Back to the Beginning
I was a Mechanical Engineer – but an Engineer with a shoulder problem. I put up with it for years, but could not lift my arm comfortably above my head, could not sleep on my side, and pain was constant. Like most blokes, I thought it would go away naturally – after 8 years I realised it wasn’t happening!
I went to my GP who referred me to Hospital Physios. Spent months and months getting worked on but to no avail. As well as the Hospital, I was also seeing people privately, but same result every time. Felt good for 2 days – by day 3 pain was back. In the end, the Hospital thought the pain was all in my head. I remember standing in the Physio room with no top on and I had a left shoulder like Popeye with good muscular development and a right side where muscle had gone and it was down to the bone. I explained to the Physio that this was visible – you could see the difference in my left and right sides and this pain was not in my head!
I was offered 2 options – pain killing injections, or an exploratory surgery. Basically cut me open and see what they could find. With my Engineering mind, I assumed the pain was my body simply telling me something was not right, so masking it with injections did not seem right. It may provide temporary relief, but would not address why the pain was there.
Root Cause
Remember, as an Engineer, I was taught to look at a problem, make AN ACCURATE ASSESSMENT OF THE ROOT CAUSE of the issue and address it accordingly.
Exploratory surgery did not appeal, as it could make things worse. Medically, that was the end of my journey, and it taught me a valuable lesson I would go on to use in later life. No one therapeutic intervention has all the answers! Modern medicine can do some amazing things, but as an Engineer I realised it has 2 main failings.
Firstly, it often treats the symptom, not the root cause. Secondly, diagnostically I feel it can be quite limited – you can only work with what you can see. Results of scans, x rays bloods etc. If they prove inconclusive, how can you formulate an accurate, EVIDENCE BASED treatment programme if you don’t find anything wrong? Truth is you can’t. It becomes guess work, based on the skills of the individual clinician and their interpretation of your symptoms.
Life-Changing Moment
Medically, that was the end of my journey. I was told to go and see this guy who had successfully treated someone I knew. For me, having exhausted all other avenues I had nothing to lose. So I was lying, fully clothed on this inflatable air bed, and the therapist was placing very light hands on various parts of my body. No manipulation, no pulling or jerking muscles or bones. After about half hour he said to me “what have you done to your ribs?” I had broken 3 ribs 10 years previously. They had healed and I had no pain there so I never even mentioned it on the consultation form.
It was one of those magical “lightbulb” moments! Some sub conscious part of me went YES! Someone is finally listening!! In short, my ribs still had unresolved trauma from the injury. Scar tissue prevented my ribcage from fully expanding – this dragged my spinal column over slightly to one side, shortening the spinal cord and compromising nerve signals in my neck. Result was signals never got through to regenerate my right shoulder muscles. This was a life changing moment for me. I was almost pain free within weeks. After being told I had to learn to live with it, this was life changing! My ribs were the ROOT CAUSE, my shoulder the associated symptom! Nobody else had ever looked at anything other than my shoulder before.
New Journey
I went back to see this guy 2 months later. I didn’t need to – I felt amazing! I was back training and pretty much pain free. But I was an Engineer – I needed to know how he had diagnosed my ROOT CAUSE using only his hands when all the amazing tools available to modern medicine could not! To this day I remain eternally grateful to that Therapist – Peter Tregloan. Peter not only enabled my body to repair itself, but he awakened in me the possibility that I too could do this work.
I started training immediately. I learnt a new trade, and soon gained the nickname “The Body Engineer”! I spent many years studying and working alongside Pete, and eventually the calling became so strong to set up New Vision Therapy that I had to start walking my own path.
I am basically a thief! I have studied, learnt and accumulated knowledge from older, wiser more experienced practitioners, and condensed it all into a simple way of working I can understand and use, and can also now teach and share around the World.