Here, we’ll keep you up to date with the latest news and coverage that has been received in various media outlets.

Television

We were featured on Granada Reports on Friday 20th Jan, where the reporter followed Penelope’s journey to having her PIP implants removed by Dr Agarwal. Penelope is finally interviewed moments after her operation is over for her thoughts.

Radio

Penelope was interviewed on BBC Radio Manchester on Monday 23rd Jan, just 3 days after her operation, and she was feeling great and was also relieved that a great weight was lifted off her mind.

Newspapers

On Tuesday 24th January, Penelope’s story was featured as a front page headline in the Manchester Evening News, with a double page spread covering her story. Penelope discusses her experiences at ther previous clinic, as well as her frustrations at not being able to get the matter resolved, and finally having her treatment and her experience at Castlefield Clinic.

Online

Manchester Evening News also ran the story from their print version, on their website.

Manchester Confidential published an article and subsequent interview with Nishant, our Managing Director on Thursday 26th January

Keep checking back for more updates and media coverage

TOWIE PIP PANIC RESOLVED – LAUREN POPE & MARIA FOWLER’S BEST FRIEND IS HAVING BANNED IMPLANTS REMOVED BY CASTLEFIELD CLINIC

Castlefield Clinic, one of the North West’s leading cosmetic surgery providers, is taking a responsible stance on the PIP Panic and is helping to replace the banned implants despite having never used them themselves.

As TOWIE’s Lauren Pope spoke of her shock last week at discovering she has potentially dangerous silicone breast implants, best friend and ex housemate, Penelope Cheshire from Greater Manchester also realized she was one of the 40,000 women having undergone the knife with the same surgeon as both Lauren and Maria.

The 29-year-old entrepreneur and TOWIE socialite, Penelope, underwent a breast augmentation in 2008 with Lauren and Maria at Harley Street in London to boost her confidence and increase her cup size from a C-cup to DD, costing £5,000.

Having recently encountered health problems including shooting pains and a burning sensation, possibly caused by the faulty implants, Penelope is due to have the banned implants removed by Manchester-based, family owned firm Castlefield Clinic, at a cost of £4,500.  The original implants, manufactured by Poly Implant Prosthesis, will be removed and Castlefield Clinic will replace them with implants made by reputable manufacturer Nagor.

TOWIE star and friend Maria Fowler, commented: “Luckily I am not one of the women who unfortunately have PIP implants. It upsets me that in this day and age something like this has happened. I hope that Penelope and the other 40,000 women get the correct advice and support on the next steps to take to get them removed safety”

Dr Agarwal from the Castlefield Clinic, added: “Castlefield Clinic has never used the banned PIP implants, instead favouring the higher quality and more premium equivalents. With 20 years of experience in this field, The Castlefield Clinic is positioned perfectly to help women who would like to replace their implants.”

Castlefield Clinic is Manchester’s leading cosmetic surgery provider, specialising in groundbreaking procedures in both surgical and non-surgical treatments, including Twilight Sedation leading to quicker recovery times and no overnight stays. A family owned and run business, Castlefield Clinic places a huge focus on patient care and welfare.

 For more information visit http://cosmetic-surgery.eu.com

 -ENDS-

The word diet immediately brings up negative connotations about starving yourself or denying yourself the things you love to eat. We prefer to call it ‘going back to our roots’ because the caveman diet is just that.

Human beings have evolved over thousands of years from the same small group of descendents who once roamed the plains of the savannas of East Africa. Consequently, our ancestors, who were foragers by nature, have shaped us as human beings. We still have the same physiology, digestive system, biochemistry, and mentalities.

Our foraging ancestors didn’t suffer from obesity, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis or any of these diseases associated with a more modern lifestyle. They walked 15 to 20 miles a day, hunted for their food, and ate in the ratio of 1 part of animal matter like meat to 4 parts raw plant matter like vegetables and fresh fruit.

They ate plenty of micronutrients, that our bodies came to depend on. And these micronutrients helped aid digestion more than anything else. Our digestive system is designed to be full of healthy bacteria that keeps the body healthy and keeps us safe from harm. However, over the years, and more recently in the last 1,000 years, our dietary habits have changed beyond recognition, which has made our digestive system a toxic sewer, leading to diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s, diverticulitis and cancer.

When it started to go wrong

Sugar

Our bodies were designed and adapted to a low glycaemic diet, that was low in sugar.

Surprising Fact: Our ancestors only consumed 4 pounds of sugar per head per year in the form of honey. We, in contrast, consume nealry 160 pounds per head per year, which is a whopping 4,000% higher. And yet this has happened in a relatively short timescale, so our bodies have not adapted to this sudden change.

Grain

It all started to go wrong when we began farming. It became common to start eating grain, which is starchy and so another form of sugar. This meant we were already consuming a lot of hidden sugar before we even knew about it.

