A Day In The Life: pain therapist Emma Armes
Pain therapist Emma Armes says it’s wonderful to be able to help people.
SOME people know right from the start what job they want to do, but for me it happened by fortunate accident when I was sent to do a first aid course.
It was one of those real lightbulb moments, and I thought it would be amazing to have the skills to help people like that, so I trained to be a paramedic.
It turned out to be life-changing in more ways than one, as it was through work that I met my husband, Roland, who is an A&E consultant.
Right from the start it was a job I loved. It was challenging, of course, but always so exciting, as you never knew what you were going to go to.
But it all came to an end after 17 years. I’d had back problems after all those years of heavy lifting, and when I was off on maternity leave with my son, Callen, it just went.
I had an operation, physiotherapy, saw a chiropractor – anything I could think of – over a couple of years, but I wasn’t able to return to my job and had to take medical retirement.
It was absolutely devastating and felt like grief. It was heart-breaking, and as a stay-at-home mum I felt quite anxious and depressed, so I went to see a hypnotherapist.
That showed me I needed a new focus, so I decided that if I trained as a hypnotherapist then I could still help people without the physical aspects of being a paramedic.
I did that in 2015 and was able to work successfully with people who had anxiety, weight problems, phobias and those who wanted to stop smoking.
It was a real boost as I felt I was making a difference, but I still had my own back problems, and in 2017 I came across OldPain2Go® and wanted to give it a try.
I had the therapy, which really helped my back pain, and also did my training in it at the same time.
Knowing how it worked for me made me so passionate about it.
I start each day by getting the school run done and get back to my Aberdeenshire house where I have a home office.
It used to be an old toll house where monies were paid for the horses that travelled on the main road outside.
My first client is at
9.30 a.m., and it’s not hypnosis, but rather a talking therapy for longterm pain (which works on the principle that pain is a message that comes from your brain, not the place you feel it).
I find the root cause – often emotional – of that message, and help switch it off mentally.
They are Zoom video calls and each session is two hours long, as there’s a lot of both talking and listening, so it’s usually one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
In between, if I can, I’ll have a spot of lunch and get ready for the next client, although I follow my intuition as the session unfolds.
As soon as I’m finished,
I’ll get right on to e-mails, paperwork, admin and the like before I go and pick up Callen from school.
We’ll have tea and do all the normal family stuff together, and then I’ll usually go back into the office to catch up a bit more on social media contacts in the evening.
I know I’m meant to be relaxing, but I’m not very good at that – I think I need to listen to my own advice sometimes!
I’m a trainer as well as a therapist, so I both train people and help clients from all over the world.
The satisfaction I get from helping people be pain free for the first time is years is wonderful.
Details on Emma’s pain therapy work can be found at www. emmaarmes.com or by calling 07415 535445.
Advice I would give my twenty-year-old self:
Enjoy every minute, as things always work out.