My Story 1

This was written in April 2003, six months after starting functional orthotic therapy. Athough with hindsight I would like to amend and update parts of it, I have refrained because it is a valuable historical insight to my feelings and thoughts at that time.

As a 20-year old student studying for finals exams in Geology at University, I was suffering intense chronic daily musculoskeletal pain that did not improve with activity or rest. I would wake up every morning with incredibly stiff neck and shoulders, and sore painful hips and back.

A hot shower would often ease these a little, and following a walk into college, my best time was probably between 9am and 11am. After this time, stiffness throughout my hips and back would worsen, my legs and feet would start to ache and a tension headache would start to set in. This would last for the rest of the day, and the rest of my body and mind would gradually go downhill.

By the time it came to go home, I felt emotionally and physically exhausted, and on the bad days, I would often return home and be physically sick with the pain. When things were really bad, the only thing I could do which would allow me to feel as if I had at least a little control over reducing the severity of the pain was to get home, make it up the stairs to my room, roll a towel up under my neck, close the curtains and door, and go to sleep.

Although it may seem obvious now that I was suffering more than I should have been, at the time this seemed normal. Looking back now, I had indeed grown up with bouts of painful aches and stiffness across different parts of my body, but because of their transient and variable nature, there seemed to be no reason why I hurt.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that these aches and pains developed gradually, slowly affecting more and more parts of my body, and increasing in severity over time until, by the age of 20, I was experiencing the most physically and emotionally exhausting period of my life.

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