At a time when Trent Dunn felt he should be ‘in the peak of my life’, he was struggling with chronic back pain.
In his late 30s and with two young daughters, a degenerative disc disease had required a spinal fusion of Trent’s L5-S1, the lumbosacral joint between the lumbar and sacral spine in the lower back.
‘That disc had just disintegrated,’ Trent explains. ‘After the surgery I was struggling with the recovery a lot, just getting back into work and dealing with chronic pain.’
Trent could only stand for 20 minutes and while his workplace tried to accommodate him with specially made benches and chairs, he could only work limited hours.
‘I actually got all the paperwork from Centrelink to head towards disability,’ Trent says. ‘Things weren’t improving and I was hearing nothing but negative things about where I was headed.
‘It was a bit too young for all that to happen, really.’
Perhaps the hardest part for a young dad was that he was ‘really restricted with the kids.’
‘I couldn’t lift up my six and seven-year-old daughters.
‘I was going to different practitioners, but I just kept hearing the same thing.
‘I was on a lot of painkillers, a lot of opioids and stuff the doctors prescribed.’
Searching for a different perspective, Trent saw Dr Louis Adams, a rheumatologist in Port Macquarie.
‘The doctor said he’d heard good things about the getback program for chronic back pain.
‘He directed me to Wauchope Physiotherapy and I saw [Director and Principal Physiotherapist] Mitch Olsen and [Exercise Physiologist] Alison Wilson.’
After an initial physiotherapy consultation and assessment, Trent transitioned into the getback program.
He credits Mitch and Alison for giving him the confidence to start exercise therapy.
‘You go into protection mode and don’t want to take any backwards steps by overdoing things,’ he explains.
‘The guidance from Mitch and Alison gave me confidence to push weight in different directions and move my body in ways I wouldn’t have by myself.’
With his experience working in parts assembly, Trent says he was impressed by the design and capabilities of the getback exercise therapy devices.
‘Being mechanically minded I was impressed straight away with the devices,’ he says.
‘I’ve done gym in the past and had machines at home, but the way the getback devices can isolate specific muscles was impressive.
‘I just hadn’t seen that before anywhere.’
Trent says his trust in the devices increased when he learned about their data-capturing capability, which provided the evidence base for his personalised treatment plan.
‘The assessments and measurement data make it completely transparent which muscles you need to work on and how you’re progressing,’ he says.
‘[The amount of data] was a bit overwhelming in the beginning, but that really drew me in and gave me more trust because there were reference points.
‘It wasn’t like, “Oh, so where were we up to?” It was, “This is where you’re at. These are our goals. This is how many kilos we’re progressing by.”’
Trent also found the guidance provided by device screens – showing his level of compliance with the prescribed, safe range and pace of movement – was an effective motivational tool.
‘In a gym your progress and safety can vary depending on how correctly you use the machines, but with getback the techniques are built into the devices and guide you through movements.
‘It keeps the focus. It lets you know in real-time what you’re up to.’
While the average number of sessions before a patient reaches their getback strength and mobility targets is 18, Trent hit his marks early.
‘Mitch kept saying he was pretty happy with my progression. Then I was re-assessed after 14 sessions and he said “Excellent results!”’
Trent decided to keep doing a maintenance program once a week to maintain his progress. He is also back at the gym, jogging on a treadmill and doing weights.
‘People who know what I’ve gone through and see the transformation are always asking me “Where and how?”’, he says.
‘Whenever I’m talking to people with bad backs I say “Please try this. It’s had a massive impact on my life.”
‘I’m off all painkillers, unless I’ve really overdone it on the weekend or at work. It’s amazing having a clear head again.’
Above all, Trent is grateful to have found a solution to a ‘big problem in my life that was holding me back.’
‘It was quite depressing before,’ he says. ‘I kept pushing and pushing, but I was getting nowhere.
‘I’m not completely fixed, and I never will be, but it’s given me back my mobility and normality that was fading away.’
But he now appreciates ‘the little things’ most of all.
‘Now when my girls are falling asleep at night I can piggyback them to their room.
‘That alone means so much.
‘As my condition got worse into my late 30s, I was losing things.
‘But we found a winner.’
