The Healing Power Of Nature

After years of suffering debilitating back pain, Sally found a way to transform her wellbeing

- RUTH ADDICOTT

When Sally Nye from Cambridge hit rock bottom and her friend, Rosie, took her out for a walk, she had no idea of the impact this simple action would have on her life.

Sally's symptoms began when she was 18 and studying for her A-levels when she suddenly felt an excruciating pain in her leg. It turned out to be a slipped disc, which she treated with physiotherapy.

Then seven years later, shortly after moving in with her now husband, Dan, she felt her back go.

"I woke up one day and I couldn't bend, my back was like concrete," she recalls.

Sally underwent various tests and saw different osteopaths and chiropractors. She even went on a back pain management course, but the pain didn't subside.

"The advice was to stay active, exercise gently and eat healthily - I was doing all those things, but it wasn't responding," she says.

If she stood up for any length of time, she would be in agony and would take her a week to recover.

Her job as a geography teacher at a secondary school became increasingly difficult, yet she didn't want to give it up. She wanted to get married and get on with her life.

Sally lived with back pain for five years. Then in 2006, a scan finally revealed the cause - she had a prolapsed disc which was impinging on the nerve in her leg and  needed urgent surgery.

While it was a relief to get a diagnosis, she was getting married in three weeks, so the surgery was postponed and she had an epidural to enable her to walk down the aisle.

"I remember wearing heels and trying to walk nicely," she recalls. "By the evening, my back was really bad."