I have had a hard year and had to make some adjustments to be able to continue doing what I do best, being a therapist and being able support my clients who come to me with their own stress issues.

I have passed the clinic over to a new company, The Docklands Clinic who will be expanding it and making it look brand new again! The good news is that myself and my therapists will still be based at the clinic and will continue to see clients and give them the support they need. I am looking forward to being able to just do my treatments and not be involved in running the clinic as Exceptional Health. I am also excited at working with the Docklands Clinic and supporting them in the new venture. Please note their web site www.thedocklandsclinic.co.uk and have a look to see what they have on offer for you.

I would like to say thank you to everyone who has supported me over the last 7 years and I hope to continue offering the exceptional treatments by a team of professional therapists.

Nothing much will change as you will still be able to contact the clinic on the same number and e-mail on the same address at info@exceptionalhealth.co.uk. the schedule will be as follows for treatments:

Tuesday 5pm – 8pm- Angelina Pfeifera-  Sports massage

Wednesday 10am – 6pm – Claire Stiling- Deep tissue massage, Cranio-sacral therapy, Homeopathy, Allergy testing

Wednesday 5pm-8pm – Lin Mirams- Acupuncture

Friday 10am – 8pm -  Claire Stiling – Deep tissue massage, Cranio-sacral therapy, Homeopathy, Allergy testing.

I am also looking to bring in more therapists so please look at web site for more information of whats happening.

I look forward to seeing you all at The Docklands Clinic.

Well alot has gone on and yes my teeth are still quite white which I think is great on how long the treatment lasts, Amanda did say I was to do a follow up session as she would like to take my teeth a little more whiter! I really will think then that I should live in Hollywood!

I have been very busy trying to get Exceptional Health full with more therapists and offer more of a range of treatments. I am happy to say that Laser Active have joined us (www.laser-active.co.uk ) and also Nataliya Robinson (www.perfectskin.org.uk) has joined also and is offering a range of beauty treatments, some which appeared on 10 years younger on Channel 4, this I may well have a go at! All the information of treatments are on our website. Both are offering introductory offers so don’t derlay in taking advantage of their offers.

Lastly I have just skyped my brother in the USA, to wish him a belated birthday only to realise it was today and the date was wrong on my watch! He is at the hospital with his wife, who is expecting her 3rd child, and although the due date is the 20th they have decided to have an induction today! I think its because its a boy thing, same birthdays and also we can do pretty much what we want to change nature nowadays! Do I agree with it, not at all as I feel that childbirth is such a natural thing that to do it that way is much better for mother and child! It still amazes me how much society today designs the way they we have babies, scary!

I hope to write on this more regularly, she says!! Claire

Now that I have had it done, to which it took 3 months for Amanda from Ice Whitening to convince me to have a go. I was worried that my crowns, to which my top front teeth  are would not change and I would be left with strange looking coloured teeth at the front! (And just for the record, they are crowned because I knocked them out as a clumsy kid, not because I was fighting nor eating lots of sweets!) Well impressed I am, in truth I had nothing to worry about at all.

The procedure is quite simple, not at all painful and some would say it stopped me from talking for an hour!! Amanda, checked my teeth, explained everything she was doing and the reasons why. She made me feel very at ease and like it was the most normal thing to have done!! I even manged to have a little nap. The laser comes in 15 minute bursts, and then teeth are checked each time and the gel is put on the teeth again then the laser does its work, all really simple and completely pain free.

After, all I had to do was rinse my mouth and smile! What must be done after is a white food diet, which I can’t deny I have found hard to do, but trust me when I say, it’s really important to do. Why I have struggled is because I am quite anal about eating vegetables and fruit and because I am not allowed them I just want them even more!

So I can highly recommend it to anyone, its safe, non-invasive and the practitioner is lovely. Treatments are available here and their web site is www.IceWhitening.co.uk

Will I have again in about 3 months time, yes why not! Claire

I had my daughter in July 04 and I can honestly say it was a fantastic experience and I did not go through the NHS at all! Nor, did I go through the private route either as I certainly could not afford £4,500.00 to have an independent mid-wife. I was lucky enough to have a friend/colleague who was a mid-wife and said years ago that if ever I got pregnant she would be my mid-wife, so took her up om her offer.

My main reason for opting out of the NHS, anti-natel classes, reading any kind of book was because of all the years I have been treating pregnancy I listened to all the fear that women were feeling about what could happen and also I was birth partner to a friend of mine, who had her son in hospital. She was 3 weeks late and the doctors threw so much fear at her for not wanting to be induced I could see the stress mounting!

Child birth has been performed for thousands and thousands of years and is  the most natural phenomenas going. Because we know so much more science and how our bodies work, women have so much information at their finger tips and one can google anything! My only issue with the whole information knowledge is how it incurred the fear and therefore more stress throughout.

I don’t believe in the ‘what if’ as no-one knows what will happen to them tomorrow, next week, next year. Yes we can plan our lives but can anyone honestly say the life goes to plan?

I had my daughter in 3 hours, my first pregnancy and yes it could of been some luck but could also be because I did hold any fear what so ever. All I knew was the following.

1- It was going to be painful

2- It was only going to be intense for 45 seconds of the contraction to it’s peak then come down again.

3- My job was to push that baby out!

This is how I approached the birth of my child and my mid-wife laughed at me as she told me that she knew that I would get it done like I did because I was so focused on what I had to do, which was push, that from the time my waters broke to her arrival was 3 hours!

