Have I used acupuncture or reflexology? No. I tried acupuncture a very long time ago. I tried hypnotherapy which really whilst a development I’ve decided of what I did before my first daughter was born in learning deep relaxation and that is something that in fact has been a great help to me.

I’ve just recently been having some dental problems and I can really put myself into deep relaxation to overcome the pain, most pain. And that is very helpful to be able to do, to really learn how to override the pain.

So that’s useful?

Yes it is. I in fact for the hypnotherapist that taught you how to walk down steps. I can still see it and be very careful haven’t I? Walked down steps to a garden and I sit and I have this view and I, and I really am just completely. She could really hypnotise me very easily. And it, I can’t remember. Oh I remember why I was going. It was a friend who suggested it. It was after my husband had died. I miss my husband very much. I still do. I can’t help that. And it was very helpful to me to learn how to relax really, to relax and that has stood me in very good stead since.

But now there’s occasions well, my daughter pays, that I go to reflexology and, which is great.

Yeah, you go to reflexology?

[laugh] Get spoiled. Yes, well, my daughter, for Christmas she, and she’s done it before, paid for me to go to reflexology out at, at [village], near [town]. And she comes and picks me up and takes me over there. And an Indian, and then, because my birthday is just after that, I have h-, Indian head massage as well. And, you know, you go in there and absolutely pampered, you know. And, oh, it is nice [laugh] I sort of lay there…

What do they do?

Well, when you go in, there, there’s soft music playing, there’s soft lights anyway. And then she says, Oh, you know, oh, we’ll go into this room, you know And you go into the room and there’s the couch and then there’s a chair and a bowl of water, warm water. And I don’t know if there was rose petals in this time, but it doesn’t really matter. The time before there was rose petals in the water. Anyway you put your feet in and, and she, she leaves them in a minute or so and then she dries them. Then you get, and there’s low lights, you know, and very soft music, and then you lay on the couch. And, well, there again you see, I say to her, No, I don’t want to lay flat So this time, that’s right, because she said, Some people like to talk and some don’t, you know And so I was sat up quite a bit this time. Which was great, you know. And we were talking, you know, nattering away, and she was telling me different things about your feet, you know. And, and funnily enough she said, Oh, have you had some sinus [um] I said, Well, not a lot, not really But she’ll say things, you know, which would And I think it’s, well, so [daughter] said that she’s the owner of, I had the senior, no, not the se-, the, I had one above that, oh, I’ve forgotten now what, what she was called. But anyway I think she owns the place anyway. But she’s really, really nice. And her voice is so nice as well [laugh] and it’s so relaxing. But it really is a treat there. Actually I, I could, there is one advertised in our local that, reflexology and that. And I think that is quite nice, you know, to have something like that, relax with that. Because the Indian head massage, they really sort of m-, I’m not that particularly struck on the Indian head massage. That, it’s all right, but I think it, you know, it can get the muscles of your neck a bit, you know, when they’re sort of massaging. But then really I shouldn’t complain because it’s all been paid for me [laugh].

You mentioned massage, do you use any type of oils that you think might help or…?

My aunt gave me that oil, yes, I used to use it. I don’t know what it is called because she used to suffer from all this things. So sometimes I used to put it for her, so once when I had a problem, she gave me that. It’s a special oil, and you put it, in, on, around the, like a if I have a knee problem, then I can put around there and do the massage.

But at the moment I’ve got this massager, I bought it recently. It’s the best one. And I can do it myself. You know, when I get my pain in the back, and I always have to rely on my son, but then it’s, I, it doesn’t feel good that you have such young boy and you tell him to do this. But, and this is good massage. And there are different things, even I can do it easy. She said to me not to do in the front a lot because this affects your heart beatings as well, but there is a, I can change it.

Where did you get it from?

Ideal home exhibition. And they were selling the, it says professional pounding massager and it really helps. It pounds the bone as well and it helps, this is very good.

Have you talked to your doctor about it, that you are using it, or…?

You know I forgot to tell him this time, that I, but I haven’t told him that, that I’ve got, but rather than, I used to have another massager, but it wasn’t so good as this one. But this is one of the best. I can put it even on my feet here and do it. This is something I can do it myself. You don’t have to rely, if I leave it like this and do it myself as well. So, because if I’m in a pain during the daytime and nobody is here I can do it myself.

Ah Osteopath. And he did some manipulations.

Yes, well, yes he, he massages mostly and. And it seemed to help for a while and then it just came something came back. I don’t know what, what happened. Why I was in pain but it did and they just discovered there were one or two of my discs were a bit suspect and then I was sent for the bone density scan.

Have you been seeing the osteopath at the moment?

Not for a while, no, no. As I say about once every four years my back goes into spasm and then he seems to cure it.

How did they your GP explain your, your back going?

Well, when I first went which was some time ago, I went to the doctor and he said to me, You go straight back to bed He said, And you don’t get out until its better Because my back was, you know, a bit curved with my muscle spasm so I did for a while and then, and what happened? I it was really bad one night and my husband phoned the doctor and he came to see me and I went in to have traction at hospital. And, and then I was in there for a week. I wasn’t in any pain. It was quite nice really. It was a rest and then nothing again, as I say, for a few years and then sometimes it will go. But then I’ve been going to the osteopath now because you wait such a long time for physio but two, three sessions with him maybe, two a week or something and, and it’s gone.

Who recommended you to go to the osteopath?

I don’t know. I think I asked the GP whether, you know, they would, would help and she said, Fine, yes

And apart from going to the osteopath do you use any other complementary therapy or medicine or?

No, she did give me for over my shoulders some ibruprofen cream but other than that, no.