“This chair’s too hard– this chair’s too soft– and this chair’s not right either!”

I know the story only too well. ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ was one of my favourite children’s stories but for the past year it has resonated into a real ‘pain in the neck’, entirely down to sitting in the wrong chair.

A week wouldn’t go by without me visiting a healer, a physiotherapist, a GP, sometimes all three. Stress, Temporomandibular Joint Dysfunction and a recent car accident were all cited as the triggering pain factors, both singularly and collectively.

I’ve a lot of faith in professionals, but often times they don’t have time to listen to scene-by-scene breakdowns of a person’s typical day, which means that simple things can be overlooked.

For example, I didn’t get to tell them that I used to spend night and day hunched over a laptop. And worse, they didn’t know that my tiny little abode didn’t allow desk room so I had to work from my bed. My natural S-shaped spine had quickly redesigned itself into a C-shape, subsequently pulling on every nerve and muscle from my jaw region to my thigh area.

From the off, my mother blamed ‘bad posture’, and as it turns out, she was right– mothers of course always know best.

When I moved into a bigger house, I made shapes to remedy the situation. I bought an ‘office friendly’ chair which promised ultimate comfort with its specially designed moulding features. I also made sure my laptop was strategically placed at eye level. By now I was begging to disassociate my love of writing with grinding pain.

But it wasn’t to be. Not long after, the pain in my neck worsened and was now radiating up through the base of my skull.

Months went by and simple things like sitting round a table eating or conversing sent my neck into spasms. My zest for life started slipping away and hypochondriacally, I imagined all sorts of things growing in my grey matter.

Fleeting relief manifested itself in alcohol, soothing the worry but, most importantly, dampening the pain. Unfortunately, the next day the problem was still there and of course exacerbated by a woeful hangover.

Again, I tried other new healing methods, acupuncture, anti-stress-busting tapes, heated towels– but nothing delivered long-lasting results. It got to the stage where I couldn’t sit at my computer for more than five minutes at a time before having to get up.

A nagging suspicion kept re-surfacing. Was it possible my ‘office friendly’ chair wasn’t so friendly after all?

To find out, I entered The Back Shop, (situated off Grafton Street) armed with a picture of me in my chair. It turned out, my suspicions were correct. I was sitting in the wrong chair and it was responsible for causing new suffering, as well as perpetuating the old.

My chair had no neck support which meant my neck was carrying the weight of my head, one stone to be exact. My chair was designed with no lumbar support which explained why I was constantly crouching. My chair’s arm rests were too far apart, ensuring further uneven distribution of body weight. And, my chair’s fancy moulding only served to elongate my spine even more due to poor fitting.

My whole body was permanently out of sync.

I had three choices, give up writing, buy another new chair or get one custom made.

I opted to buy another chair. And after trawling through every home and office store, I could not find a suitable chair. Apparently, they can make fluffy sports car beds for dogs but not chairs with neck support for ‘smaller folk’ like me.

I really needed to get my priorities and back straight. I had spent a guilt-free fortune on healers and alcohol thus far– why was I quibbling at the idea of getting a chair made? Surely in this profession, it’s as important as wearing a good fitting bra.

Right!

Back to The Back Shop.

Make me that chair please, Mr Chairman. I might have to work in an unnatural environment, but it shouldn’t mean my body should have to pay for it.

I’ll get back to you on it.

Above: Even in 1949, IBM was aware of the need for correct posture when typing!