Ventus First Impressions

So, in an interesting twist of fate, I came across Ventus on Instagram. Now, considering my posts, it doesn’t come as a surprise that they’d promote any number of physical therapy or recovery offices in my stories. However, what I do find surprising is who this business founder was.

Allow me to explain.

Some years ago, I went to Professional PT because it’s super close and convenient for me. I reviewed them in 2016, and you can read that here. My thoughts on them at that time were that the PT was decent. But upon my return later for another issue, it was an entirely different staff and I was stuck with a subpar physical therapy assistant. I can’t speak on whether the doctor there was good because I never worked with him, only this subpar underling.

His first statement and a major red flag for me was, “I don’t even need to look further, textbook forward-tilting posture,” and he dismissed any further information that might have helped my recovery early on. They didn’t look at the MRI info or anything. Yes, I know this isn’t always necessary, but he could have asked questions and shown more interest in how this came to be. “Textbook” anything doesn’t appeal to me, we are individuals and circumstances vary greatly.

In any case, in that practice, I noticed two practitioners that caught my attention. One of them was named Josh. I remember watching Josh work with his people, thinking I needed to work with that guy instead of this textbook goofball. Fuck that guy. I quietly asked the staff to assign me to Josh or to tell me when he was in and the other guy was out if we were looking to spare feelings. I’m not an asshole.

I managed to work with him once; during that one session, I told him we accomplished more than in many weeks with that other trash therapist. However, after that one time, they kept sending me back to that other dude because I was “his case.”

I didn’t like that, and I felt like I was wasting my time with that guy. He never did any hands-on work, and I was burning my hard-earned money. Everything he had me doing, I could do on my own, so I decided to no longer attend PT sessions there as they wouldn’t give me over to Josh.

Fast forward some 3 or so years, and I come across this Ventus Instagram post. Now, at the time, I didn’t make the connection. I was interacting with Josh as a total stranger who caught my interest, and he did the same.

We didn’t make the connection about meeting each other previously until by chance when I mentioned going to the old Kew Gardens location and a guy named Josh that I liked. He told me that this was him, but I didn’t think he looked like who I remembered, but I assumed it was the facial hair and my shit memory. In any case, that’s how we realized this near the very end of our very long and detailed appointment.

Now, after that very long-winded explanation, let’s get to the actual first impressions here.

This location is a bit out of the way for me, but when you find a promising place, sacrifices must be made. Josh appears legit, and whether we succeed or fail, I need to try him out.

I am presently doing everything that I can to avoid having surgery on my neck. I’ve been to many doctors and therapists. So far, with little to no results. Josh and a few other doctors are like my last chance to resolve this with conservative treatments that do not involve major surgery.

Ventus is a pretty nice open space; it’s clean, and Josh is pretty good about the location’s hygiene. They even have bootleg Crocs that you wear to go to the bathroom. As per Josh, it’s a Korean thing. I get it; we take our shoes off at our place, but the bathroom bootleg Crocs are new to me.

Josh spent a good deal of time talking to me about my pain symptoms, what I’ve tried, what has been tried, and what he thinks we could do. He doesn’t think that I need surgery and believes he can help me resolve this issue within 4 or so sessions. After years of being in terrible pain, that sounds pretty damn good to me. Hence why I’m trying him out.

Please note, that these folks do not take insurance, so you are footing the bill. However, I think we can all agree that if he can fix my issues, then this is money well spent! Also, the costs are very reasonable, but understand, there is no copay or insurance here.

We have already established that Josh had caught my attention long before coming here, so I’m super excited to work with him and either resolve this issue altogether or hopefully make some progress towards a solution.

Ventus appears promising, and we’ll learn more in the coming weeks as we go forward. I’ll be sure to update you on that.