Innate Healing in My Practice

A useful part of assessment is deciding which category something is in, because it determines whether anyone should be treating it at all.

Resolves with time and sensible load. Most muscle strains. Most acute low back pain. Most ankle sprains. Most recent neck pain. For these, the honest advice is movement within comfort, reassurance and a timeframe — and the main value of an appointment is ruling out the things it is not, then telling you to get on with it.

Needs active work. Tendon problems, which require graded loading for months. Instability after repeated sprains, which needs balance and strength work. Long-standing pain, which needs load, sleep and sometimes psychological approaches. These do not resolve by waiting, and rest makes several of them worse.

Needs medical treatment and will not resolve otherwise. Infections. Fractures. Autoimmune disease. Inflammatory arthritis. Thyroid disease. Iron and B12 deficiency. Cancer. Type 1 diabetes. If I think something is in this group, I refer, that week, and I will not treat around it.

The mistake I see most is category one being treated for months — someone paying for twelve appointments for something that would have settled in six weeks — and category three being treated as category one, which is the dangerous direction.

So part of what I owe you at the first appointment is which category I think you are in. The clinic is in Lane Cove, opposite the library.