[full_width] [parallax overlay="#4394a3" opacity="0.3" imgsrc="https://www.geelongphysicaltherapy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/parallaxlumbar.jpg"] [parallax_text title="The Science of Healing"]and the art of helping [/parallax_text] [/parallax] [/full_width] [chapter id="home"] [row header="Carey Wheeler - Clinical Myotherapist" headertype="1" space="yes"] [full_column] [person_box imgsrc="https://www.geelongphysicaltherapy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/carey-profile-bw.jpg" header="Carey Wheeler" subheader="Clinical Myotherapist" fb="pages/Bay-City-Spinal-and-Sports/154909714561249" twit="@baycitymyo" google="105542066002045730752/about?hl=en"] [header type="4"]My story; why I'm here doing what I'm doing[/header] [/person_box] [paragraph]Who am I? [/paragraph][paragraph] I am the best father I can be to Olivia and Wes. I am a devoted, respectful and loving husband to my wife, Kate. And I am an honest, compassionate healthcare professional who strives for integrity in all that I do. [/paragraph][paragraph] Why do I do what I do? [/paragraph][paragraph] Following a snowboarding accident in 2002 I suffered recurrent and often disabling back pain for nearly three years. Over the following seven years I continued to experience ongoing flare ups as well as daily pain and limitations. I couldn’t lay or sleep on my stomach without developing pain and getting out of bed was painful every single day. Leaning over the cot to change my children's nappies or to help settle them when they were restless was always uncomfortable. Due to the regular flare ups and the advice I had been given over the years I was cautious of every task that I performed and dutifully stuck to the notion of protecting my back from risky movements. [/paragraph][paragraph] I have also subluxated and dislocated both shoulders around a dozen times each. I have sprained both ankles multiple times, dislocated my right ankle once, have had elbow tendinopathy twice and have had recurrent neck issues. Prior to studying to become a healthcare professional I did not seek treatment for many of these issues because I had lost trust in the physical therapy system. To me it presented as a service that would, at best, provide temporary relief and keep me at my current state but did not help me progress to where I wanted to be. It was a service with a blurry start point and an even more blurry end point. I didn’t really understand what I needed to do to get better but I knew that what I was doing and the treatment I was getting only offered temporary changes and seemed set up to keep me in that cycle. [/paragraph][paragraph] I felt weak, fragile, scared and frustrated. I would lay in bed and my thoughts would drift to scenarios where my shoulders would dislocate or where I would re-injure my back. I avoided doing things for fear of injury, which seemed to only perpetuate my issues. Eventually, feeling fragile and weak led me to take matters into my own hands, so I studied to become a personal trainer which then led to becoming a strength and conditioning coach. With regular training and learning from the flare ups that I experienced from working out over those initial years I saw more improvement in my pain than I had ever had prior. However, I was still having episodes of pain and slowly learned that strength and fitness were only going to help me get so far. I knew I needed to know more for both my sake and for the sake of many of my PT clients who had a similar story. So I went to university to study pain and treatment and become a healthcare professional; believing that I could approach it from a different perspective than what I had personally experienced. [/paragraph][paragraph] After 4 years I had graduated at the top of my class and started a clinical practice. Within my first year of practice I learned that my studies hadn’t really prepared me for the reality of working with people in pain. Much of what I had learned was based on outdated theories that were perpetuated within an educational system that was flawed; we were taught to rote learn a curriculum and study text books but we weren’t taught how to effectively problem solve or how to think critically about the information presented to us. For my sake and for that of my clients I committed to challenging the theories I had been taught and to re-learn much of what could help me become a better healthcare professional. For the past 6 years I have learned from, and continue to engage with industry leaders, as well as studying and critiquing the latest research and best practices all with the goal of improving the quality of the healthcare and physical therapy fields. [/paragraph][paragraph] Letting go of the limiting beliefs and outdated theories in healthcare is incredibly cathartic. However, the ‘industry’ in which I am involved in, invested in and committed to is designed to support the model upon which I had been taught: that physical healthcare and the treatment of pain is transactional. This model is outdated, ineffective and easily corrupted. Healthcare is not transactional. It is not the exchange of time for money. It is not quick fixes. It is a dialogue; a process of learning and refining that leads to the individual continuing to better their health and wellbeing over the long term. [/paragraph][paragraph] I am here to upgrade the healthcare and physical therapy profession and to help you live your ideal life without the burden of pain physical limitation. [/full_column] [full_column] [button_box link="https://baycity.cliniko.com/bookings#service" icon="icon-desktop" title="Book Online Now"]You are just few clicks away![/button_box] [/full_column] [/chapter] [full_width] [parallax overlay="#4394a3" opacity="0.3" imgsrc="https://www.geelongphysicaltherapy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/gptc-para1.jpg"] [parallax_text title="Change starts with you"]be the driver, not the passenger] [/parallax_text] [/parallax] [/full_width]