Those of you who have been regular visitors to OCG will know that I came to cycling because I was no longer able to run or do high impact exercise activity because of spinal issues. Cycling was a way of being active whilst managing back pain. I have degenerative disc disease resulting in three lots of surgery to date and the insertion of spinal rods and plates in my lumbar spine.

More back pain

In 2016, I had yet another disc prolapse. When I visited my surgeon, he advised that surgery was not a feasible option due to scar tissue from previous surgeries. Instead, as a means of managing back pain without going down the road of surgery, he offered me spinal blocks and facet joint injections, and advised me to look at doing yoga to strengthen the deep paraspinal muscles. At this point, I was 32 with two children. The quality of my life was not great. I was in a lot of pain daily. I couldn’t bend, I had nerve pain in my left leg and I wasn’t sleeping. The thought of more surgery, which may or may not be successful, was absolutely the last thing I wanted. So, I happily took the offer of the injections and made a pact with him to do yoga. (more…)