Again one could argue that being a therapist and treating pregnancy for a lot of years that I knew what I was doing. My answer to that was I so did not! All I knew was the 3 sentences above, I knew I had to trust it, believe that it was such a natural thing to do.

I am not saying that child birth is easy, I just wish that there was not as much fear attached to it and doctors need to understand that women are not machines as they seem to just want to get baby out and the whole natural approach to childbirth has been lost somewhere. It could be so much more stress free for women nowadays if we maybe had a little more positive information and less of the negative about the what could happen. I feel that this helped my luck if you want to call it that!

I was also thinking of trying to get something together to help women focus on the fun of child birth but will keep you posted on whether I ever get that together, LOL !!

We offer a lot of therapies for fertility, pregnancy, homeopathy during and for labour, osteopathy, cranial osteopathy for pain, massage, reflexology. I hope you find this interesting and would be more than happy to discuss my experience with anyone or help getting the fear turned into trust ready for the birth of a child.    Claire

It’s that january thing, the amount of people both professionally and friends who are abstaining from alcohol for this month! Was it that so much drinking was done or we just feel like it was as it was Christmas or we drink lots either way and a month off makes us feel healthier regardless of the rest of the year!

I know I probably sound quite mad, but these are questions I think about and often ask people because on the whole I don’t think we quite realise how much we actually do drink. I always say I am not a drinker, this is partly true, but I could drink a few glasses of wine without really noticing and if I drink more than once a week it passes me by. There are times where I have not drunk anything for weeks, again I don’t really notice that either! I am lucky really because I get violently sick so know that I can’t mix drinks nor drink to excess and cannot handle being very ill the next day anymore! (I am no longer in my 20′s!!)

There are more cases of fatty and cirrhotic liver now amongst people that are just sitting at home having a bottle of wine and thinking I’m not out drinking so it’s not really drinking! Actually it is! This is why I go back to the question on why we  don’t take note of how much we drink generally over the year and think about that!!

Lastly, food detox, January is not the time to do it, it’s too cold! Best time to do a de-tox is March onwards and best to do at least a month!

If you are considering getting your bodies fitter, why not come and have a massage which will help circulation, muscle fatigue, aches, pains and promotes a stronger immune system by pushing out some of that Christmas excess!

I hope that 2011 brings everything you wish for! Claire

Has it been a mad time for everybody? I thought I had been quite organised this year and bought presents as I went along only to realise that I had bought hardly anything and up until yesterday I still had at least 5 people to buy for! Luckily I have reduced that down to 2, but my biggest stress is realising I now need to go into the West End!! Ahhhhhhhhh!

So, once again it has become stressful, all last minute and yet I never seem to learn from previous years! I have to get the stress down, so I am drinking copious amounts of Chamomile tea! Even my 6 year old is having her own type of stress, unfortunately it is expressed in tantrums but hey I would get arrested for behaving like that as an adult!

I am lucky enough to have this clinic and some wonderful therapists at hand. Sports injury for those pulled arm muscles from carrying heavy bags, full of gifts! Homeopathy when the struggle on public transport becomes so over-whelming due to the crowds. Acupuncture when my adrenals have gone into over-drive from lack of sleep due to too many late nights!

The other reason I choose to look after myself is because Christmas is so full on not only with work, but the socialising we do and I find that when the actual day comes I am so exhausted I become ill. The amount of times I have got sick (in my past) as and when I finally stop!

 Sound familiar?

It’s because our bodies spend so much time in hyper mode that when we do finally stop, the body gets to express what it was holding onto. I did used to get ill most Christmas holidays but luckily I tend to look after myself better and know when my body is telling me to slow down. Because of the festive season and in my opinion many of us live in their mental and emotional world that they tend to not really notice the physical until it is too late and you’re ill!

My tip to help is to check in with your physical self once in a while and notice what the body is telling you, because believe me it can tell you a lot before you get hit with illness!

Merry Christmas from Claire

I have also noticed how long people go around with pain, whether it is because of the above or they pull something at the gym or just wake up with it.

When you pull a muscle, or at least in my case, my body goes into some sort of shock around that area. How I react to that is changing my posture to cope with the pain, by either tensing more or making other muscles work differently so as not to make the pain worse. What that does is it causes the body to create tension in other places, which could again go into some sort of injury of tension and pain, depending on how long you put up with it before getting it looked at!

Anti-inflammatories are taken, and yes a good idea especially if it is all inflammed but they do not fix an injury, just hide the pain for a little while.

When I started this clinic I wanted to be able to offer acute treatments where if one does wake with pain or it has been chronic pain then here is a place where issues can be treated on that day. I have fantastic sports therapists but don’t be put off by the name, if the injury is not due to sports injury, what these therapists know is extensive knowledge of muscles, how the interact with each other and be able to fix many muscular pain issues. Also I have osteopaths who again have vast knowledge of muscles and bones and pain related issues, whether it is chronic or acute!

Last week I went to bed with a pain in my neck, the next day I woke unable to move my neck over left shoulder but slightly over right. Ok, you could say I am lucky that I have a clinic, but I had no intention of going around with the pain, nor did I think  just rest, it will go away if I take some sort of pain relief.  I saw the Osteopath and did have a problem with it, and she sent me off to ice it and do stretches to help it heal.

After the initial session my pain had gone down by 75%

I saw her the following week and after 2 sessions it is sorted.

I wanted to highlight everyone’s attention that pain can be decreased so quickly after one session and at least by seeing someone who knows you get a diagnosis which again creates relief mentally therefore reducing stress that pain also causes.