Deborah M

Nutrition Consultant and Independent Business Owner

Faversham

Remembering how I was and how I was going to be is a very painful and upsetting thing in my life, and one that only time and the people around me will change. But hopefully my story will help you understand the consequences of poor spinal health and from an extreme case, yes, what a difference to someone's life spinal correction can make.

I'm a 39 year old mother with 2 children ages 6 and 5.

I have chosen a picture of me to show you (above right) , not because it's me at my heaviest, because its not. I went on from here to gain another 24lbs. But when I look at this picture (that I wanted to delete), it reminds me exactly how I was. As you see me, I was in so much pain, with every footstep and trying to move around, I was on the edge of tears all the time.

My feet and ankles felt like they had been beaten with a baseball bat. This was because I sprained one foot about a year prior to this photo. When I put my foot on the ground, all of a sudden the most awful sharp pain shot up into my spine from my hip, and my leg would collapse from under me. When I walked, I hobbled and staggered with a very bad limp, which caused lots more pain in my knees. My hip joint felt like it had ground glass in it when I walked. I had a constant headache and one shoulder was numb over the shoulder blade.

I felt trapped in a body that was only going to get worse with time and no hope of anything helping me. I thought he only thing that would slow down the progress of my condition would be to lose all my excess weight! Easier said than done with no mobility to exercise, an under-active thyroid and deep rooted depression with nothing but a wheelchair to look forward to.

Living life again with my family and having a lot more fun!

I did try to lose weight. In fact I tried and failed every diet on the planet and the only thing that happened was I put on more weight. I was being tortured everyday, both physically and mentally, and I couldn't bare the thought that I would end my life like I was and that I would not see my children grow up.

As for what it was like living in a body like this, well I can tell you, it was not a very happy one. I could not walk more than 20 yards without being in agony and totally out of breath because of the pain. I lived within 3 or 4 minutes walk from my daughter's school and I had to drive because I just couldn't do it. At home I could not do house work, I couldn't bend or bear any weight at all, I couldn't sit for a long time, couldn't stand for more than a couple of minutes. I lived my life in constant pain and fatigue. This, as you can imagine, made me a very depressed person and the major thing that made me feel even worse was the fact I had 2 very young children that I couldn't play with or look after the way I wanted to.

To tell you what exactly happened to me would take too long. But in brief, when I was pregnant with my first child, I developed a problem with my hips. The ligaments holding my pelvis together started to relax too early. This is normal for a pregnant woman in the very late stages of pregnancy, but it happened to me when I was around 18 weeks pregnant and resulted in me not being able to walk. I had to have a wheelchair and crutches, I couldn't weight bear at all and I couldn't turn over in bed or even get in or out of bed without the most awful sharp pain in my groin. You just can't imagine the pain. My condition was called 'Diastasis symphasis pubis' and was apparently rare. In fact, its not that rare, it's just that the medical profession in this country knows nothing about it and as a consequence I was treated very badly and incorrectly. They put me through all kinds of tests, including x-rays where I was twisted and manipulated and caused even more pain. I was then diagnosed with a kidney infection and given antibiotics. The health care system put me through 2 years worth of physiotherapy where the physiotherapist told them in the end, I needed surgery. Then more radioactive bone scans and finally the surgeon told me "I'm sorry there is no surgery that can help you. Although they are trying some in the US, it's not proven to work yet. He went on to say, "there is nothing that can be done. You are going to have to live with it. Oh and arthritis has already set into your hip and knee joints and within 10 to 15 years you will be in a wheelchair. If you lose all your excess weight it will be 15 rather than 10." No one had any idea of how to help me.

So there I was, with an under-active thyroid, very depressed, not able to exercise because of lack of mobility and in extreme pain, thinking of how I was going to be for the rest of my life, which would not have been very long because of the way I was. My weight kept on increasing and when I reached almost 20 stone just after Christmas 2004, I came to the point where I couldn't carry on anymore and had a very serious talk with my husband Patrick and told him gently I didn't know how much more I could take. We tried yet again another diet to get my weight down and slow down the damage to my hip and failed miserably.