Surprising Fact: the hidden sugar from a slice of toast hits our blood stream faster than eating a teaspoon of sugar. This leads to hyperinsulinemia, and that excess sugar goes straight to fatten the hips and thighs!

Grains are not only starchy, but they are poor in micronutrients, and therefore we are denying our bodies the key nourishment they need to function correctly… the way of our ancestors.

Potatoes

Another staple of the modern diet, which only emerged 200 years ago, is as bad as grain… the humble potato. A potato causes the same hyperinsulinemia that grain does, but it also carries some nasty poisons which inhibit the good bacteria in our digestive system.

Fats

Life in the savannas was not particularly fat-free, indeed fat accounted for nearly 25% of the overall daily intake. That fat, however, was rich in omega-3 and omega-6. We need a balance of the two to lead a healthy life.

Dairy Products

Around 2,000 years ago, the herders of north-west europe developed a strange habit of consuming the milk secretions from the mammary glands of their lactating animals… they started drinking milk! Thus, dairy farming as an industry was born.

But consuming milk is not a normal human adult activity. Milk is for the young of the species. Even human milk isn;t right for humans after the age of about 4 because we don;t have the digestive enzymes to handle it, and we don’t need it anymore.

Surprising Fact: Only about 20% of the entire world’s population consumes dairy products.

So What Does This All Mean?

The first part of the process is understanding why ceetain foods are bad for us, and ultimately what they can do to us. After that, it is important to understand that it is simply a matter of retraining ourselves to treasure and crave the foods we once did 60,000 years ago.

Consider your food as a pyramid.

1. At the base, you want low-starch, raw plant food – i.e. eat one big salad every day!

2. Then come the low-starch vegetables – i.e. the usual vegetables but avoid potatoes and go easy on sweet potato, carrots and peas

3. Next up are the low glycaemic fruits such as berries. They are packed with micronutrients. you should go easy on sugary fruits like mango, melon and pineapples

4. This next layer is about good proteins like tree nuts, as well as all kinds of seafood. Oily fish and eggs in particular are rich in omega-3

5. Finally most poultry is fine such as chicken, turkey, duck, goose, and wild game, but do avoid battery chickens due to their poor fatyy acid profile.

In fact, most animal matter is fine apart from beef, lamb, and especially pork as they are high in saturated fats that disrupt our biochemistry, cause cancer, and heart disease.

Lifestyle Choices

Sun Exposure

Our ancestors spent 365 days under the tropical sun, and so our bodies are used to getting plenty of sunshine. Unfortunately, due to the fear of melanoma, westerners shy away from the sun too much now. Low exposure to the sun can cause osteoporosis, depression, diabetes, obesity and ironically melanoma.

A good suntan is healthy and even attractive because it is the brain detecting health sunshine nutrition… just don’t burn yourself.

Exercise

It goes without saying that our ancestors exercised a lot. Our lifestyles are much more sedentary. But exercise need only be moderate. A recent study showed that regular golfers lived 5 years longer on average than non-golfers, just because they regularly walked 4 or 5 miles!

Action Plan

So in summary, you action plan should not be to embark on a diet, but a way of life that takes you back to your roots.

1. Eat plenty of low-sugar fruit and veg including 1 big salad everyday

2. Avoid grains, dairy products and potatoes

3. Avoid beef, lamb, and pork

4. Get out in the sun

5. Do some moderate exercise

There is also a lot of confusion around about what the facts are. Everywhere you turn, someone else is spouting a new statistic, that isn’t designed to reassure, but instead scare and panic people.

While we don’t claim to be experts on PIP implants, we can collect a lot of the reputable information together so that you can make a more informed decision about your own health and wellbeing.

It is worth mentioning at this juncture that we have never used PIP implants, not because we had a crystal ball that allowed us to see into the future, but because our surgeon didn’t like the feel of these cheaper implants. We believe in only using the best tools and resources available, and that in turn will give you the best results.

The PIP implant

The PIP implants have a thin “plasticky” shell with a silicone gel inside, and they feel more like a semi-deflated water balloon. We have traditionally used cohesive gel implants that come with a more rhobust coating and the gel is laser shaped, which means that even if the outer coating were to rupture, the gel would remain in-situ. Imagine a jelly baby… if you cut it into 2 pieces, those pieces still retain their structural integrity.

• We would advise that the first port of call is the surgeon who inserted the implants in the first place. The reason is very simple, they know if you have PIP implants in the first place, and they also performed the original procedure, and so will know of any specific issues that they may have dealt with at the time of operation.
• Please don’t accept no for an answer if you are worried. You have a right as a patient to on-going care.
• We also advise against rushing to see “implant removal specialists”. A simple Google search will through up many companies offering this. Until the last week, this wasn’t an issue, so no one can be a “specialist”.
• Do, however, consider seeing a reputable company if you are beign knocked back by your original surgeon.
• Do consider that you may have to pay, not necessarily for the removal, but for replacement implants.
• Do ensure that you know what is being put in your body from now on.

