Apart from dental pain, at least for men, there can’t be pain much worse than back pain. It’s the sort of pain that renders you incapable of movement, similar to being kicked in the twins (OK, so that’s another pain that can be worse) and when it strikes it usually takes no prisoners.

Maybe it’s because I have a relatively long back, relative to my height that is, that I tend to suffer in the lower part so much. Recently it’s also set my hips off and the pain can dance between the whole area making me want to lie very still.

I remember the day it first went, I was bending over to pick up a file off the bottom shelf and that was it, next 5 minutes spent laying on the floor unable to move because of the pain, cue for my second appointment with an Osteopath. He diagnosed the problem as my SI joint, the joint where the spine meets the pelvis. Apparently it had moved in a way it wasn’t supposed to. All I knew was it hurt.

And so to my current visit to an Osteopath. This time I listened to a few recommendations from fellow Moles, found the costs or availability to be an issue so I hit Google and found a practice within a mile of my home. R J Osteopathic Clinic is where I went on that basis of the web site and what it said about Reena’s qualifications and experience.

The clinic is conveniently located, pleasant and functional if a little small in the consulting room. There is an air of professional competence about the clinic and the receptionist seems to consider herself very much a part of the business and image of the clinic. Full marks for presentation!

For those of you who’ve never tried an Osteopath I’ll run through the process as experienced by me. The first appointment includes an assessment of your general health as well as the problem you are taking. Obviously the more details you are able to give the better. Mine was a bit of a mixed bag as I’ve been having the pain for quite a while but it does manifest itself in various ways.

Next I was asked to strip down to my pants so the Osteopath could watch the way my spine moved as I bent various ways. Then it was a question of laying on the couch to be “manipulated” in various ways to try and find and ease the pain. The treatments include finding tight muscles and loosening them, finding tight joints and loosening them.

This can include the joint “cracking” that is associated with Osteopaths but it can also include a more subtle manipulation more akin to massage. There’s a few gadgets that can be employed as well such as heat lamps and a machine that I think causes the muscles to spasm.

The initial diagnosis for me was that my spine was very stiff in a couple of places and this was transferring pain down into my hips. This was later changed as the pain changed but as my pain had no particular pin point it was difficult to put a finger on it, so to speak.

It was recommended that I go and have an X-ray so off I went to see my GP and in just over a week I was in Leatherhead Hospital having the said X-ray taken. So now it’s a question of time to get that back and make sure the joint itself is in good order.

While I wait for that though the Osteopath made an interesting discovery; while prodding the muscles around my stomach area she found one that sent a pain straight down the path into where my hip was most painful. Currently my hip has felt less painful since she found this so I’m hopeful it’s muscles and ligaments rather that the joint itself.

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About the author

Dave's been riding seriously since about 1997 and is one of the founding Molefathers — along with Matt and Mark — that came up with the idea of a MTB website for Mole Valley riders.

He's had several different bikes but it's now mainly 29ers in Dave's stable, apart from an Orange 5.

Current Bikes: Orange 5, Salsa Spearfish and Kona Big Unit