I suffered a herniated disc 7 years ago and went on a long journey of recovery, consulting physicians and receiving physiotherapy, making intermittent progress but never being fully without pain.  After 5 years, the symptoms had become overbearing and life-impacting so after further consultation I underwent surgery to replace a disc in my back.  Despite this being major surgery, the promise of full recovery within months with an extremely high success rate filled me with optimism.  

Sadly, despite weekly physiotherapy sessions and regular updates with the surgeon, my progress was slow (well behind the timeframes that had been suggested to me and what is suggested online) and I was never without pain.  At times it was as bad as it had been before the surgery and I had to give up most exercise and it impacted many decisions I made on a daily basis.  It was recommended that I have  multiple steroid injections as well as nerve ablation treatment, all of which I went through with and all of which delivered almost no results, often making the pain worse in the short term.

Almost 2 years after my surgery, I relocated to the Island and consulted Isla at Isla Scott Ltd who for the first time spoke to me specifically about how to treat chronic pain (which is clearly what I was experiencing).  The approach felt strange to me at first as for the first three sessions there was no physical treatment at all.  We simply talked through the logic of how the mind, brain and body all work together with pain and how it’s possible to use your brain as the most effective pain relief strategy.  What helped me was to read up on the topic (reading Chronic Pain by Dr Evan Parks was a particular turning point for me) and learn the logic and science behind these ideas.  The biggest obstacle for me was to overcome the fact that this felt like someone was telling me I was making it up in my head.  That’s absolutely not the case at all and once you understand that all pain is real but that the way our body sends us threat signals can be managed, you can start to rewire your brain and the way pain manifests itself in your body.

It may be hard to believe that within weeks I began to manage my pain better than I had in the past 7 years and all of this without any physical treatment.  A few months later with a combination of physical treatment and deeper understanding of pain management, I now experience days without pain, and have restarted activities like playing golf that I thought I would never be able to do again.  Don’t get me wrong, there are ups and downs on the journey but I am in the best place I’ve been since my initial injury.

I can say without any exaggeration, that this has changed my life beyond expectation and I can only hope that this type of treatment for chronic pain can become more widespread, accepted and adopted so that more people can manage their pain better and start enjoying life to the full once more.