Greg Specht uses Posture Belt™
for Pack Pain with a client |
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Greg Specht knows back pain.
As a sufferer of sacroiliac joint dysfunction since
his early twenties, the 41-year old physical therapist
developed an SI belt more than 10 years ago that
not only eliminated his back pain, but set him on
a course for success in business. In
1996, Greg Specht needed help. His back had hurt
him on-and-off, over the previous ten years, but
never like this. As a physical therapist he was
sure he had a sacroiliac joint problem and expected
an SI belt to help. He was frustrated though,
since he had tried every SI belt he could find,
and none of them worked. With each successive
episode of back pain, he suffered for several
days and in time the pain would gradually diminish,
only to return again. This time was different
though. He had awoken on this Saturday morning
with pain so severe, that he couldn’t stand
up. This was a serious dilemma since he needed
to help his sister move into her new home later
that day. He couldn’t wait a week or two
for this to get better. “I knew that I needed
SI stabilization so I tried something different.”
says Specht. “By tightening a rigid belt
over a neoprene belt that I had secured around
my pelvis, the pain went away immediately.”
In that moment, Specht had developed the basic
design of his first product, the Active SI Belt®
'for Sacroiliac Pain. While wearing this SI belt,
he was able to move furniture all weekend without
pain, and he was absolutely pain free for work
on Monday morning. Despite his amazement at how
effectively his new belt worked, it took several
more episodes of pain followed by instant relief
with the invention, for Specht to appreciate that
he had developed a product that should be marketed.
“It was so exciting,”
says Specht. “To realize I had created something
that could help a lot of people. It took many
design changes, prototypes and manufacturers however,
to finally produce an SI belt on which I was proud
to place my name.” Along the way, Specht
has received encouragement from experts in the
treatment of back and sacroiliac pain such as
Richard Jackson, PT, OCS, Gregory S. Johnson,
PT, FFCFMT and Jerry Hesch, MHS, PT, among many
others. Specht’s customers include rehabilitation
product distributors, thousands of physical therapists
and tens of thousands of individuals who have
used the SI belt to reduce pain and get back to
their normal lives. Specht is particularly proud
that he has been able to keep his product manufacturing
operations in the U.S.A.; using the same local
company with whom he started in 1997. “It’s
worked out unbelievably well,” says Specht
with a laugh. “The factory is only 10 minutes
away so I can stop in anytime to check on quality,
discuss design changes or work on new products.”
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