Then one day in April 2004, I was taking my children to the Faversham swimming pool and the Ideal Spine Centre had a free spinal screening stand in the reception area. I knew what a state my back was in but thought "Ok, I will see what this guy has to say". What he showed me was that I was standing on one leg about 28 lbs more than the other and my upper back had very unnatural bends in my posture, which meant my spine was possibly putting pressure on my spinal cord and nervous system. The hip part I expected, but the rest came as a surprise. It made a lot of sense really. I had very little money and initially, when Dr. Farthing offered me the opportunity to have a full and thorough examination, I turned him down because I couldn't afford it. But I thought about it and came to the conclusion it was a small price to pay to find out if he can help me or not. I went through torture between waiting for my appointment and him finally telling me he could help me. I had become so apathetic and used to hearing the same old thing - it would be the same old x-rays and examination followed by, "I'm sorry there is nothing I can do".

I started my adjustments straight away. It was strange at first, but I got used to it very quickly and as the weeks went on little things started to occur to me. The first thing, which I didn't relate to my back at all was, I used to feel sick all the time and suddenly that feeling had gone. Within a couple of weeks I started to sleep better as before I couldn't sleep soundly because I was in so much pain. Then my headaches went and things really started to change. At the same time I found a very healthy, safe and effective way to lose weight and with the two things combined my health started to change very quickly.

No more sitting watching my family have fun. In pain and miserable trying to put on a happy face so it does not spoil their fun and them wanting to go home for my sake.

Ever since Sophie my eldest daughter could say the word, dog, she has wanted one and Paddy has also wanted one ever since we met. The decision was always mine because I would be the one looking after it. There was no way I could take care of a dog because I couldn't have walked it or cleaned up after it. But when I started my adjustments at the Ideal Spine Centre which allowed me able to walk pain free again, it gave me such hope that I decided a new dog would be okay when I was fully recovered. Then one day I came across a litter of puppies and fell in love with one that came and sat on my foot. I worked it out by the time the puppy was old enough to be walked I would be well on the way to recovery and that she would be the ideal exercise companion. So, we now have a very boisterous black labrador retriever called Lillah who will be 12 months old in April.

Thanks to Dr. Farthing and the Ideal Spine Centre, I can now walk miles without a limp or any pain, and even run for a short distance! In fact, when I got up at the park in front of my friends and started running across the field with a bunch of children that needed the toilet, they couldn't believe it!! That news spread through my network of friends like wild fire. I now sleep like a baby for 8 solid hours in one stretch (not 2 hrs disturbed sleep anymore). I can now do all the things that I stopped doing, right down to the simple things like loading the washing machine. And best of all, I can play with my children. I now go on long walks in the country with the family and go to the park and play football with the children. I can now do everything I always wanted to do. No limp, no wheelchair, and my weight is coming down because I can exercise and am getting the right nutrition. I have lost 52 pounds and am now the right side of 16 stone. I feel fantastic and I feel very strongly that Dr. Christian at the Ideal Spine Centre has given me and my family my life back. In fact, I would go as far as to say he saved my life and I'm very grateful for that.

The Ideal Spine Centre is now looking after my whole family. None of them had any symptoms that I would have associated with Vertebral Subluxation of the spine. In fact, if I had not had the faith to go to the Ideal Spine Centre and find out all about spinal health care, I would never of found out that my eldest daughter Sophie had 6 levels of subluxation in her spine that were causing her to wet the bed and suffer from headaches. I have learnt that birth trauma was the original cause of spinal misalignment and thank god we discovered this while she was young enough to have it corrected effectively, otherwise who knows what a state her health could have been in when she was older?

Thank you for being a committed health care team to help me and serving the community. Keep up the great work!