[GaryD]

Sorry, this is a long one!

Prior to my accident, I was a fit and healthy 32 year old. I had played Basketball for a number of clubs, and for England at junior and senior levels. I had stopped playing a few years earlier, but still ran and went to the gym to keep fit, and enjoyed the odd game of Basketball or Rugby. I am 6’7” and weight about 16 stones, but until 2003 I was pretty nimble and a bit of a health nut.

Them, in 2003 whilst on holiday, I slipped on a wet floor and landed with a marble step across my back. On my way down I thought “this is going to be bad” and fell with a thud, but to my surprise I got back up again and walked away. “That was lucky”, I thought, and went to do some jet skiing. The next morning I could not move. I was in a LOT of pain, but I had to get up and take a flight home and I was in agony.

Once back in the UK I was inspected by a GP (not a great one) who told me that nothing was broken, and prescribed Diclofenac Sodium. “It’ll heal up in a few weeks” he said…”just take the tablets”. I hoped I would heal and move on, but it didn’t happen fully. Over the next few years I lived with some stiffness and pain, and when it got worse I took some Diclofenac and it would subside. When using the drugs I had many days when I forgot I had a problem, and some days off the drugs were like this too.

6 months after my fall I went to see Mr Shackleford in Warrington to see if I could rid myself of thisproblem, and he ordered an MRI scan. He diagnosed DDD in my L5S1 disc (compared to the others it was dark, thinner and lacked structure), and he told me to come back when it got to the point where I needed surgery. As I was relatively mobile then, I went away.

Everyone told me that exercise wasn’t a great idea, running in particular, but it seemed to help me. In fact, the more I ran, the more relief I felt and for long periods I didn’t take any pain killers or anti-inflammatories, I just ran, and it worked. I guess this was the core strength building up, but I felt great!

So much so, that two years ago I decided to set myself a target – I was going to run a Marathon. I’d always wanted to do it, but had never tried. So I started training, and decided Berlin would be a good place to start.

The training went well in the main. I found it harder to run down hill, and suffered the odd bout of temporary weakness in my glutes/hamstring (but it usually passed in a couple of seconds) until I hit 16 miles one day, and my left knee gave way! I couldn’t run for months, and I missed Berlin. However, the charity I was running for (WellChild) was great, and offered me a place at London instead…the race I had always wanted to do!

I discovered that my knee problem was down to muscle imbalance (weight training on my legs cured it), and I started training again. To cut a long story short, I took it VERY easy in training by I completed London 2008 in 4.5 hours. I suffered hamstring cramps in the last 6 miles which really slowed me down, but I did it, and promised myself that I would come back and do it again next year, as I could run faster and had quite a lot left in the tank at the end.

During training and just after the marathon I still took the anti-inflammatories, but not that often. I felt OK, and my quality of life was pretty good. I thought I would live with my back problem as it wasn’t an issue. In fact, I just thought I’d tolerate this for ever.

In August last year I converted the loft of my garage to a storage area. It probably wasn’t a bright thing to do – I had to lift a lot of timber and crawl into some small spaces – and my back pain came back with a vengeance! I often had trouble getting up, and getting out of bed took minutes. So I started taking a lot of anti-inflammatories.

During this time I was out for a run and after 3 miles, whilst running up hill, I started to feel a new pain across my lower back (it was like someone had hit me with a baseball bat). It was across my back just above my glutes, and I’d never had anything like this before when running. I braved it out, but on the next run it was still there. I took some time off, but I still couldn’t run without pain, so I took a longer time off. But it didn’t heal. I could just about run 4k without “pain”, but beyond this I knew that discomfort would lead to pain quite quickly.

The pain also started to get more and more frequent, and in some cases the Diclofenac Sodium didn’t even shift it – this was the first time this had happened. So I went to see my GP earlier this year, and I had to take a couple of weeks off work and take some strong pain killers. This was a temporary relief, but it didn’t settle. I also became “dependent” upon the Diclofenac to get past the pain, which was new. I knew this was no long term cure, though.

So I started Pilates and got some relief, but again it was no “cure”. Things were by now getting pretty bad – I had trouble getting up and down, and turning in bed was painful – and I was frustrated because I couldn’t exercise. I also could no longer bend all the way down to put on shoes and socks, so had to develop coping strategies for this. This really was a “step change” in the problem, and I wondered if I’d prolapsed the disc, or another one, so I retuned to Mr Shackleford. He asked for another MRI in January.

When this came back all it showed was that the L5S1 disc had degenerated further, to the extent that it was now very thin and almost non existent in one area, and he reiterated the challenge – “tell me when you want to do the surgery” (which would be an Activ L prosthetic disc at L5S1). I was disappointed that there was nothing obvious and/or new to cure, or that it wasn’t going to be easy to solve, especially as this felt different.

Now, here’s my problem. I can tolerate pain OK, I know it’s getting worse and it’s really limiting what I can do, but most days I can “tough it out”. Travelling with work (mainly on planes and taxis) is a bit of a pain, and so is sitting at my PC, but otherwise I can walk without sticks, sit and stand, and sleep OK. I walk a bit funny and can’t run anymore, and putting on shoes and socks can be difficult and occasionally painful, but I can ride a bike and use the cross-trainer OK. I am in constant pain, but it’s mostly low-grade with the odd spasm that makes me freeze or makes my legs give way. No sciatica, but the occasional bit of numbness or pins and needles. This isn’t where I had hoped to be at 38, but at least I can walk, so I have to be grateful.

Mr Shackleford told me that I would know when I needed surgery, but I am not sure that I do. I have a wife and a 5 year old daughter, and my biggest fear if that I will lose the ability to play with her, or end up in a wheelchair.

But, at 38 years old, and with my background, I am also really gutted that I have to give up so much, that I have to tolerate the spasms, and that I will never run or play any sport again. I’ve tried osteopaths, physios, chiropractors, you name it. Most of them have been helpful to some extent, but not a cure.

So I am very tempted to have the ADR surgery that Mr Shackleford has offered me, and I may be able to do this at the end of this month. But I just don’t know if I should do it. He’s told me that I am a great candidate (fit, quite large (making the surgery less fiddly), and with good access to the L5S1 according to the MRI), and that he has 8 patients that have run the London Marathon after ADR. I know he’s well respected, and this (and his comments) gave me a lot of hope, but equally I am scared that I will go through this and will end up in a worse state than I am now. I’m also scared of surgery, as I’ve never had anything done like this before.

My dream would be to have the surgery, reduce my pain and be able to run again, and even to do the London Marathon again, but am I being realistic? Has this ever been done by anyone here or does anyone know anyone who has?

Alternatively, has there even been a case of a sportsman returning to sport after ADR? Do these prosthetics really allow that level of mobility and support?

I’m also uncertain whether to do it now or just wait further, until I have no option, and hope that the technology continues to improve. But will that be harder to recover from if I have less fitness or core strength, as I am exercising less?

That’s it (sorry it’s taken so long!)... it’s been great to read about your experiences, and I would love to hear from you all, especially if you have any comments, input, suggestions or recommendations… or in fact anything at all to say.

It’s great to be here.

Many thanks,
Gary