• Don’t let this put you off… good quality breast implants are very safe indeed, as long as you know what is going inside your body
• Please ask your surgeon questioins about the implants themselves
• Be prepared that good quality means a realistic price. If the price is too good to be true, is the implant of sufficient quality for you to put in your own body?

Some Further Reading

We have been reading about this story with great interest, and have put together some of the best articles so you can make your own conclusions. These are hopefully reputable sources which keep the hype down to a minimum.

The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons

The British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons

The Guardian story on surgeons who put quantity before quality

MHRA official guidance

The Telegraph on who should foot the bill

BBC website Q&A

The very latest from the BBC

If you are worried or would like some advice on what to ask, please do no hesitate to contact us, we would be glad to provide some guidance on what your options are

Over 10 days, from out Happy Hut on Albert Square, we spread lots of smiles through games, free massages, champagne tasting, and even a hugely successful silent disco…

Here we’ve put together all the pictures and videos from the event to once agian share that Happiness.

Check out our Facebook album of pictures

Check out our videos of the games and the silent disco here!

We will be back in 2012 with something bigger and better, so keep an eye out for the treats we will have planned.

We are proud to announce that we have just become Manchester’s first and exclusive destination for the Pinks Boutique Spa Range.

This is exciting news for us because Pinks Boutique is a luxury spa brand with a difference…. here’s why

1. Every product is certified by the British Soil Association
2. 100% Organic and Natural ingredients – this means Pinks plants have to be grown in pesticide free soil, be pesticide free and stored in a chemical free “organic” environment
3. Beautiful treatments using Indonesian influenced massage routine – Inspired by natural resources and landscapes across the globe yet made in England
4. Eco Luxury as they are suitable for vegans
5. All products are made in Leicestershire and so have a minimal carbon foot print
6. No product packaging – minimal carbon foot print and bio degradable bottle and pots

Suzanne, our Spa Manager, believes the Pinks Boutique Spa Range compliments our range of cosmeceutical treatments perfectly as we can now offer a more complete range of treatments to soothe your soul and nourish your skin.

Find out more about our range of treatments by visiting our website

1. Earn and Spend. The main reason for having a Castlefield Clinic Loyalty Card is the fact that we reward you handsomely for spending your hard-earned money with us. You can use your pounds across all of the services we offer, from surgery, to non-surgical treatments, our cosmeceutical skin care range and even our lovely new medispa… so go on, treat yourself!

2. Your Loyalty Card is pretty much indestructable… so much so, you can use it to scrape ice off your car, to chop vegetables, as a shoe horn, fan yourself when its hot, spread butter on your toast, or even stop a table wobbling… the list is endless!

3. Recommend and Spend. Each time you recommend a friend or family member to expereince the Castlefield Clinic service, we will give you 50% off all the points they earn… for life! its just our way to say thank you, and a chance for you to let your friends know about Manchester’s best kept secret.

4. Ever wanted something to amuse you for 5 minutes? Your Loyalty Card can help… you can use it as a musical instrument, give yourself an inpromptu eye test, or a quick game of mini table tennis. If you find other ways to keep yourself occupied with your Loyalty Card, we’d love to hear them.

5. When you are a Loyalty Card holder, you are part of our family, and we love to treat our family. So every New Year’s Day, we will send you a gift of adding 50% to your overall pounds balance… just for being you and being a part of our continuing success.

If you have just read this and thought it sounds great and want to be part of our family, you too can sign up to our amazing Loyalty Card! All you have to do is email us with your name, email address, and postal address and we will do the rest… and as we’d love you to join, we’ll even give you a £10 starting credit just for signing up!

We’ve got our Happy Hut all packed up and ready to ship out lots of happiness to the people of Manchester. So we look forward to seeing you there…

Come along and enjoy events such as;

Silent Disco – Each Friday and Saturday night of the festival, head to the Happy Hut and grab yourself a set of headphones, tune in, and get yourself ready for your night out with a selection of the best tunes in town! You can even request your choices which might just make it onto the playlist here http://t.co/y2yRNvyJ

The Mini Cupcake Adventure – Come down for free cupcakes at lunchtimes on 10-13th October, collect all 4 for a chance to win an amazing spa package worth over £100! But be quick, we’ve only got a limited number each day….

Champagne Blind Taste Test – Provided by our friends at Epernay Champagne Bar in Manchester, http://www.epernaychampagnebars.com/home.html , come along and try our blind taste test and see if you cna spot the champagne. Enter to be in with a chance to win an exclusive champagne masterclass for 2 at Epernay.

