We see over 7000 patients a year with muscle and or joint pains – including from the lower back and neck. Patients that have often been there done that regarding their pain and treatments, and spent a fortune in their journey. If only they picked up the phone and even spoke to me before they make their next expensive move.
So after all the stories we have heard, we wanted to share some very costly mistakes patients are making along the recovery journey.
Its time to blow the lid on how costs to recovery add up quickly and where you can save yourself time, frustration, pain and ultimately money. Here are our top four mistakes that you can avoid and ultimately save about $2500.
1. Buying the wrong office chair before you get the right advice
It’s natural to want to help yourself and speed up your recovery, especially if it may have been highlighted to you that some form of furniture or tool that you are using is the cause of your pain. (Firstly there is rarely ONE cause to anyone’s pain, or if there was a trauma of some kind, then I guarantee that there are numerous things keeping you in that pain cycle as we discuss in mistake number 2). This particular mistake begins when a patient goes ahead and buys a chair WITHOUT THE ADVICE of their practitioner. And when I say advice, I don’t mean, “…you should get a new chair”. You want to know exactly WHAT you are looking for in a chair, WHY YOU specifically need those things, and WHERE to get it. By knowing what you are looking for and why, you can then apply these rules to ANY chair you are sitting on. We all sit on a variety of chairs over a course of a day, week or month, so apply the same rules to those.
Roughly $150 – $200 is the average spend on an office chair.
2. Buying a new bed without asking anyone if you should
“My back was so sore in the mornings, I thought it was my bed, so we got a new one”.. This is always an awkward moment in the consult room, where in fact as a practitioner you discover that it wasn’t their bed at all, but rather their gardening a month earlier, plus their newer activities at work, in addition to possibly starting walking, that they feel morning pain. But how was the patient meant to know? Its important that you seek the best advice BEFORE you invest in such a large spend. You could save yourself thousands. Average spend on a new double bed ranges between $1000 – $2000.
3. Blaming your pillow for your neck pain, so getting a new one
“I have changed pillows 4 times this year”. The pillow is often the straw that broke the camels back when it comes to neck pain. Rarely the main cause, but often the contributor in neck pain. But its an easy one for a patients to go out and buy, desperately looking for a solution to their pain. If you are worried about your pillow, get some specific advice BEFORE you buy one. Again, not “you need to get a new pillow” kind of advice. Be specifically guided on what pillow would match your neck size and shape, your condition, your usual sleeping position and your bed type. Get one wrong here, and you have just made a costly mistake.
There is an assumption that the more expensive the pillow, the better it is. This is not true. Some patients can spend $20-$30 and it be the best pillow they have ever used. There is no one size fits all.
Average spend on pillows over a year is $180 – $320.
4. Starting your get fit / let’s lose weight program thinking it will help your neck or back pain
This sounds like the logical road to take. Get fitter, lighter and stronger and get rid of that back pain. The thing is that if you already have back pain, or neck pain or hip pain for example, this is telling you something is wrong. Going and adding extra curricular activities to a not quite right joint or area costs patients not only membership fees, sessions they will miss due to pain, but also those desperate treatments needed to get you back on track.
Its not about relying on treatment, no one should ever rely on treatments. It’s about getting the right advice and being GUIDED back towards the right exercises, or regime to start with. This then ensures that you stay on that fitness journey for the long term and reap all those amazing benefits of your great life choice.
Average cost of memberships – $150 – $220 per year, plus add on sessions. Average cost of treatment needed to get you moving pain free again – $180-$640 per year.
Added bonus – On top of all the above, you can easily add to this the ongoing cost of treatments when the above items that are bought are the wrong ones, and then in turn contribute to your ongoing pain – say a humble 12 per year – add an average $960
Contact our team if you are thinking of purchasing a new item, or have already fallen into these payment traps and want to avoid déjà vu. We would be happy to help guide you in the right direction. Click here
Feel free to share this blog with friends you know that may be spending unnecessarily on trying to fix their pain.
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