My Story - Paul Lewis
Stockport tradesman Paul Lewis reveals how yoga eased his slipped disc in six weeks, after years of physio, strong painkillers and steroids failed him
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A Stockport joiner has revealed how yoga fixed his slipped disc in six weeks, after years of physiotherapy, strong painkillers and steroid injections failed to resolve it.
Paul Lewis was bed-bound despite NHS doctors’ extensive medical treatment on a prolapsed disc in his spine – resulting from years of manual work as a tradesman.
“Even putting on my socks and shoes was impossible,”he recalls. “I became bed-bound. I couldn’t do anything. The pain became horrendous. That’s when I asked my partner to phone an ambulance to take me to hospital.”
Lewis had lived with chronic pain from his condition for two years before being admitted to Stepping Hill Hospital. Strong painkillers and physiotherapy prescribed by doctors had done little to ease his agony and injury.
“I was on Codeine, Gabapentin and Oramorph, which is liquid morphine. That was just to get through days. The NHS gave me physio but it didn’t do much. Then in hospital in 2016 I had a steroid injection in the bottom of my spine. Things got a bit better for a few months before the pain returned and I went back onto medication.”
The father-of-two struggled for three more years without a fix for his slipped disc, which was then affecting his sciatic nerve and causing pain in his left leg.
“Stepping Hill refused me another injection so I turned to friends for ideas,” he adds. “Everybody said to me: you should go to yoga.”
Community Centre
The thought of going into a yoga studio with a lot of young ladies doing headstands wasn’t especially appealing to him, he admits, but by chance a yoga teacher from Upward Frog (upwardfrog.yoga) in central Stockport, was delivering classes in a community centre near his home in Shaw Heath.
“I spoke to the lady on the phone, explained my symptoms and she said, ‘come down, don’t worry, we’ll adapt the class and I’ll give you modifications’. My wife came with me, we went in and it wasn’t full of young ladies. There were guys my age, younger guys, and older women. It was a proper mixed bag and dead welcoming.
I wasn’t mobile at all during that class, but the alternative postures meant I still felt part of the group. And I enjoyed how I felt mentally on the other side of it.”
He adds: “It only took six weeks of doing yoga for me to notice the physical benefits. There were huge changes in my flexibility and posture, and my pain had reduced massively. On day one I couldn’t get near my toes. Six weeks later I was completing back bends and forward folds without a problem. That’s when I thought, ‘hold on, something is really happening here.”
From there, his teacher, Claire, introduced him to Upward Frog’s studio on Chestergate and he’s been going there ever since. By later on that year he was off all medication entirely, and has not been on any for pain since, not one paracetamol — and that’s six years since first walking into the yoga class.
Way of Life
Now 50, Lewis has embedded yoga into a way of life. “Today I can put my hands flat down on the floor from a standing position, without a problem. I can sit cross legged. I can do a full Vinyasa flow class and almost all yoga postures. Yoga is now a habit, it’s just what I do. And if I stop going, if I cool off for a bit, I can tell almost instantly from the feeling I get in my back. It has really worked for me.”
He adds: “People think, ‘Oh, yoga isn’t for me. Other people do that.’ But it helped my slipped disc and pain when doctors weren’t able to offer me anything else. Until you’ve done yoga and experienced it, especially at Upward Frog where the people are so mixed and welcoming, you cannot know how much it will help you physically and mentally.”
Upward Frog’s CEO Emma Gartside is keen to make yoga accessible for all and is convinced of its general health and wellbeing benefits. “Yoga can have a transformational effect on people’s health and wellbeing and we believe it should be available and accessible to everyone.”
N.B: If you are suffering from back pain or any back-related issues please speak with your GP or a professional healthcare provider before commencing any form of new exercise.
Om Magazine
First published in November 2009, OM Yoga magazine has become the most popular yoga title in the UK. Available from all major supermarkets, independents and newsstands across the UK. Also available on all digital platforms.
