It is alway interesting to consider why a patient is there in front of you in the clinic that particular day?
Usually they are in some kind of chrisis with pain, they cannot function and need help. Some may even have realised that their body is telling them that they need intervention before they are in chrisis, the enlightened few! Most need help getting free of pain and returning to normal movement.
This week I saw a Ground Worker that has been keeping out roads and drains in working order for over twenty five years and although he is frequently handballing in the trench with a shovel, he has experieced remarkably little back pain over the years.
How can this be?
Anyone that has dug their spuds in the garden knows how cripplingly one-sided digging is, and when you try to even things up by swapping sides – it never quite gets the job done! ‘Genetics’ I hear you say, well yes this fellow is not too tall and solidly built, there are many of us that would look all ‘elbow and knees’ in a trench, his levers are compact and suited to the task. ‘Adaptation, he’s grown into the work’, yes that maybe so, but there are plenty of crippled Brickies and Platerers out their, to name but two of the most one-sided trades.
Why is this his firt visit?
Because this individual chooses to do exercise after work, to swim or go to the gym on a regular basis, not to ‘crush it’ and push themselves to exhaustion and injury, but to maintain a steady, reliable practice. What this means is that he is regularly taking the strain pattern of his working day out of his body, So when he starts each day he is not already bound up by the working pattern of the day before. The symetrical requirements of the gym or swimming help to overwrite the neurological patterns that his body accumulates during the previous day.
Why the visit now?
Because recent changes at work mean that he has to work nights to complete a job on a busy intersection, this has totally upset his routine at the gym and allowed his body to build up a pattern of strain that he usually manages well himself. Because his body is not crippled with an ingrainned work strain, he is likley to make a rapid recovery and as long as he get back his positive habits he won’t need to see anyone for a good while.
Positive habits, prevent injury and prolong health – what are your sustaining habits?
What are the strain patterns that you need to counteract?