Bangor doctor Helen Worthington changes people's lives using her skills as a fully qualified chiropractor. Helen's techniques help to treat muscle pain in the musculoskeletal system, meaning the human skeleton, made by bones attached to other bones with joints, and skeletal muscle attached to the skeleton by tendons. "Chiropractic is a practise for muscular skeletal problems, so any conditions that will effect the overall physical being", said Helen. "Spinal conditions, extremities, knee problems, elbow problems and headaches. We treat through manipulation to the spine or the joints and also a combination of
soft tissue techniques and stretching and home exercise".
For the therapist, working alongside general medicine can only enhance a patient's treatment. Helen said: "I feel as a chiropractor what we tend to do is look for the cause of the problem as opposed to treating the symptoms. In that sense, long term it is much more beneficial because it is resolving problems
instead of masking them. I think combined with general medicine, and other complementary medicines as well, patients will benefit much more".
In her work with Get Well UK, Helen treated many patients with amazing results. "I had a patient who has recently finished coming to me,", she explained. "He came to me with very chronic disc problems. There was pressure on his sciatic nerve and was giving him very bad leg pain. He had been to his GP quite a bit. They x-rayed him, identified the problem, but all they could really do was prescribe the drugs. He just reported to me that every symptom he initially came to me with has been fully resolved. He is exercising, he is running three times a week." She continues the story, "we treated the disc that was pressing against the nerve, whereas the drugs wouldn't be treating that, they would just try to dull the nerve pain".
Helen feels patients like this should be referred onto to complementary therapy by the NHS if medicine is no longer working. "I would say it is very important because speaking as someone who did this project for a year and also who works in a private clinic, you are accessing patients who normally wouldn't be able to afford complementary therapy and therefore I don't think it is fair they are being excluded", she said. "Generally the majority of patients I have treated through this programme have saw some type of improvement. It is also nice for them to be sitting down and talking to someone who can explain to them what the problem is and why they have the pain and what they can do about it themselves. I think it is very important that the general public has access to these therapies".