HEALTH & WELLBEING FEATURE
BOWLS CHAMP KICKS PAIN, ROLLING ON TO VICTORY
IT’S ALL ABOUT BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS FOR CALOUNDRA DOCTOR Dr Aaron Lewis, who recently joined Ochre Medical Centre Caloundra, originally planned to specialise in emergency medicine. “I love that style of medicine,” he says. “But I found I craved more time with patients. In the Emergency Department, you would meet people, get them stable, sort out their initial issues, then pass them on.” Dr Lewis moved to rural Kingaroy to train as a general practitioner. “I loved it,” he says. “I really enjoyed my six years there, getting to know people and understanding the significance of a good GP relationship. Building trust is so important. People put a lot of faith in you to deal with what can at times be very complex and private issues. That is the real joy of general practice: being invited into people’s lives to help.” The importance of the patient/doctor relationship was underlined for Dr Lewis one day in Kingaroy when a patient came in for reflux medication. “It would have been so easy to just issue him with a script, but I had got to know him and I knew this was out of the blue,” he says. “Men in the bush can be very stoic and not tell you what they’re going through. It turned out he was actually having a very significant heart attack that could very easily have killed him without the right care.” Fortunately, with the right diagnosis and care, the patient made a full recovery. Originally a country boy from near Woodford, Dr Lewis moved back to the Sunshine Coast with his wife, a nurse, to be closer to both their families for the
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arrival of their first child. These days, Dr Lewis is particularly focused on helping patients with their mental health – a topic many patients find hard to broach. “It’s a classic,” he says. “We’ll have a chat about an everyday thing and then the patient gets up and walks to the door. It is only at that point, as they put their hand on the door, that they say something like: ‘I’ve actually been in a bit of a bad way lately’, and that opens up a more in-depth conversation. “I’ll always say, ‘Are you okay? What’s going on?’, rather than simply ‘Here’s your script. I hope you’re okay’. “I do this because somebody who is really struggling with their mental health will often begin with another reason for attending. “It is easier to seek help about an everyday ailment than have these important conversations about mental health. It’s not easy for people to delve into such personal and private things.”
Dr Lewis is accepting new patients at Ochre Medical Centre Caloundra. Bookings can be made via ochrehealth. com.au or by calling the practice on 5491 1144.
A 75-year-old Maroochydore man has turned pain to victory, using a new medical therapy on the Sunshine Coast to kick pain to the kerb and return to his winning streak on the green. John Chapman suffered extreme hip pain, preventing him from living the life he loved or doing the activities he enjoyed, such as bike rides, lawn bowls, kayaking and walking. After six months of physiotherapy and painkillers, John was still in agony, even after a short walk, meaning other activities were off the table, including his much-loved lawn bowls. “I was a shadow of myself and lived in constant pain,” he says. “I began to lose my mental health as well, missing my mates at my favourite sports and clubs. I had no answers and nothing seemed to work.” After a friend recommended he try Amino Neuro Frequency (ANF) therapy, John jumped at the chance to resolve the cause of his hip pain for good. “At the first session, my pain reduced dramatically within minutes and was negligible for days, only coming back a week later,” he says. “I ended up having four sessions over about a month, and the pain has now gone for good. The last session was a bit of a joke, though, as my wife just wanted to say thank you to Claire for ‘giving my husband back’.” The biggest benefit of being pain free and able to move freely was John’s ability to enter the lawn bowls championships which he won. John attributes his new lease on life to the ANF therapy adopted by a clinical nurse consultant, Claire Dunkley, who runs Cluzie Clinic in Buderim. Claire, who has been nursing for more than 20
Before ANF Therapy: 7/10 pain
After ANF Therapy: 1/10 pain
years, says ANF is on the frontier of modern medicine. “We’re all familiar with ECG which measures the electrical frequency of the heart. What many don’t realise is that our whole body is made up of these types of electrical currents,” she says. “Just like a defibrillator resets the hearts rhythm, ANF ‘resets’ the other frequencies inside the body to address the root cause, finding true health and vitality.”
Visit cluzie.com or phone 5329 7905 for more details.
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31/07/2023 11:59:57 AM