Spread Some Happiness – Pop down to see us and you can grab a postcard to send to a friend to spread some happiness… completely free and on us!

Apertif/Digestif – Choose a complimentary drink that either kick starts your appetite for the foody treats in the festival hub, or a drink to soothe and calm your body after you’ve over indulged

Make ME Happy – Spend just 5 minutes inside our hub, where you will be transported away from the hustle and bustle with a complimentary hand and arm, neck and shoulder, or scalp massage, while you are cocooned in our Happy Hut with the right sounds, scents and sights to make YOU Happy!

So, we’re pleased to announce that we have just recently launched our waxing service. Now we do things a little differently at Castlefield Clinic, and we only want to give you the best service, so here’s what makes waxing at Castlefield Clinic that little but different.

1. Suzanne, has over 11 years of waxing experience. This may sound strange, but waxing is one of those treatments that therapists usually move away from very quickly and so they are seldom this experienced
2. We only use the best hot wax, Lycon. This wax is designed to require less temperature to heat up, it clings to the hair better than any other product on the market, and it is designed to be painless for most. All this leads to less trauma and irritation, and a happier customer
3. Suzanne was trained by the inventor of Lycon wax herself, Lydia Jordane, so who better to have your waxing done by
4. Lycon wax can remove short hairs. With its unique shrink-wrap technology, it can grip the smallest hairs and give longer lasting results, typically from 3-4 weeks. (normal waxes usually last upto a week)
5. And off course, there is the Castlefield Clinic difference. We focus on the little touches that make your time with us an experience to remember. Expect lots of treats, and a service that is truly world-class, so give us a try

See what the press say about Lycon wax….

The chocolate hazelnut hot wax (organic, naturally) goes on thick like melted Dairy Milk and is whipped off without strips, making it way less painful. The verdict: ‘I used to dread waxing, but this was amazing. I lost my Brazilian virginity – and couldn’t believe how painless it was!’

Elizabeth, New Woman’s Deputy Features Editor

The therapist uses organic chocolate and hazelnut hot wax – known to grab onto hair, not skin – for a dreamy-smelling, non-clinical treatment.

Katy Young, Harper’s Bazaar

And just some of the comments we’ve had about the experience delivered by Suzanne herself.

“Suzanne makes you feel at ease the moment the wax starts- I couldn’t
have a wax done by anybody else now!”

S T – Manchester

“Suzanne is an exceptional waxer and makes the treatment an enjoyable
experience!”

D P – Manchester

Prices are as follows;

Hot Wax

Hot Wax Brazilian – £40
Hot Wax Hollywood – £45
Hot Wax Under Arm – £16
Hot Wax Facial – £15
Hot Wax Bikini – £25

Strip Wax

Strip Wax 1/2 Leg or Full Arm – £22
Strip Wax Full Leg – £30
Strip Wax Full leg & Bikini – £30
Strip Wax Back & Chest – £35

If you would like to experience a world class waxing service at Castlefield Clinic, please call us on 016 1832 8700, or email us at info@castlefieldclinic.co.uk for an appointment today!

The One Hit wonder

An Advanced Technique adapted by our very own cosmetic and plastic surgeon, we can now say yes one treatment can improve the appearance of your stretch marks.

The word Derma Roller is everywhere you look, newspaper, magazines, salons, clinics and even health spas.

Using an approved Genuine Derma Roller(R), approved Vitamin C and E Serums and our very own fully trained and qualified plastic Surgeon, you can now achieve results with JUST ONE derma roller!!

The 1-2-3 Step

Looking for something different, the 1-2-3 step to improving Stretch marks has been a popular hit with our patients.

The 1-2-3 steps have been ideal for those who have lighter and softer stretch marks, and want to fit the treatments into their daily routine.

With the use of Vitamin C and E Serums, and 2 derma roller treatments at Castlefield Clinic, clients have achieved a great improvement in their stretch marks.

Don’t just take our word for it here is just what one of our many patients has said about our derma roller treatments.

“My problem area was stretch marks on the top of my buttocks… I previously had a beautytec treatment but found it didn’t make much of a difference, plus I was a little disappointed. I was then advised to try 2 to 3 sessions of Derma Roller to reduce stretch mark scars and to improve the tone and elasticity of the skin. After just 2 treatments and regularly using the products recommended my stretch marks have virtually disappeared. I am so pleased with my results, especially after only a short period of time”

K K – Stretch Marks

For details regarding this advanced technique and our 1-2-3 Step treatments, contact Castlefield Clinic and any member of our team will be delighted to help answer your questions, and even book you in for a consultation with our Surgeon himself.

Simply contact us on 0161 832 8700 or email us on info@castlefieldclinic.co.uk