Tracey's Recovery Journey

Tracey was in her mid 30’s when she came for an assessment for her severe pain. She is a Mother of 3 children and had been unable to work for the previous 5 months, having to use sticks some days due to the pain which had become increasingly severe over the previous 12 months. She had seen Doctors and a Specialist, who blamed the scoliosis for her pain and said the only thing left was to send her to the NHS Pain Management Clinic for spinal injections which would help her cope with the pain.

During her assessment with Georgie Oldfield, Tracey immediately recognised that if her scoliosis (curvature of the spine) was responsible for her pain then, as she had had this since her teenage years, it didn’t make sense that this was responsible for her pain. She told me she wasn’t aware of her having felt stressed in her teenage years as a result of her wearing a spinal brace. However, when we discussed this and she imagined one of her children having to wear one, she realised that she had tried to be positive and just get on with her life, suppressing how she felt because she realised it wasn’t going to change anything anyway.

She took everything on board and through journaling/expressive writing, she managed to identify, acknowledge and address how she felt as a teenager trying to fit in, while ‘looking different’ from her peers and having to wear a brace through her teenage years.  She also realised that her fears about her spine and her pain were responsible for most of her pain. In order to test this she decided to test this by bouncing on a trampoline with her children and she was actually was back at work soon after.

She followed the advice given, learning more about the concept of stress-induced pain and also addressed other underlying causes of her pain, including current stressful lifestyle experiences.  As a working Mother she continues to have periods of stress that she has to deal with however, if occasionally her back began to ache, she recognised it was not the scoliosis that was causing the pain. Moving forwards she knows that even if she develops some discomfort and she knows there is no physical cause, she will be able to explore what what might be triggering it and, by addressing the psychosocial causes, she will be able to resolve any discomfort quickly.

Tracey has recently climbed the Empire State Building while in New York and now regularly goes to yoga classes, both of which she wouldn’t have dreamed of being able to do not long ago.

She recently told Georgie, “I could have never envisaged that I would be able to endure such a long flight never mind conquer my fear of heights! I am feeling really good and am finally on top of the TMS.  I am constantly setting myself challenges and managing to deal with any pain along the way.  I have just returned from a weekend of camping, something I would have never dreamed of attempting and had to manage without an airbed as it broke and still got up in the morning pain free.  I am currently in training to do the 3 peaks, hopefully we will attempt it in the spring next year to raise funds for charity.”

Join people who have found relief through the SIRPA approach to chronic pain.