J. is 45,6ft.4in , very upright, well muscled and fit. He arrived last week using a zimmer frame his girlfriend heaved out of a skip-this was his only means of articulation. He had aching in both legs and a virtual inability to stand upright. His girlfriend drove him up from London and it took him about 15 mins to get from car to couch-very painful to watch. I immediately suspected a disc problem. However, the confusion was that his S/I joint also seemed seized up as did most of the spinal verbetrae. I did what we normally and stretched and worked the muscles and sent him away to return three days later. The tale was the same-his girlfriend said he was better but this was not what I saw-I starte again but then got him to stand having mobilisted strongly the corset-he was worse. So I got an appointment for them to go straight to the MRI unit the same day and the consultant rank at 6 pm to say that there was a massive disc burst-hence his immobility.

He took the pictures to his GP in London the next day and he got to see a surgeon the same day and will by now have had an urgent operation to remove the bulging disc.

Lesson-if in doubt send for a scan!!