On 8th April 2024, when I arrived at the Bearsden Chiropractic Clinic, I could barely function. I couldn't sit, stand, walk, sleep or think. Neuropathic pain from pressure on the sciatic nerve has to be experienced even to be imaginable. It is wholly disabling and wholly dementing.
I was assigned to Dr Sarah Donnelly who, by 1st June, had progressively returned me to a normality I didn't think I'd ever recover. She has been forensically accurate and comprehensive in her treatment, adding tissue manipulation and exercises to her adjustments, with stretching still to come.
I'm not new to chiropractic. It has long been my successful go-to as a highly specialist and forensically accurate treatment for trouble in my neck, my lower back, my wrist and latterly for the excruciating pain from pressure on my sciatic nerve caused by putting my sacrum out.
I have previously used the Wight Chiropractic Clinic at Roseburn in Edinburgh [now closed] and the Wight Chiropractic Clinic at Torphichen Place at Haymarket in Edinburgh, run by Dr George Haig. My experiences at both could not have been more successful. [I have also been to a clinic in another city to which I simply did nor return after my first visit, as safety-first says one should always act on a personal sense of recoil or alarm. Common sense says that, just as there are some dodgy GPs and surgeons, there are bound to be some dodgy chiropractors.
The Bearsden Clinic is efficient, bright, warm and friendly with reception staff who make everyone's day. It is available during long hours in an extended working week. They will always make sure you get seen in an emergency.
Dr Donnelly has been a delight - with precise and evidence-based identification of the sources of problems and a skilled and wide-ranging menu of approaches to getting one mobile again.
My GPs - and the NHS as a matter of practice - offer only medications, often opiods and often a permanent feature of your life from then on. This does not even attempt to approach the cause of the disability and/or the pain.