In this short video, Ryde Natural Health owner and Osteopath Dr Kevin Finnan interviews Chiropractor Dr Coco Ho. To learn more about Coco you can visit her page here.
Transcript:
Dr Kevin Finnan: Hi, and thanks for watching. Today, I’m interviewing our chiropractor Dr Coco Ho, who joined us a bout a year ago. I thought it would be a good opportunity to learn a little bit more about her, and officially, a year later, welcome her to the team. So welcome, Coco.
Dr Coco Ho: Thank you, Kevin.
Dr Kevin Finnan: So Coco, I’d love to learn a little bit more about what brought you on this journey to becoming a chiropractor. What lead you on that path, why you started the course at university. It was five years of study. So tell us firstly a little bit about that story.
Dr Coco Ho: So at a young age, growing up watching my dad practice as a Chinese medicine practitioner, watching him treat people, getting them better. It’s always been an interest of me to get into the health industry and become something like my dad, but I didn’t want to study Chinese medicine because it just wasn’t 100% what I wanted to do. And I suffered from lower back pain at quite a young age – probably 14, 15, during high school – and I got introduced to a chiropractor, and I found that just beneficial and it’s changed my life and changed my lifestyle and my life quality has become heaps better. So I decided to enroll in the course of chiropractic science.
Dr Kevin Finnan: Wow. Did you enjoy the course?
Dr Coco Ho: Yes, I did. I made a lot of good friends and it is a great profession and I love it.
Dr Kevin Finnan: Awesome. That’s really great. So tell me, now that you’ve been working here for about year or so, you’ve treated a wide range of things. Everything from neck pain, back pain, sporting injuries. Lots of things have come your way. What are the things that you really enjoy treating?
Dr Coco Ho: I really enjoy treating any sort of lower back pain or neck pain, and even headache that is coming from the neck, because I do find great results. And especially with people that have been suffering from chronic lower back pain and just getting some sort of relief from it, seeing their smile on their face and just changing the quality of their life, that’s really rewarding.
Dr Kevin Finnan: Oh, wow. So if someone with lower back pain was watching this right now and they’d had chronic back pain for maybe months or maybe years, or even longer, is there anything you can say to reassure them or you can say to them in terms of … What would you do? So if someone came to you with lower back pain, what is it you would do as a chiropractor to check that out?
Dr Coco Ho: So me, personally, my treatment … I do a variety of things including soft tissue work, so a bit of a massage of the muscle, and dry needling, which I do find really beneficial.
Dr Kevin Finnan: I bet you’d be great needling with a father who’s a practitioner of Chinese medicine.
Dr Coco Ho: Yes. And I do find dry needling really effective on relaxing the muscles and just calming the nervous system down, and also manual adjustments. So getting the joints to move better in the lower back and in the upper back, as well, because most of the time if they have chronic lower back pain they would have problems everywhere else to compensate.
Dr Kevin Finnan: Okay. So by getting the body moving better, closer to how it should be moving, they start to feel better and the pain goes away.
Dr Coco Ho: And just reassuring them that they can move better and their lifestyle will be better. The quality of their lifestyle. And just getting them into more activities. Just getting their whole nervous system and their activity level up.
Dr Kevin Finnan: What type of activities do you recommend for someone who’s getting chronic back pain?
Dr Coco Ho: Walking. I know a lot of people think walking is nothing, but it’s really underappreciated. But I do think walking is one of the best exercise you can do. But brisk walking, so with a bit of feedback also helps with the cardiovascular system.
Dr Kevin Finnan: Okay. Great. Talking about activities and things … You’re here full-time but you’re obviously not here every hour of the day. What are the sort of things you’re doing outside of work? What are you into? What sport or hobbies?
Dr Coco Ho: So at a young age I actually … I lived in Hong Kong and China for quite a while, until I was 11, 12. So in Hong Kong I didn’t do any sports because we’re not a really sporty country as such, and my family … We’re not the most active family. So I actually was pretty inactive as a kid. I got introduced into gym about four or five years ago and that has changed my life significantly. So I’ve been going regularly, like every week on a weekly basis, and I also enjoy cooking and bowling.
Dr Kevin Finnan: Bowling?
Dr Coco Ho: Yes.
Dr Kevin Finnan: 10-pin or-
Dr Coco Ho: 10-pin bowling.
Dr Kevin Finnan: 10-pin bowling. Fantastic. Well, Coco, it’s been great to learn a little bit more about you. And we look forward to seeing you in the clinic.
Dr Coco Ho: Thank you.