Physical Therapy

If you are suffering from back pain, the most likely reason for it is hiding in plain sight. Like most people, including your medical and complementary health professionals (!), you are just not trained to see it. The root cause of most musculoskeletal problems, whether it be lower back pain, a frozen shoulder, neck pain, plantar fasciitis, or a knee issue, can usually be detected in your posture and your resulting movement patterns.

In keeping with Laura’s wishes her student photographs are not featured in this blog post. We are always happy to respect our contributors' wishes for privacy. We are very grateful for Laura’s generosity in sharing her personal posture journey, and are sure that you, our readers, will appreciate it too. —Esther Gokhale

We have long ago ditched any Victorian shyness around showing our ankles, thank goodness. In fact, they have become a fashionable part of the body to celebrate with short pants and an ornamental tattoo. But unfortunately for our ankles, the picture is often not so rosy as the years go by…

In 2014, at age sixty-four, I began to experience pain in my left hip that eventually became quite debilitating. For the first time in my life, I went to a chiropractor, which resulted in relief that lasted a couple of years. By 2015 I had consulted first one, then a second orthopedic surgeon, who recommended a hip replacement due to osteoarthritis. 

If you have had back pain, odds are that you have visited either a physical therapist or a chiropractor. They are the most frequented medical practitioners for all types of structural pain, and our teacher community has been enriched by both these (and many other types of) practitioners. For this post, I have invited Vera Baziuk, a chiropractor and Gokhale Method® teacher based in Edmonton, Canada, to join me for a Q&A. We would like to share with you how she sees the interface between chiropractic and our method.