconds per side, so could be a really fun circuit breaker. If done properly, your leg feels like it's floating when you walk afterwards.

A few years ago, I came across a piece of research that talked about 44% of people who did an 8 week strength programme improving their hip and knee symptoms so much that they delayed or cancelled their hip or knee replacement surgery. And then a hip client came in and I talked to them about this piece of research, said I thought we could change things but may need 12 weeks and it did not work . The pain did not improve and they went back down the surgery route. It was succe

Most of us think about drinking water when it’s hot, when we’re sweaty, or when someone reminds us… again. Unless of course we are drinking coffee all day. It's not as bad as you think, but probably not an ideal only source of hydration. It's not always easy to keep hydrated, but the impact of being dehydrated is more than being a little bit thirsty.  It negatively impacts all systems of your body, and importantly, makes your muscles, ligaments, cartilage and joints less res

Looking at humans from a whole organism lens means that of course nutrition is going to impact both short-term and long-term health. What we have not elaborated on significantly is "does it impact our tendon health? I recently read the review "the impact of nutrition on tendon health and tendinopathy" which reviewed 19 publications (out of over 8,000 that looked like they could be relevant) and came up with the following information. A note: this is not a causation relations

Short Hamstrings Make You Weaker WA new piece of research was published in September this year - it showed that (in young healthy men, so not 100% generalisable) that shorter hamstrings changed strength capacity, especially when the hamstrings were lengthening under load or creating stability. What are the hamstrings? They are the muscles in the back of the thigh. They come from the sit bones, and extend out to the knee, two in the middle side of the knee, and one on the out

Disclaimer I haven't done this myself, but people I trust have. My feeling is that this is too important for us as rural and remote people to ignore . Adrenaline Requirements in Anaphylaxis Here's the lowdown. For people in true anaphlactic shock, that are more than 20kg, the required dose of adrenaline is 0.1 - 0.5g per kg of body weight, and this may need to be repeated at 15 minute intervals. (Source) The dosage from an epipen in New Zealand is 0.15 for a prescription fo

Intro What is a Tendon? Tendons are what attach muscles to bones.  They are the white “sinew” at the end of muscles, and transmit forces from the muscle to the bone and joint - stabilising the joint, or greating movement. They also, importantly, create elasticity and bounce, decreasing the work of the muscle e.g. the achilles. The lower limb tendons can withstand high levels of force e.g. the foot tendon (and the whole body) needs to withstand between 1.5-2 x body weight (wal