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| Hannalee |
Remember the fun the tabloids had when Mick was spotted leaving his osteopath's last year?
From The Times
January 17, 2004
Celebrity backer
Joanna Bale meets an osteopath with threadbare carpets and an astonishingly starry clientele
Mick Jagger’s enthusiastic on and offstage exertions are legendary but, at the age of 60, he is paying the price with a niggling back problem. To keep his spine in check, the Rolling Stones frontman relies on Andrew Ferguson, a softly-spoken osteopath based in Notting Hill, West London.
Surveying the threadbare carpets and tiny waiting room, it is difficult to imagine a multi-millionaire rock star feeling at home in Ferguson’s practice, based above an oriental antiques shop near Portobello market. But Ferguson’s celebrity clientele, including the champion jockey Frankie Dettori and Darcey Bussell, along with most of her colleagues at the Royal Ballet, are clearly devoted to him.
Jagger has been visiting Ferguson for a few years. He comes for massage and manipulation of his back because his energetic stage act — which involves seemingly non-stop running around and leaping — has over the years naturally taken its toll.
Ferguson refuses to divulge details of his celebrity clientele, but reveals that most of his patients come to him through “word of mouth”. “There are a lot of well-known people around here and I am the local osteopath. It’s all word of mouth and personal recommendations,” he says. Asked about Jagger, who maintains a vigorous fitness regime, particularly in the run-up to a Rolling Stones tour when he is estimated to run around 12 miles during a 90-minute set; and whose muscled body and extraordinary vitality are the envy of men half his age, he replies: “You can be in amazing physical shape but, like most sportsmen and dancers for example, you get injuries.”
With a waiting list of up to three months, Ferguson’s interest lies not in treating acute cases — he has a partner who concentrates on that — but in investigating and treating long-term problems. He says: “Many things get better on their own. I find it more of a challenge to work out why some long-term problems haven’t got better. Rather than treating the symptoms, I try to treat the causes of the problem. It’s more of a challenge.”
Poor posture and a sedentary lifestyle are often the source of many problems, he insists. “Posture is the root of a lot of problems, certainly those connected with the spine. The reason is because we have a sedentary lifestyle. Even teenagers suffer. Most have a pretty bad posture and half have backache at some point largely because they sit so much.
“If you are sitting all day the body isn’t moving, so things get stiff. The pelvis is thrust forward and you get backache. It is the biggest cause of lost working days, but it is largely preventable. If the Government spent more money on decent posture education and decent chairs in schools, it would save the NHS and the economy billions.”
Ferguson qualified in 1980 after four years at the British School of Osteopathy in London and treats many leg, ankle and foot problems as well as spines, seeing at least one ballet dancer a day.He believes that a major part of his role is helping people to heal themselves. He may charge £70 for a 40-minute session, but he tries to educate his patients into adopting a more active lifestyle, rather than relying on regular sessions with him. “I’m not interested in keeping them coming back week after week, which is what some do,” he insists.
Instead, he recommends specific exercises as well as general activities such as Pilates classes and walking more. Ferguson prides himself on his holistic attitude and taking time to listen to a patient. As he explains: “The role of stress is very important. If the muscles are tight, it could be tension. When I am examining and talking to a patient, they will sometimes tell me about the stress they are suffering: the boss is horrible, or some such thing. Medicine tends to dismiss anything linked to the psyche as less real, but it’s just as real to the person suffering it.
“I am a bit like a holistic cross between a GP and a physio. We are not anti-medicine, but there is a lot of bad medicine around. People are prescribed antidepressants, anti-inflammatories and sleeping tablets for years on end, without the root of the problem being tackled.”
Ferguson also specialises in cranial osteopathy, a controversial but gentle treatment, often used on young babies to help sleep problems. He has recently completed an MSc, writing a dissertation on the physiology of cranial osteopathy and publishing a paper in the Journal of Osteopathic Medicine. “It’s a controversial practice which seems to work,” he says. “I don’t believe in all of the theories.
More research is needed. But it may be that simply helping the baby to relax is the key.”
Asked how patients can differentiate between a good and bad osteopath, he says that things have improved since the Osteopaths Act of 1993 which requires all osteopaths to register with the General Osteopathic Council (GOC) after undergoing specialist training. “An osteopath can now be struck off, whereas before the Act anyone could call themselves an osteopath. A good osteopath is more about individual rapport, someone you can trust. But things to watch out for are people who don’t take time to take a proper history and who don’t try to explore why things happen.
“Another warning sign is someone who has too much of a commercial emphasis. The patient, rather than money, needs to come first.”
Andrew Ferguson, Notting Hill Osteopathy Practice, London W11, 020-7937 2298
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| Monkey Woman |
Well, well. Now we know about Mick's osteopath, his masseuse Dr Dot, his fashion stylist (Maryam Malakpour). What's left? The cook? The nanny? The garden designer? 
http://www.rhs.org.uk/chelsea/2003/exhibitors/show_gardens/telegraph.asp |
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| Monkey Woman |
And here I was only joking about the nanny... Read this account of the book "Road Mangler Deluxe", by Phil Kaufman:
"Need a job description of a road manager? Kaufman quotes the person who hired him, for $100 a week in 1968, to oversee Mick Jagger. "Look after him, get him to the studio on time, get his medicine, keep him fed, keep him out of trouble." ... Jagger dubbed him Executive Nanny."
http://www.white-boucke.com/reviews/roadmanglerreview.html
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| TracyGene |
quote:
Monkey Woman wrote:
Well, well. Now we know about Mick's osteopath, his masseuse Dr Dot, his fashion stylist (Maryam Malakpour). What's left? The cook? The nanny? The garden designer?
http://www.rhs.org.uk/chelsea/2003/exhibitors/show_gardens/telegraph.asp
Well,Mick is a "high maintenance"kinda guy. |
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| Monkey Woman |
quote:
TracyGene wrote:
Well,Mick is a "high maintenance"kinda guy.
And how! Many of the RO ladies would love to help "maintain" him! |
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