About Me

Hi, my name is Ben Taylor, and I’m the Chronic Pain Trainer™

Growing up in Beerwah on Queensland’s picturesque Sunshine Coast, I’ve long felt this is a prime location for all thing’s health and fitness.
The weather, environment and population, not to mention being surrounded by the Glasshouse Mountains, has shaped and driven my passion for the health and fitness industry as a whole.
Being heavily involved and interested in sport, academia and entrepreneurship from a young age, I always dreamt of one day starting a business relating to sport, health and fitness.
I started thinking seriously about my business concept when I was thirteen years of age, but only through unfortunate circumstances decided to turn this dream into a reality.

The unfortunate experience was a back injury and the chronic pain associated with it that I sustained a week after my 21st birthday, almost 7 and a half years ago.
At the time I was climbing mountains, playing football, basketball and tennis recreationally and ironically also studying in the health and fitness space.
While this was going on, I was six months into a job which involved a lot of heavy labour.
In hindsight I was probably overdoing it.
Hindsight turned out to be correct and I came home one afternoon in agony.
An incident so inconspicuous I didn’t even notice it had occurred at the time.

Although the pain was intense and severe, I expected it to subside after a few days or weeks.
I then remained in that state for several debilitating years.
I was in pain every minute of every day over that entire period, and it had an enormous effect on my physical and mental health.
It’s something I truly wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy.
From an enjoyable life working, studying, being physically active, enjoying hobbies like playing the guitar and spending time with friends, family and my dog, to nothing, absolutely nothing.
Pain was all I could feel and think about.

The fact that almost anything aggravated and flared it up, including sitting, cold temperatures and any physical activity drove me insane and made it almost impossible to relax and do the things that I love. It essentially stopped my life dead, and I struggled immensely coming to terms with it.
Aspects such as work, study, relationships, friends, confidence and quality of life were significantly affected.
Taking this into account, my studies were obviously placed on hold while I tried everything in my power to reduce the level of pain I was in.

For a long time I kept most of it to myself and would never tell anyone how difficult it truly was, but I came to realise that telling people was an important step in my rehabilitation.

Finally, after months of investigation, tests and imaging, an MRI revealed degenerated discs at T7&T8 (Thoracic/Mid Back) as well as arthritis of the facet joints at the same level.
Although not ideal, this wasn’t severe, and I was ecstatic I finally had an answer to the reason I was experiencing this pain.
The injury is characterised by musculoskeletal and neuropathic pain in the entire thoracic region (upper back).
The disc, joint, muscle and nerve issues caused pain such as burning, stinging, pinching and severe aching.
A big part of this was my central and peripheral nervous systems interpreting any type of stimuli as pain.

From here, many different therapies and interventions were recommended.
Unfortunately, this led me on a long and agonising journey exploring every possible avenue in an attempt to reduce my pain.
I spent a great deal of money over the years on countless specialists, doctors, health professionals and therapists with no real, lasting improvement.
I tried just about everything there was to try and saw everyone there was to see. From oils and electronic pain devices to masseurs and neurosurgeons.

I spent most of my days running between these appointments and trialling these products and recovery methods in an attempt to become rehabilitated, and any free time I had was dedicated simply to staying out of pain through any means possible.
Sometimes I would just lie on the floor for hours on end trying to relieve the pain.
At its worst the flare ups lasted well over a week.

The whole process, including the fact that virtually no one I’ve ever known has had a similar problem exhibiting similar symptoms in the same region of the body as myself was, and still is, a very isolating experience.
The importance of having a supporting network of friends, family and health professionals was essential in reducing my pain and the impact it had on my life.
One of the main things I wanted people to understand was that I didn’t want to be treated differently and I wasn’t looking for sympathy. I just wanted acknowledgement and understanding.

Although the pain has subsided quite significantly from this point, it was and remains to be unlike anything that I’ve ever felt.
Sometimes it was so painful and unrelenting that I would’ve preferred to be dead. Especially during a flare up.
But the main thing that kept me going was that one day, hopefully soon, I would be out of constant pain.

Finally, I found a genuinely interested team to help me and make more realistic diagnoses, interventions and changes.
This was the true start of my journey to sustainably reduce the amount of pain I was in.