Massage Works Dandenong Ranges
Case Notes 4, Part 5 - Simon Crittenden, I'm Dirty on the Medico's and Therapists
I am perplexed by the medical world's ignorance of the fact a short right leg is a dominant genetic trait in Homo Sapiens. I am completely dumbfounded by the fact they do not understand the fundamentals of the condition and the extent of the long term effects on our physical health and well being. I am dirty on the medico's and therapists who do not carry out a leg length discrepancy assessment in their examinations. They left me to carry a common postural hip anomaly since my teens that has degenerated into a chronic disabling Sacro-Iliac Joint injury. This is only one of several ways in which the condition has impacted me.
It comes back to the First Cardinal Sign of Short Right Leg Syndrome…the left hip rotation thing. In my fourteenth and fifteenth years I grew six inches each year. I suffered as the left hip began rotating doing its anatomic adjustment to accommodate an increased leg length difference. After a few months the initial discomfort passed but for the rest of my life I was dogged by a twinge in the left Sacro-Iliac Joint that was NQR. Now in my 60's it has degenerated to a significant injury and disability. This could have been avoided if screened for SRLS in my teens and treated accordingly. A 5mm heel lift has proven sufficient to manage the overall condition today. I have a chronically injured SIJ susceptible to crippling flare ups if I lift heavy objects; weights greater than 10kgs or 20kgs can trigger it. I once routinely manhandled 50kg to 100kg items. That type of effort is totally out of consideration now.
Five decades have passed since my fifteenth year. I have lived in six countries. I have attended three universities and achieved a 98.4 Tertiary Entrance Ranking along the way in this country if that means anything. Four times I have trained my body to a level of development surpassing my peers. Spending ten years as a young man in the dojo of Grand Master martial artist, Prof Wong Lun AO, 9th dan Tang So Do, I learned to sense, cultivate and control Qi. I have worked in four careers. Life has not always been kind and I have suffered physical and emotional injury. I now practice as a Remedial Therapist employing an assessment and treatment framework based on the fundamentals of Physiotherapy. I have some understanding of postural assessment and I am seeing the majority of my clients present with a structurally short right leg and a vast array of complications, pain, dysfunction and injury resulting from it. I am pretty sure I am not being delusional. This is not taught in basic training. It would seem it is not taught at all. I have not yet encountered a medico or therapist that is aware of the condition in its entirety. Most are completely ignorant of it and blind to its effects. I am not being unkind. This is merely the truth of the matter.
I have identified the key features of SRLS, have a plausible theory for the presence of this dominant genetic trait in Homo Sapiens and specified a rudimentary assessment and treatment protocol. My experience treating the condition is not yet extensive. However, considerable success has been achieved with a number of clients who suffered long term acute conditions. I would describe my understanding of the condition as comprehensive. My research findings on the topic are described on this site.