Before any of you think I’m talking about myself, my kids or even Mrs H – I’m not! (although the title could apply to any and all of us at different points in time)
Going back over 10 years, I started to experience weakness in my arms and pain in my neck/back – in fact the pain in my arms could build to such a level that I blacked out because of it. Over the years I’ve had to stand my ground and fight my corner to get various Doctors and elements of the NHS to believe me and to act upon it.
6 years ago I went into the horrendous MRI machine (even if you don’t suffer claustrophobia, you’ll be surprised at the panic these things can induce) and the results indicated problems on the C5/C6 vertebrae, with one doctor notably saying that I had the spine of an 80 year-old. That comment was later denounced by several other doctors and also the Neurosurgeon I ended up having to visit at Addenbrookes.
Because the issues are on my Cervical Spine area, and therefore a potentially dangerous location, I was indeed referred to visit a Neurosurgeon – who declined to comment on my mental state thankfully but did describe that I was developing bone spurs on my vertebra called osteophytes. These in themselves are fairly normal and most of us develop them from our early 30s onwards, the issue was that mine were starting to pinch on the nerves and would, in his words, require surgery “within 10 to 20 years”.
