Squaring with the Physio

I've had a persistent back problem that's lasted several years. It's exacerbated by mild sclerosis. I've been to the physiotherapist before and was doing clinical pilates/yoga to strengthen and stretch the muscles supporting my back. The achy pain is significantly reduced if I'm not sitting for long stretches or can get up often enough. Recently, it's come back to haunt me again because I've started doing work that involved sitting for longer stretches at a time.

My ever helpful mother gave me a number to call, so today I found myself at the physio clinic. The physiotherapist who saw me was quite chatty. While working on my stiff and sore back, we started talking. Turns out that she'd been doing this for 7 years and she actually wanted to be a vet because she loved animals (has 2 dogs and wants more). Her parents couldn't afford to send her to vet school because they paid so much to send her older brother to study electrical engineering in Scotland so she ended up doing physiotherapy by correspondence. And I realised that no one really knows what other people's jobs are like. We all have this imaginary picture of what a particular career, a particular life is like.

The physiotherapist worked out the kinks in my back, and finished it off with some ultrasound device. I was a bit dubious about the efficacies of such a device. Nonetheless my back did feel a lot better after she was done with me. Quite tempted to try out the "strong massage" they offered although my past experience with massage has been quite terrible. I had a Javanese "deep tissue" massage once that was supposed to relax my muscles and help me lose weight. That has pretty much been the first and last time I tried a massage. It was quite painful, not at all relaxing and my body still felt quite stressed out post-massage. Anyway, what I had today wasn't bad at all. Anything that gets rid of pain is a good thing.