At the Broadgate Spine & Joint Clinic we have the largest number of MAST Certified Clinicians of any clinic in the UK. We are seeing an increasing number of patients who come to our clinic in order to determine whether they are candidates for antibiotic therapy. At Broadgate, we scrutinise our patients extremely thoroughly prior Read More

Recent research found that London residents spend an average of 9 hours online a day.  Added up that is 30 years in a lifetime, certainly enough time for back and neck to occur if attention isn’t paid to our posture whilst using our newest gadget. Prolonged periods in twisted, awkward and slouched postures whilst using Read More

Low back pain is extremely common, affecting 9 out of every 10 of us at some stage in our lives. Back pain is second only to the common cold as a cause of days lost at work. Acupuncture is widely used to treat low back pain and a recent systematic review by the Cochrane Collaboration, Read More

As discussed in earlier articles much of what we know about Modic changes relates to patients suffering with lower back pain. The bacteria have been identified and long term antibiotic treatment has been shown to be highly effective in treating this subset of patients. Modic changes (bone oedema) have been identified on MRI scans for Read More

I have written extensively on the topic of Modic changes and antibiotic treatment in the Broadgate Journal. A few of the articles that I have written are listed below. Modic Changes, a New Disease? Why does Exercise Increase Symptoms in Modic patients? How to identify Modic patients How to become a MAST Certified Clinician By Read More

Tendons are simply what connect muscles to bones. They transfer the force generated by muscles to bones and hence result in coordinated movement in joints. The Achilles tendon is the largest tendon in our body and it withstands tensile forces of up to 8 times body weight during running. The term tendonitis is no longer Read More

It’s tennis season and at this time of year we seeing more low back problems from tennis.  Low back pain is common among tennis players and general there are two types of back injury, a sudden “injury” or gradual onset of stiffness and pain, usually increasing the more time that is spent playing. The first Read More

The Spine Centre at the University of Southern Denmark as developed a 9 question process that enables clinicians to identify patients who may suffer from lower back pain caused by Modic changes. If a patient’s response is YES to three or more questions, it is possible that they may have Modic changes. We advise you Read More

When interviewing patients with longstanding lower back pain one of the areas that we must focus on is the nature of the patient’s pain, how it “feels”, what if anything relieves it, what worsens it, where exactly is it, what activities are limited and so forth. Determining whether a patient is in fact experiencing back Read More

Modic changes have recently been receiving a lot of interest from the popular press. This is due to an MRI finding, having clinical importance, which had not previously been seen.  A high percentage of test subjects respond favourably to long term antibiotic treatment. This is significantly better than results of all other conventional treatments. The Read More