Dr. Paul Frank Faulder, 46, is the CEO of a scientific software company and lives in Cheshire.
I was 17 years old when I first felt an intense stabbing pain in my lower back, the kind that stops you in your tracks. I went to the doctor who prescribed an anti-inflammatory and even though it affected my school work, because sitting for a long time hurt a lot, I put up with it.
I continued to have back pain. There was no real cause, I just assumed it was because of my 6ft 4in height. But then, in the last few years, it got significantly worse and more frequent; it didn’t help because he had gained a little extra weight during the lockdown. One morning last year I woke up screaming in pain; I called the paramedics who gave me gas and air to treat what looked like a herniated disc. I managed to get up and started to limp, but two weeks later my back hurt again. I was 45 years old and I thought: “I’ve had enough of this, where is it going to end?” My 80-year-old father was gardening for me; he was embarrassing and depressing.
After an MRI, a neurosurgeon looked at the results and said that one of my disks was “almost erased.” He told me there were two things I could try before the surgery: lose five pounds (I was 40 pounds) and get a steroid injection between the discs.
I periodically worked out at the gym, but I was very nervous about doing the wrong thing and making it worse. But I booked an appointment at Peak physical performance in Cheshire and asked them, “Would you like a challenge?”
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