How I have ended up booking this potential life changing trip to Southern India is a long story but I suppose it is relevant to try and understand a little bit about the history of my back pain and how I came about this decision to go......alternative.
I remember the first time I experienced acute pain in my back. It was in 1979 when I was at a gymnastics training clinic in York. I was 9 years old at the time and it happened when I was jumping onto a springboard, hoping to complete a perfect long-arm vault. After feeling that stabbing sensation in my lower spine, I didn't quite go face first into said horse but I certainly pulled up. It might have been fairly comical to an onlooker but to me, it was the start of a nightmare.
Gymnasts are always feeling pain, it comes with the sport - endless strained joints, bruises, landing on your head and then there's the hours and hours of training and strengthening. I knew this was something a bit different but communicating what had happened to the coaches wasn't that easy. Gymnasts are a hard breed and admitting to pain is a weakness and certainly was not encouraged back then.
Looking back at that day, I remember trying to ignore the pain because the trampoline was up in the next rotation at the training camp. We didn't have a trampoline at the gym back in Saltaire and I absolutely loved it so I sat out the rest of the vault round "like a sissy" hoping I would be fine to bounce up and down, somersaulting and twisting on the trampoline. Alas not, I just broke down again. I was gutted, tears of frustration just as much as tears of pain.
Nothing much has changed really only I don't make a habit of vaulting horses or somersaulting from the top of human towers anymore, it's still pain and frustration.
My life as a gymnast ended in 1982. I had a good bash at some other sports - I could play tennis OK and I had a great grounding to be a good springboard and platform diver but persistant pain put an end to my sporting endeavours before I was 20 years old.
I can't count the number of medical "specialists" I have seen or been referred to, it's just a lot: Physios, chiropractors, orthopaedic surgeons, neurologists, pain specialists and even a podiatrist. Of all of them, I can safely say that just 2 made a positive difference and one of those - accidently. 2 made things a whole lot worse, administering epidurals that went wrong resulting in weeks of spinal headaches. Ouch! I also take a little comfort in that all the orthopods have advised against any intrusive surgery. The official term for my condition is "degenerative disc disease" but in my case, at least one was shot by the time I was 9 and has now completely disappeared with the vertebrae above and below far too close together, practically kissing, and the adjacent one has an outline but has no substance, a bit like using a half deflated balloon as a shock absorber.
I had a good pain specialist in Dr. James Foster at The Princess Grace Hospital in London. However I moved from London to Amsterdam in 2003 and despite paying EUR 133 every month for compulsory health insurance here in Holland, Dr. Foster's treatment is not covered and the medics here refuse to replicate his treatment. I used to get 4 facet joint injections combined with a caudal epidural maybe once every 6 months with Dr. Foster. Sometimes, the injections worked better than others but those that worked well gave me a new lease of life for a few weeks. I was told that in time, they could stop working altogether. I wouldn't know, it's 5 years since I last paid to have the injections.....I'm still trying to get to see a proper specialist here in Holland.
The mental side has been just as tough sometimes as the physical side. Not everyone in my life has been 100% supportive. It's impossile to explain how some days are better than others but you have no idea why. In the words of my songwriter friend, Mark Gilligan, who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, "Some days are good, some days are bad and some days don't happen at all". I have been accused, in the past, of "putting it on" or "seeking attention" and that's fairly tough to take. The accusations rarely occurs here in Amsterdam, my friends take me as I am and I come with back pain, it's that simple. They can tell if I'm having a good day or a bad day. No one sees those days that don't happen at all - just me, my bed and my tramadol.
It's tough in the freezing winter, the pain gets worse, a lot worse. I presume the cold and damp affects the inflamation of my joints which affects the ability to bear my own weight. Crutches help redistribute the weight through my arms and shoulders so I use them now as required. The last 2 winters have been hellish and after spending 11 days in the relative warmth of the UAE in January - a kind of self-prescribed heat treatment, my mind changed tack.
 |
| The crutches have become a regular part of my life |
I remember the first time I experienced acute pain in my back. It was in 1979 when I was at a gymnastics training clinic in York. I was 9 years old at the time and it happened when I was jumping onto a springboard, hoping to complete a perfect long-arm vault. After feeling that stabbing sensation in my lower spine, I didn't quite go face first into said horse but I certainly pulled up. It might have been fairly comical to an onlooker but to me, it was the start of a nightmare.
Gymnasts are always feeling pain, it comes with the sport - endless strained joints, bruises, landing on your head and then there's the hours and hours of training and strengthening. I knew this was something a bit different but communicating what had happened to the coaches wasn't that easy. Gymnasts are a hard breed and admitting to pain is a weakness and certainly was not encouraged back then.
Looking back at that day, I remember trying to ignore the pain because the trampoline was up in the next rotation at the training camp. We didn't have a trampoline at the gym back in Saltaire and I absolutely loved it so I sat out the rest of the vault round "like a sissy" hoping I would be fine to bounce up and down, somersaulting and twisting on the trampoline. Alas not, I just broke down again. I was gutted, tears of frustration just as much as tears of pain.
 |
| Beth Tweddle I most definitely wasn't! |
My life as a gymnast ended in 1982. I had a good bash at some other sports - I could play tennis OK and I had a great grounding to be a good springboard and platform diver but persistant pain put an end to my sporting endeavours before I was 20 years old.
I can't count the number of medical "specialists" I have seen or been referred to, it's just a lot: Physios, chiropractors, orthopaedic surgeons, neurologists, pain specialists and even a podiatrist. Of all of them, I can safely say that just 2 made a positive difference and one of those - accidently. 2 made things a whole lot worse, administering epidurals that went wrong resulting in weeks of spinal headaches. Ouch! I also take a little comfort in that all the orthopods have advised against any intrusive surgery. The official term for my condition is "degenerative disc disease" but in my case, at least one was shot by the time I was 9 and has now completely disappeared with the vertebrae above and below far too close together, practically kissing, and the adjacent one has an outline but has no substance, a bit like using a half deflated balloon as a shock absorber.
 |
| MRI scan from 2007 |
I had a good pain specialist in Dr. James Foster at The Princess Grace Hospital in London. However I moved from London to Amsterdam in 2003 and despite paying EUR 133 every month for compulsory health insurance here in Holland, Dr. Foster's treatment is not covered and the medics here refuse to replicate his treatment. I used to get 4 facet joint injections combined with a caudal epidural maybe once every 6 months with Dr. Foster. Sometimes, the injections worked better than others but those that worked well gave me a new lease of life for a few weeks. I was told that in time, they could stop working altogether. I wouldn't know, it's 5 years since I last paid to have the injections.....I'm still trying to get to see a proper specialist here in Holland.
 |
| MRI scan from 2007 |
The mental side has been just as tough sometimes as the physical side. Not everyone in my life has been 100% supportive. It's impossile to explain how some days are better than others but you have no idea why. In the words of my songwriter friend, Mark Gilligan, who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, "Some days are good, some days are bad and some days don't happen at all". I have been accused, in the past, of "putting it on" or "seeking attention" and that's fairly tough to take. The accusations rarely occurs here in Amsterdam, my friends take me as I am and I come with back pain, it's that simple. They can tell if I'm having a good day or a bad day. No one sees those days that don't happen at all - just me, my bed and my tramadol.
It's tough in the freezing winter, the pain gets worse, a lot worse. I presume the cold and damp affects the inflamation of my joints which affects the ability to bear my own weight. Crutches help redistribute the weight through my arms and shoulders so I use them now as required. The last 2 winters have been hellish and after spending 11 days in the relative warmth of the UAE in January - a kind of self-prescribed heat treatment, my mind changed tack.
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