"I was given osteopath treatment, ..."

What I liked

I was given osteopath treatment, only six sessions, and then a review in 6 months. I have exercises to do at home. After years of severe pain in lower back, I can't believe how much has been achieved in just 6 half hour sessions. It's almost a miracle!

What could be improved

As far as my own treatment goes, nothing could have been improved, you can't improve on excellence. But I would say that after years of severe back pain and going for physio, to no avail, the painkillers are rubbish, they don't take away the pain, why wasn't I referred to the spinal unit sooner? This is the only place that has an osteopath, just one osteopath! I really can't emphasise what a fantastic experience it was. Osteopaths should be the first line of defence when it comes to back problems, THEN physio, and then other interventions if they don't work. There's absolutely no point in going for physio, in my view, if your body's misaligned, you're still going to have problems, unless you go and get straightened out by an osteopath, literally. There is a catch to this - your doctor will not refer you to an osteopath, he'll tell you that the nhs don't do them, and you'll have to go to a private osteopath and pay. The truth of the matter is, there IS an osteopath at the QMC , and he is the only one in the spinal unit at the hospital, a private osteopath brought in by the hospital itself. He's a lovely man and brilliant at what he does, so why aren't the nhs employing more osteopaths. In the spinal unit at the QMC, there are even posters on the wall, that the hospital nurses themselves put up , that say osteopathy should be the first course of action when it comes to back pain. So why are the NHS contradicting themselves?

Anything else?

Why don't the NHS employ more osteopaths? So much money would be saved, fewer operations, some of which are totally unnecessary anyway. I can't believe, and neither can the osteopath, that I"ve suffered like this for 20 odd years, and in just SIX sessions, there's been great improvement.