One of my Pilates colleagues, Sandra, came to me with a number of related issues: sciatic pain, numbness in her lower leg and foot, a pulling from her hip flexor into her back which would make it hard to get to sleep at night, restless leg syndrome and right ankle pain which was stopping her doing tango.

She responded surprisingly quickly to the first treatment and for four days afterwards her ankle pain, restless leg and the pain causing the sleep problem disappeared. She had a massage booked which she went to as it was more “relaxation” than therapy and she forgot the “don´t have any other treatments during your course of Bowen” warning. The day after this massage all her symptoms returned as bad as they had been. After the second treatment the numbness and hip/back pain got worse for 4 days and then on the 5th day the pain went.

After three treatments the numbness was significantly less, though she could still feel it, but the ankle pain, restless leg and hip-flexor/back pain had gone.

A year later, with perhaps one treatment in between, the ankle pain is a distant memory, and her restless leg and sciatic pain only bother her occasionally. There is still some residual pain in her back after exercise, but she doesn´t have any problem getting to sleep due to it. 

“The symptoms I came to James with seemed so disconnected, yet all equally annoying and uncomfortable. The restless leg was something I had learned to accept and almost didn't mention it to James as it runs in my family. One of my sisters, my mother and grandmother all suffer from it. And I thought it would never be solved.
 
I had tried other soft tissue therapies in the past, which seemed to help, but only for short periods. James started working on my back first and I was initially unsure as to how much this was going to help me, as it was so simple, soft and light.
 
Bowen provided me with an immediate sense of relaxation and pain relief: one day my back went into spasm at work and James did a move on my sacrum between clients, which to my great surprise released the pain instantly. Sometimes I would feel pain after the session, sometimes it would take a day to set in and other times there was no pain at all. In each case however after day 2-3 I would feel a real improvement or the pain was gone completely.
 
Definitely something I will seek to get done again if I needed it.”

Celina is a professional dancer and French tutor and so she has a lifestyle which mixes athleticism with being stuck in London traffic as she drives to clients. She came to me with three main issues: it was painful for her to turn her head more than about 45 degrees to the left, and driving for more than about 30 minutes made her mid back hurt and her right hip go numb.

After the first treatment there was a little improvement, with the time it took to start hurting increasing to about 40 mins. This was enough to get her to most of her clients without the pain kicking off. By the third week she was up above an hour before the pain started and she could also turn her head without pain (though it was still restricted).

A few months later, after a few more treatments, all of the problems she came with had completely stopped bothering her.

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​“For years I´ve had a recurring inflammation of the facet joints in my spine, and the problem travelled up into my shoulders and neck, and down to affect my hip alignment, which both restricted me in my professional life and caused me a lot of discomfort.

I´ve tried treatment from a number of different techniques and practices, and I must say I was bewildered by the change that such a minimalistic and non-invasive technique could bring about in my body. The fact that the manipulations were there to invite my own body to correct itself and not to force any parts to move involuntarily was a welcome change.
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Since Bowen, not only have I been able to work without discomfort or pain, but it has also given me a deeper sense of understanding and connection to my own physical body. What more can you ask for?!”