Fair way to get back on course

When one woman's back pain took its toll on her job as well as her golf swing, she found relief from a gentle therapy, says Celia Dodd

A keen golfer and a county player, Jane Williamson, 30, can remember the day she woke, five years ago, with a dull pain in her lower back. "I have no idea what triggered it but that morning I had to get out of bed very slowly and carefully." She also began to suffer from severe headaches every few months, which would last up to a couple of days. But she didn't see her GP because she says: "I didn't think she could do much about it other than to prescribe painkillers. I just tried to carry on with life regardless." Williamson's job, a marketing and research manager for a junior golf initiative in Scotland, involves many hours driving, which made her back pain worse. The root cause, she believed, was carrying her heavy golf bag around the course, something she had been doing since the age of 11. Although her fiance, Richard, also a keen sportsman, tried to persuade her to try physiotherapy, she resisted. "I didn't like the idea of manipulation,'," she says. "Besides, Richard had regular treatments but his back pain would return a few days later."

The crunch came in 2003 when Williamson signed up for the Caledonian Challenge for charity - a gruelling 54-mile (87km) walk in 24 hours across the West Highland Way. She faced eight months of intense physical training. "Richard said I'd never make it if I didn't get my back sorted out. At around that time a friend sent me an e-mail about body stress release, which sounded gentle and didn't involve manipulation. I did some research and decided to go for a session with Kerry Teakle, who was the only practitioner in Scotland, based in Edinburgh, then."

Body stress release (BSR) is a technique based on the belief that muscles store tension and compress the nerves in the surrounding area causing headaches and dizziness. Practitioners believe that by applying light pressure tests on the body it is possible to identify where stress is stored, then to stimulate the body into releasing it. This takes the pressure off the nerves. The technique was developed in South Africa in the early 1980s and there are still only about a dozen practitioners in Britain.

Two years ago, Teakle spent five months in South Africa training as a BSR practitioner because it was the one treatment she had found in 20 years that offered her long-term relief from back pain. She usually recommends that her clients start with three 30-minute sessions over an 11 day period.

In the first 30-minute session Williamson lay down, fully clothed, first on her front, then her back. "Kerry pressed gently on points on my back for about ten minutes, before turning me over to work on my front. Having located what she believed to be stress in my back, shoulders and neck, she started to release it, using a slightly firmer pressure. Before she started on my neck she warned me that it might be more sensitive. It was, slightly, but the treatment didn't hurt at all. It feels as if the muscle is gently twisting as she puts on the pressure."

Teakle claims that her first step with every client is to look for a muscular response using light pressure tests with her fingers. "If a muscle is stressed and you touch it, the body will respond. This is literally a reflex response which indicates where the body is storing the stress. Having found it, I then release that muscle, using perhaps more pressure than before."

In Williamson's case, the pain was in the same area as the stored tension: her lower back. But in Teakle's view, tension had also moved up Williamson's spine, causing her headaches. At the end of the session Teakle talked to Williamson about ways to improve her posture and recommended special cushions for her car. She also gave her exercises to strengthen her stomach muscles and to loosen the tightness in her neck.

She also warned her that she might feel light­headed after the session. "In fact," says Williamson, "I just felt relaxed, and when I cooked dinner that evening I dropped a lot of pans, which is totally unlike me. It was almost as if my muscles were slightly and temporarily out of kilter. The morning after the second session I got out of bed easily. It's been incredible, I've had no back pain, or headaches, since."

Williamson went back to see Teakle after she completed the Caledonian Challenge in June, and again last month for a sore neck and shoulders which developed after changing desks at work. The pain went after two sessions. "This time," says Williamson, "I could feel the muscles working straight after the session. Kerry explained that because it was new tension it took less time to release so it was obviously an advantage to go to her before it built up."

WHAT IS IT?

BODY STRESS RELEASE is a gentle technique which its practitioners believe helps the body's natural healing process to relieve pain caused by stress build-up in the muscles. The practitioner uses light finger pressure to find the areas of stress and then stimulates the body to release it.

SUITABLE FOR back, neck and shoulder pain, sciatica, whiplash and sports injuries. COST About £30 for a half-hour session.

CONTACT www.bodystressrelease-uk.co.uk; Kerry Teakle, 0131-225 5656; or Neal's Yard Therapy Rooms, London WC1, 020-7379 7662

WHAT'S THE EVIDENCE? DR TOBY MURCOTT

Does body stress relief cure back pain?
Jane Williamson and Kerry Teakle clearly lbelieve that it does, but I found no clinical trials of BSR, and no research into its effectiveness.

Does it gently release nerves?
According to Martin Kolzenburg, professor of pain research at the Institute of Child Health in London, stimulating touch-sensitive nerve endings in our skin can reduce pain; our nervous system effectively overrides the experience of pain with the feeling of being touched. This is why rubbing a sore area can make it feel better.

So what works for back pain?
Painkillers, acupuncture, exercise, antidepressants, spinal manipulation all work sometimes. Williamson's relief might have been a natural remission. The fact that Teakle showed her a new way to see her problem and to use practical solutions also helped.