/ Health, Wellness / By myokinetix
My first exposure to physical therapy was during my childhood. I lived in Thailand and had an extremely close relationship with my grandmother. Back then, she was starting to have mobility issues from knee pain. Walking and moving around became more difficult for her because of the severe discomfort. So, she underwent knee-replacement surgery on both knees in just three months.
I accompanied my grandmother to her physical therapy appointments and saw her doctor work with her to regain her mobility and quality of life. I knew firsthand how severe her knee pain was before the surgery. Then I witnessed the pain she experienced from the surgery, but what stuck with me, even as a child, was the absence of pain after she completed her physical therapy. She was able to have her life back!
After my grandmother’s knee surgeries, the power of physical therapy was always in the back of my mind but wasn’t brought to the forefront until years later. Fast forward to college; I was now living in America and spending much of my time working out. I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do as a career, but from exercising so much myself, I knew how to help the body gain strength and endurance. I decided to become a personal trainer because it was a great way to incorporate what I already loved doing with a profession that allowed me to help people.
But, one day, while exercising, I heard a pop! in my back. Immediately, I knew something was wrong, and over the following days, the pain became so unbearable that I had to crawl up and down stairs. I became practically bedridden because standing and walking were so painful. I spent most of my time wishing the pain would disappear and feeling hopeless. This discomfort again brought the memories of my grandmother’s knee pain to the forefront of my mind.
I started attending physical therapy myself, and I was back in the gym within two weeks. Physical therapy transformed me from a version of myself that had given up hope of ever moving around normally again to resuming my daily activities with the same excitement as before my injury.
After my recovery, I decided to become a physical therapist and help people just like the therapists who helped my grandmother and me. I applied to physical therapy school and began my journey toward a new career. In 2016, after receiving my doctorate in physical therapy, I wanted to help as many people as possible. I started working at a busy corporate physical therapy clinic but quickly became overworked. I had to see 3–4 patients an hour and couldn’t give them the proper care they deserved. This was because I was stretched too thin.
After 18 months, I couldn’t continue doing patients a disservice by only treating them for 15 minutes. I started to get burnt out. I had been dreaming about a place where I could spend more time with my patients. Providing my patients with specialized treatment was what I wanted, not just a one-and-done generic regimen. I wanted to change the healthcare model.
This dream was the foundation for Myokinetix. In 2018, I opened the doors to my very own patient-focused physical therapy practice. At Myokinetix, we can spend an hour with each patient and use our one-on-one time to do the detective work necessary to discover what is causing each patient’s pain and how to solve their problems using an approach that is best suited for their body. We can do this because we actively listen to our patients. We allow them to sit in the driver’s seat of their physical therapy experience, changing the healthcare model.
The Myokinetix team is here because we care about you. It’s our mission to put the “care” back into healthcare – to change the healthcare model. We want you to feel safe, secure, and in control of your recovery and wellness. We’re excited and honored to serve our patients. We look forward to many more years of helping people transform who they are into who they want to be!