I want to share a little with you about my story of back pain. When I was 18 I was in a car crash. I really hurt my back. I remember driving to the physio for some rehab only to get out of the car and collapse to the floor with pain all the way down my leg.

I want to share a little with you about my story of back pain.
When I was 18 I was in a car crash. I really hurt my back. I remember driving to the physio for some rehab only to get out of the car and collapse to the ground with pain all the way down my leg.

I had to crawl to the waiting room.

Over time I got better and a few years later I went to a chiropractor.
This time it was more out of curiosity as I was competing in Triathlons and wanted to see if I could improve my performance.
He took an x-ray of my spine and told me had literally hundreds of things wrong with it:
Schmorl’s Nodes
spondylolisthesis
Crush fractures on the front of my vertebrae
Facet Tropism
Mild Scoliosis
Degenerative Disc Disease

Now the interesting thing is I didn’t have any pain in my back when I went to see him….but he told me with all that going on I shouldn’t be doing triathlons as things could get worse in my back. I listened to him and stopped competing and also stopped going to the gym. But as I got weaker, from not doing anything, I got back pain.

I spent my days worrying that if I twisted the wrong way or lifted something incorrectly that I would severely damage my spine.

It was only when I went to osteopathy school did I realize that most of the findings on x-ray where incidental and harmless and that I wasn’t going to do major damage by twisting or even working out.

This gave me the confidence to use my body again and fast forward 20 years I’m still playing rugby (that’s me in the 13 shirt) and keeping strong at the age of 42.

My point is don’t let your diagnosis define you. Let you define you. Our beautiful, wonderfully designed bodies are capable of much more than you think.

In fact, the more you use your body, the stronger it will get and then the more you use it! The converse is also true, the less you do the more your body starts to break down and, therefore, the less you do…this is what started happening to me in my 20’s, its a downward spiral. I’m just glad I educated myself, pushed myself and chose movement over fear.

Will you do the same?

 

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