Very knowledgeable, very helpful, very good
It’s rare to find a medical or healthcare professional who really gets chronic pain and the problems it creates, but Valentina does. She’s been great. At the same time as giving me hands-on treatment for my shoulder pain that just seemed to emerge out of nowhere, she’s looked at my posture and helped me change it, so that I’m not causing my back and shoulders additional stress. And not just by saying shoulders down and keep a neutral position in your lower back. She’s looked at which of my muscles are weak, given me specific exercises for them, and made sure that I was exercising the correct muscle instead of the muscles I usually recruit to do things in place of the weak ones. And she’s been very specific about how to improve my posture in a way that feels like it’s working and helping. And I say that as someone who has already significantly improved my posture from where it started and thought I’d got as far as I could.
She’s also given me a lot of practical advice to help with the chronic pain, which she has tailored to me and my needs. I have a long history of not getting on with some of the standard advice given to people with chronic pain. When I told her why I didn’t or couldn’t or wouldn’t do certain things, instead of saying “it’s take it or leave it”, she tried to understand why I was saying that and looked for other options or ways to adapt the advice so that it did fit me and my needs. I had previously thought that I was up to date on general chronic pain advice and was already incorporating the bits most relevant to me. I was wrong. Valentina’s advice has been incredibly helpful, and she’s found excellent ways of adapting what she knows to my specific needs.
Her advice on what to do if the exercises hurt has also been incredibly useful. If you have the chance to see her either for a specific injury or for chronic pain in general, I highly recommend that you take it.








