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Case Study

Louise Dicker, 36 years old, with back pain and bulging discs

Background

Louise suffered pain in her C5/6 and C6/7 both bulging discs and pressing on nerves leaving Louise with pain shooting down her arm, causing severe neck and scapula, shoulder pain.

Louise’s pain started a few years ago and progressively got worse. She was constantly attending physio and massage therapy. For many years Louise thought her pain was from her work as a beauty therapist. The work caused her to flex forward daily.

Louise has 2 children and after her second baby was born the pain got considerably worse. Again, Louise dismissed the pain thinking it to be muscle strain. She figured this was a result of holding the baby. After attending regular sessions, a physiotherapist recommended Louise take Lyrica and assessed the pain as nerve pain. This could be prescribed by a doctor. It was not until the pain got unbearable one day that Louise decided that she had to go to her doctor and ask him to prescribe medication to reduce the pain.

Louise’s doctor then decided to send Louise for an MRI. The scan revealed that Louise’s neck showed disc protrusion of the C5/6 and C6/7 discs with a part of the disc broken off and lodged on her spinal cord. He immediately put Louise on medication. He was puzzled as to how Louise was managing to lead a normal life considering the damage to the discs. Louise was really upset and was in chronic pain but as a young Mum felt she had no choice but to get on with things. Louise was not sleeping at that time and was merely existing. Louise was referred to a Neurologist who suggested that she get injections to relieve the pain, suggesting that surgery would be the next step for Louise.

Louise felt in a state of depression from enduring so much constant pain. At that point she saw a spinal specialist who likened her injury to those he had seen from car crashes or had suffered blunt trauma. Louise had not experienced any of these things. The specialist wanted to remove Louise’s discs and place metal cages in her neck and fuse them to her spine. At the age of 34 with 2 young children to look after this was not something Louise was comfortable with. It was at that point receiving the injections that Louise decided to seek out other methods of recovery. The surgery that was being discussed also came with a lot of risks to Louise’s health and she was not prepared to go through with the operation.

Louise had been a marathon runner before her injury and had been a keen gymnast. Having once been so fit she now likened her mood to a ‘state of depression’ due to her lack of mobility.

Having researched alternative treatment methods Louise discovered Stott Pilates online herself. She contacted Pilates with Kate in October 2019 and asked could she do one to one lesson to see how her neck would be afterwards. She commented that the relief was instant following the first session.

Pilates with Kate

Following one lesson I knew that Louise was a fit girl who had worked hard to keep her fitness up over the years and with that fact and her ability to understand the exercises well I took her into my group classes.
Louise did the classes a few times a week and was feeling the benefits very quickly. When Louise started in October, she was determined to work hard to avoid more injections that now had become part of her life.

Commonly pain becomes worse in the wintertime as we tend to hold ourselves in the cold weather. Louise was determined to avoid her January yearly injections.
It’s nearly a year on and since Louise started the classes, she says that her quality of life is remarkable. She is back running; sleeping is no longer an issue and she can function normally. She does have to be mindful not to do too much lifting and support her neck if she gets tired but in general Louise is well and relatively pain free without injections.

The programme that I started Louise on was beginners Pilates. Louise was mindful of her neck and we focused on a lot of extension work to strengthen her cervical spine and thoracic spine. Stott Pilates is amazing for rehabilitation of injuries. The spine starts with your cervical spine running down to your thoracic and lumbar spine. In order to maintain a healthy spine movement is essential. If the spine goes stiff, we can lose mobility in the spine and other parts of the body start to compensate for the lack of motion. This can cause pain into our shoulder blades and nerve pain often radiates through the arm too. Pilates assists by keeping our spine mobile and helps to strengthen the body. With a combination of extension, flexion, and rotation the spine gets used to movement and becomes more flexible. The transition of the body’s overall strength is something Louise has noticed. She comments that her body shape also improved since she started. Louise commented that she wished that doctors and physios would recommend pilates to their patients. Indeed I do find now that most of my clients are coming to me from physio referrals so I think a lot more specialists are realising the value of Stott Pilates.

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