Meet Your Guide
About David
From experiencing debilitating pain and falling through the cracks of traditional healthcare to developing a comprehensive approach that's helped hundreds reclaim their lives — my journey has shaped everything about Bigger Than Pain.
I suffered with ongoing lower back pain, hip pain and neck pain for about 10 years. I was really afraid of how my back would be in the future if I was this sore at 16 years of age.
I sought help, and was given diagnoses like Sciatica, Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction, Pelvic Torsion, Hip Misalignment, Slipped Discs and much more.
None of these diagnoses helped me to make any progress with my symptoms and it never made any sense to me how the treatments I received would help my symptoms to go away.
As I visited more and more people to try to get help, I became even more frustrated because nothing was really working for me.
“I kind of fell through the cracks because I had bounced between different therapists and my GP and no one was really able to offer me a clear understanding of what was happening to me or a clear plan to make progress.
— David Mc Gettigan
By this point I had begun studying my Sports Rehabilitation degree and was pretty disappointed that although I learned lots during my studies, not much of it seemed to translate into helping me with my symptoms.
When I began to work with people in pain, I was following the cookbook recipe approach that I was taught in university.
- •Person with knee pain = this is what you do.
- •Person with back pain = this is the approach for them.
I truly didn't know what the difference was in each person and each treatment session. Nothing was predictable or gave me confidence that I was able to help others.
The Turning Point
The Turning Point
This realization changed everything: Pain isn't just a physical problem — it's a nervous system response influenced by movement patterns, past experiences, beliefs, and lifestyle factors.
“When working with someone in pain, if I am unable to affect how their nervous system is interpreting things, I'm really not being effective for them or helping them to create change.”
Muscles, joints, symptoms, pain. All of these things are under control of the nervous system.
I began to focus my area of understanding on the nervous system and studied human movement with Gary Ward from Anatomy in Motion. This work completely transformed my understanding of the human body.
Now I was able to see a person in pain in a totally different way, able to get a good sense of how their 360 joints moved in time and space. I could start to see that person with knee pain that couldn't shift their weight well into that leg. I could see the person with a shoulder problem whose spine and ribs couldn't afford them the necessary movement.
The cases I saw became more and more complex and I began seeing people from all over the country. I was invited to work in Belgium, the UK, Spain, the Netherlands, Greece and the USA.
“Movement offered me a real-time barometer and window to facilitate change in a person's nervous system and I was hooked.
“By understanding the movements that were missing, I was able to create powerful change for people with minimal intervention, exactly where they needed it.
I became more and more interested in the human nervous system and brain and moved to London to study P-DTR (Proprioceptive Deep Tendon Reflex), a treatment technique developed by orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Jose Palomar.
P-DTR demonstrated the incredible power of the nervous system to create change. It showed me how sensitisation in the human body caused real time adaptations to movement patterns.
“I began to see how it was totally possible for a person to become trapped in a complex web of symptoms that were being driven by multiple different influences, most of which were not even considered at all!”
This led me into a world of self study and learning about the human mind, and psychology. I could see how this all became a melting pot of influences that ended up affecting the person in a massive way.
My Own Transformation
My own symptoms had become a thing of the past. I had assessed and changed my own beliefs and narratives. I had learned that most of the symptoms I experienced were related to previous injuries and sensitivities that I was moving around.
“All of this left me in a place of confidence in my body. I was empowered because I knew that I wasn't broken. I knew that my body was robust and I knew that pain does not equal damage.
Proven Results for Real People
This integrated approach has helped my clients achieve what they thought was impossible:
- People who had been told "just live with it" returning to activities they love
- Clients who had tried 5-10 different practitioners finding lasting relief
- Clients who have told us they reduced their reliance on pain medication (always in consultation with their GP)
- Many clients report meaningful change within weeks
Bringing It All Together
In 2020 I built my first online program to reach people who couldn't travel to my clinics. It taught me something I couldn't unsee: what people in persistent pain need most isn't more content. It's ongoing, personalised guidance — something that knows their history, adapts to their day, and connects all the pieces.
So I rebuilt everything from the ground up.
Bigger Than Pain is now a state-aware digital platform built on the same clinical framework I use in clinic — tracking your patterns, personalising your movement, explaining your pain in language that makes sense, and adjusting what it asks of you based on how you actually are today.
It isn't a course. It's the system I wish had existed during my own years of struggle.
Why Start Now?
Every day you continue with approaches that only address part of the puzzle is another day spent unnecessarily limited by pain. The transformation my clients experience isn't just about reducing pain — it's about reclaiming confidence, activities, relationships, and joy that pain has stolen.
Thank you for taking the time to read my story. I hope it has given you the HOPE that the symptoms you are experiencing are changeable. It is possible and even enjoyable to go through the necessary change to overcome your symptoms.