11 Dec What It’s Like to Work for a Pain Clinic That Cares

This post is written by one of the admin staff for our pain clinic, Amanda. A fitness junkie of sorts, she shares her:

• experience with different fitness modalities.
• what happened when she tried to fix her injuries with therapies were only giving temporary relief.
• what we did to help her at our pain clinic, Barefoot Rehab.
• how she’s paying that forward working for Barefoot Rehab now.

She shares her path to work for us similar to how former employee, Loren, came to experience Barefoot Rehab after her former doctors didn’t help her get healthy and off her medications.

Enjoy!

Enter: Amanda

I work at Barefoot Rehab, a pain clinic that cares, but I’m a patient too!

So many people come to our pain clinic like this: somewhat skeptical but, also desperately hoping they had finally landed somewhere that could help them. I was no different.

After years of living with multiple injuries, everyday pain, and having been to multiple doctors with no relief to date, I wondered:

How would Barefoot Rehab be different than any other pain clinic?

The possibility of finding a doctor who could actually help me left me hopeless and therefore, unexcited, to pursue any solution, no matter how many success stories they had. I just didn’t believe a solution existed.

A lifetime of failed therapies to give permanent relief becomes a debilitating condition where you can’t imagine that any action will produce a ROI (return on investment).

I have enormous gratitude that I tried one more pain clinic.

A Fitness Junkie’s Story

I am a Yoga Teacher, HIIT Cardio Instructor, Personal Trainer, and currently in pursuit of my Corrective Exercise Specialist certification.

My passion for teaching others stems from a lifetime of movement starting at the age of 3, when I began dance & gymnastics. In the 35 years since, I have tried just about every type of fitness out there including: marathoning, group fitness, CrossFit, and rock-climbing, etc.

With those endeavors, many injuries have occurred.

At the age of 12, I had my first gym membership and grew up with the notion that:

All exercise is good for you.

And if some is good, more is better!

Dr. Chris’s Note: This belief is rampant in Americans who push themselves physically, not realizing the high cost of stressing your joints when you have adhesion (Amanda describes adhesion below) in your body.

In all that time, no instructor or personal trainer ever expressed caution to me (or my classmates) about the dangers of postural imbalances, repetitive movements, or that areas of tightness or restricted ranges of motion could potentially be an injury lying in wait…

… And for me, that’s exactly what happened.

I seemed to get one injury after another all while doing what I thought was GOOD for my body.

During my studies to become a yoga teacher etc., I learned a ton about anatomy & biomechanics. The more I learned, the more I began to focus my studies on how our everyday repetitive motions (i.e. sitting at a desk 8 hours a day, bending/crouching working as a mechanic, etc.) from work, hobbies, and even the types of fitness we choose places lots of stress on specific body parts.

How Doing the Same Things Over and Over Again Leads to Adhesion

The overuse stress of the same movements over and over again leads to an injury cycle that’s very hard to get out of unless you have a movement expert to help you do it.

When you’re not able to rest the stressed out area, the body tries to heal it and gets inflamed. To protect itself, the muscle spasms, which then turns into the glue that is adhesion.

With adhesion (remember, it’s texture is just like Elmer’s glue) in your muscles, your brain then uses the wrong muscles, causing compensation after compensation.

Without removing the adhesions, this cycle continues to perpetuate and leads to further compensations in the body, and therefore more injury.

Due to sitting at a desk for 8+ hours a day AND wearing dress shoes to work, I had shortened, tight calf muscles and hip flexors. My marathon running only exacerbated these imbalances, and as I developed injury upon injury, I went from doctor to doctor seeking relief. And, not one of them told me to stop running or wearing heels while they implemented a treatment plan to fix me (like Dr. Chris would do).

For all of the money I spent on treatments NOTHING worked.

And, I KEPT getting injured!!!

Once I started learning how the body works, I tried neutralizing the imbalances in my body by strengthening underactive muscles, performing self-myofascial release (foam rolling), and doing stretches to return shortened muscles to their full resting length.

