Ross Hutcheon, San Francisco Bay

I live in the San Francisco bay area in CA, USA. I’ve been suffering

from severe lower back pain since Nov 2008.  I spent 12 months trying

low impact (pilates / physio / injections) before spinal fusion

surgery of L5/S1 in Dec 2009.  Unfortunately this made the pain much

worse & I have been on medical leave pretty much ever since.  I’ve had

subsequent surgeries to remove hardware removal & add posterior bone

graft & implantation of bone growth stimulator (Oct 2010) and then

removal of bone growth stimulator (Apr 2011). None of these had much

impact, except the removal of the bone growth stimulator, which had a

slight positive impact.

 

Nigel reached out to me in March, offering to help & had the courage

of his convictions to come over to California for a week in May (last

month).  Prior to his visit I had a high degree of scepticism that he

could help.  I am now 5 weeks into the program & while not yet

completely out of the woods, I feel that I finally have a way out.

Since following the program, I am able to walk normally (as opposed to

limping) & my pain has reduced significantly.  I’ve been able to

substantially reduce the amount of opiate pain medication that I have

been taking & hope that in the next several weeks / months that I can

get off the pain meds.  Previously I couldn’t sit for longer than 10

mins without getting very flared up, now I’m able to sit for 30 mins

at a time.

 

Although Nigel was only here for a week, I’ve been in contact with him

several times a week via email & have a weekly video conference call.

My wife is a pilates instructor & Nigel trained her to perform the

measurements each week, so that Nigel can track my progress.  My

osteopath has been extremely impressed with my progress since Nigel’s

visit, she said my healing has been months ahead of where she expects

it to be at this stage.

 

It would be great to see this program offered in the US, I’m sure that

there would be lots of interest.  I can’t stress enough how much of a

lifeline that this has been for me.  I have consulted with more than 8

surgeons & many various other medical professionals over the last few

years, few of whom gave any hope or suggestion on the way forward (in

fact the week before Nigel’s visit, a Physiatrist told me I should

“learn how to come to terms with & live with the disability”).

 

Ross Hutcheon