I tend to be very thorough in your first assessment and, depending on your issue, I will normally go into your history in depth to help me work towards likely answers. Just because you may be experiencing pain more recently does not mean that it does not relate to an injury or biomechanical issue from the past. Then I will carry out a series of neurological tests and muscle tests in order to ascertain what is happening with your nervous system and whether your brain function is contributing to the pain or movement issue. The first session generally takes up to 2 hours and I may spend less than half of the session actually treating you. In terms of treatment, sometimes we can only scrape the surface of the problem in the first session but we can almost certainly make a start towards removing the "layers" of dysfunction to get to the root cause or causes. I, and I am sure you, would not normally expect to solve everything in just one session but I would expect to have a plan of action and a "direction of travel" by the end of the session.

Neuromuscular therapy can sometimes leave clients feeling anything from a little light headed to "more grounded" and anything from energised to extremely tired: everyone's neurology is different. None of my clients have ever reported any adverse side effects. If we have resolved an important dysfunction or multiple dysfunctions during the session it is possible that you will feel things changing in your body in terms eg of certain muscles working which had not been properly "firing" before, or some limited aches arising from muscles loading which had not previously been loading efficiently before. Sometimes the effect of the treatment is too subtle to feel after just one session, especially in more complex cases.

My aim is to get to the bottom of the problem as quickly as possible and work towards preventing it from returning or being triggered again. As you would expect me to say, every problem is different, but I would expect to see some positive change or resolution within 4 to 8 sessions in cases of average complexity. Sometimes we need fewer. Sometimes the dysfunction can be re-triggered by events or "hidden" injuries and I will always seek to find and eliminate those triggers by "challenging" the corrections we have made. Because every case is different I do not encourage "block" bookings for multiple sessions and prefer to monitor progress weekly. Once I have begun to work on you, I will be scrupulously honest with you as to how many sessions we are likely to need. When we have worked to a point where you are pain free (or as close to pain free as is possible) or we have "unlocked" restricted movement, most clients tend to come in for "MOTs" if and when they feel the need.

It helps me if before the session you can start thinking about everything that has happened to your body since you can remember! Knocks, accidents, falls, breaks, cuts, surgical or cosmetic procedures, dental work, scars, tattoos, bites, concussions, whiplashes, sprains, strains, anything! And it also helps for you to reflect on what makes your pain or problem worse, what makes it better, is there a particular time of day or year it is worse or better? And I will go through all of this with you in your first session.

Generally speaking, you won'y need to remove your clothes when I am testing and treating you but I may need to visually and manually examine your spine, hips, knees, neck, feet and ribs so I tend to recommend sportswear or loose and comfortable clothing.

Things happen but I do ask clients to let me know at least 24 hours in advance of their scheduled appointment if they need to cancel or postpone. In cases of cancellation made within 24 hours of the appointment, I will, save in exceptional circumstances, charge a cancellation fee (equivalent to the cost of the appointment).