ABOUT
Caelum’s journey to becoming The NECKspert™
I decided pretty early on in life that neck pain sucks. From having a regularly kinked neck in primary school, to being a surfing-obsessed teenager, I was no stranger to neck pain. But my experience with truly crippling, life-impacting neck pain didn’t arrive until I was at university.
It seemed as though university was the perfect storm for my neck: hours and hours of sitting in lectures and studying with bad posture; lifting heavy weights in the gym to impress my new female classmates; incredibly high levels of stress and poor sleeping habits. By my second year at university I had developed chronic neck-pain, postural headaches, migraines and neck-related dizziness, which for a physiotherapy student seemed like a cruel irony.
I began seeking answers and treatment from my university lecturers, who were some of the brightest minds in neck research, but despite seeing over 10 different health professionals (physio’s, chiro’s, doctors, neurologists), not one of them was able to fix my symptoms.
After several months of failing to improve and thousands of dollars later (which for a self-funded university student felt like millions), I began to feel depressed. I started having anxiety attacks. My mental health was starting to reflect my physical health. Rock-bottom came one day when one of my neck-related headaches progressed into a migraine with flashing lights, dizziness, crippling pain and
I ended up in the office of a neurologist having CT scans on my neck and brain to see if I had a tumour. After an hour of sitting in his waiting room, nervously awaiting results, he came out to collect his next patient. As he was walking away I called out, “Any results yet doc?”. He looked back at me, searched his brain for who I was (despite seeing me just one hour earlier), and then replied nonchalantly, “Oh, results were all fine, you can leave”.
I couldn’t believe that this was how a “specialist” treated his patients.
“Is there anything you can do for me?” I asked.
“I could give you a script for pain and migraine tablets if you want, but I don’t think you need them…”. He turned and walked away.
I have come to find that more often than not, our lowest points in life can light a fire inside us that provides a catalyst for change. They inspire massive action and set us on a new path. This was one of those days for me. At that moment I became determined to fix myself and also to focus my physio career on helping others who had struggled with neck pain.
Over the following months I began to implement the steps that you will come to learn about in the NECKcellent method. These steps were a mix of things I had learnt at university, things I read about that uni were not teaching, trial and error, ideas and techniques I learnt from yoga teachers and a dash of intuition.
It didn’t take long before the strategies I was implementing began to work. Within 2 weeks I felt better. Within 2 months my neck pain was gone. I still haven’t had a migraine in over 10 years.
With a new lease on life I forged ahead with my physiotherapy degree and upon graduating was awarded The University Medal (High Distinction average), The Dean’s Scholar Award (first place in the year) and went on to do an Honours Thesis where I wrote an academic paper on neck pain which was published in a medical journal.
Over the past 10 years I have been honing and refining my treatment methods for fixing neck pain and creating healthy and strong necks. I have stayed true to my dedicated pursuit of helping as many people as possible to live a life without neck pain. My physiotherapy clinics help thousands of people with neck pain every year, including olympians, professional athletes, office workers and the elderly. I also run a corporate health company that has taught thousands of people how to have a healthy neck at work and work with schools to implement postural strength and wellness programs for their students.
I look forward to helping you achieve NECKcellence.
Yours truly,
Caelum Trott : The NECKspert™