“That second client you saw about his lower back pain, he called reception and wanted to know something…”
I broke into a slight panic. It was early in student clinic and I was trying to knock out as many hours as I could as quickly as I could to qualify. The kind of keenness that comes with being new at something, I was brimming with it. And a lack of experience. I was yet to understand exactly how to ‘over-work’ an area leading to aggravated symptoms. I was also yet to fully understand many other things, but the trust of what I had learned was being put into action on as many people as I could get to treat.
Several months before we were told: “Backs and necks. They’re the bread and butter of a manual therapist. Get good at them, you’ll see them a lot. Get good results and the client will send others”.
I was in the midst of attempting to be getting good at working on backs and necks. Full of keenness, and paper thin confidence. So the phone call was unexpected.
If I recall correctly he was a chef, and the long hours on his feet took a toll on his back. The long shifts, slight forward bend and unfavorable working environment can take a toll on anyone and he was more than a few years into the business of his craft. The college was located close to the city centre and the student clinic attracted a variety of people, business trade, and nearly everything in between. Perhaps our opening hours were suitable, maybe he worked nearby. Either way, that day, his lumbar spine ended up on my table.
In a nervously asked for more details: “Is everything OK? Is the client alright?” Fearing negativity, I braced for the reply.
“He wanted to know what the hell that was you did to his back. He hasn’t been pain free in years and wants to know what the treatment was so he can book in again.”
Even as a student with basic experience, Tui Na provided relief for someone who had been experiencing discomfort for years.
In 2014/15 it was estimated in that over 16% of Australians (4,000,000+ people) suffer from chronic back pain (https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4364.0.55.001). A report from the Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health back in 2003 estimated the direct “cost of illness” of lower back pain (LBP) to be 1.02 billion AU dollars. The indirect cost was calculated at 9.17 billion AU dollars and “represents a massive health problem with a significant economic burden” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15038680).