The work I was doing was helping to manage my pain and did make me stronger, but it was only providing temporary relief and perhaps preventing the pattern from further developing.

But, that was only part of the solution; without removing the adhesion built up in my body, I was destined to repeat the same cycle again and again and was still at risk for yet another injury.

How I Heard about the Pain Clinic, Barefoot Rehab

At the time, I worked for Heroes Journey Fitness, which is right next door to Barefoot Rehab. I got to know Dr. Chris and his staff, and since a lot of the members at the gym were also patients, I got to hear DAILY how he was helping to relieve and even HEAL their pain completely. I figured, if it’s working for so many other people, what do I have to lose? So, I scheduled an appointment.

On my first visit, I was given the most thorough examination I have ever had to date.

Dr. Chris went over my whole medical/injury history, tested all of my ranges of motion, and asked a ton of questions; stuff my regular doctor, podiatrist, orthopedist, physical therapist, other chiropractor, etc. NEVER asked me or tested! I knew I was in the right place, and now I wished I hadn’t waited so long.

I thought I would just have “crappy” ankles forever and that the strength work and stretches I was doing would only prevent me from getting worse, or at least slow down the degeneration. I had no hope of actually getting better! After only one treatment, I made progress. My range of motion was improved and the pain and stiffness in my ankle was reduced.

And, with every treatment, it continues to improve.

Working as a personal trainer while getting treated at Barefoot Rehab, I noticed how common chronic pains were. Nearly every class I taught, someone was dealing with a lingering injury that wouldn’t go away. I heard the same story over and over again:

I go from doctor to doctor, clinic to clinic, and feel temporary relief, but nothing permanent.

So, when I had the chance to work for Dr. Chris, I jumped at the opportunity. Not only has he helped me by treating both ankles, both shoulders, right knee, and my low back; I’ve never met anyone who goes out of their way more to help others! I see so many people living with pain and suffering, feeling hopeless because they’ve been to so many doctors without relief. I am happy to be part of a team that’s is changing that one patient at a time.

What I Hear Patients Say Every Day

We have a female patient in her 50’s who has been coming for the past few months for care. She had a neck fusion and would get headaches any time she walked with her husband, which she did daily. Owning her own financial advising company, having strategies to unwind were super important to her. Not walking was NOT an option (yay for double negatives!)

When she was done with Dr. Chris’s treatment on one specific day, she came to the front desk and had a huge smile on her face.

She said:

I’m so glad I found this place. You should’ve seen me when I first started coming here. I was a mess. Dr. Chris has worked wonders. I don’t have headaches any more when I walk and my back pain has been cut down by 60%.

The cool part of my job is I get to see smiles and hear good news like this, every day. The coolest part that makes me feel good is that, as a pain clinic that treats people who have had pain for months to years, there are many people we don’t help. But when Dr. Chris tells them either the first visit or within 5 visits that he can’t help them, even those people tell me how grateful they are to be told the truth by a chiropractor.

Apparently, most chiropractors promise them the world instead of respecting the reality of their situation.

Still, Dr. Chris and the rest of us staff at Barefoot Rehab are super proud of our superior results.

Those results include the testimonials on our website and at the time of this writing, the 50 5-star reviews on Facebook and 27 5-star reviews on Google.

Take a look at them when you get a chance. These are NOT paid advertisements. These are REAL people, who were in REAL pain, that finally found REAL relief. It shows you that the main measurement for success we use in our clinic is not money or the number of patients we treat, but the results you get.

In our patients’ stories, you might find yourself.

Hopefully, that will give you the nudge you need to finally make an appointment with us and get the care you deserve.

Give Dr. Chris and Barefoot Rehab a try. You won’t be disappointed. Call 862-205-4847 to schedule your 1st visit today.

Not only will you get treatment that works, you will be cared for in a way that I’ve never experienced at any other pain clinic before.

Have you been to a doctor or pain clinic that treated you poorly? What was that like? Were there admins short with you? Did their doctor not look you in the eye or not hear you? Feel free to share.