This is the time of year when the car goes in for its annual MOT and service, which should mean that it survives another Scottish winter.

Obviously there is a legal requirement to put your car through this annual ritual to ensure that it’s safe enough to take out on the roads so there’s no way of avoiding it. If we’re lucky we get the all clear or maybe some minor faults need attention but hopefully nothing too big and expensive.

This is also the perfect time to mention that funny rattling noise that you’ve noticed in the past few weeks or the fact that the car seems to be demanding a bit more oil than normal so that the mechanic can check things out and hopefully prevent a major problem from developing.

Unfortunately some might say it’s a shame there isn’t the same requirement to put ourselves in for an annual MOT and service.  There could be an invitation to attend your GP’s practice when you reach a certain mile stone age for a ‘well women’ or ‘well man’ check when a practice nurse may check your blood pressure, take a urine sample and ask a few life style questions.

Women are also invited to have cervical smears every three years once they reach the age of 25, and once you reach the ripe old age of 50 you can also opt in to the bowel screening scheme every couple of years and mammograms every three years.  All these are optional.

However, there’s not as much pressure to get those little niggly aches and pains checked out and, because there’s no requirement or obvious prompting with official letters, it’s easy to start living with troublesome joint and muscle problems that can often be easily resolved.

This is where an osteopathic MOT and service can be useful. A problem doesn’t have to involve acute pain or major disability for it to start making life un-necessarily harder . . . . and the chances are it’ll be a lot cheaper to get sorted out than the annual car MOT.