My Back Story 
By Madeleine Holt,
Culture Correspondent, Newsnight

I have spent seven years on a round-the-world odyssey to sort out my curved spine. Finally, I have cracked it – I no longer have any pain, and I even look straighter. This is my story.

I was diagnosed with scoliosis (spinal curvature) at a school medical when I was fourteen. By then, it was too late. My condition had run its course. My mother and I had watched one of my shoulders get higher than the other. We had never heard of scoliosis or we would have gone to the doctor. Instead we thought it was because I carried a heavy school bag, so we did nothing.

The curves in my neck and upper back were reasonably big (and matched, weirdly, the position I took up when playing the flute all the time). But they were not considered bad enough for surgery or bracing, plus my back didn’t seem to be getting any worse. The consultant told me to stretch up my arms when I went through doorways, and that was it. No one knew if I would get pain at any point.

Until the age of twenty seven, everything was fine. Then, suddenly, I started to get chronic pain in my neck and upper back. It would kick in after I had been standing or sitting for about twenty minutes. Only lying down, a hot bath or a stiff drink would zap the pain.

By thirty four, the pain was affecting my quality of life so much, I thought it would be difficult to live with it and have children. I decided to act: I found out on the internet about an alternative treatment in Louisiana which claimed to eliminate the pain (and straighten your spine). I went to the States four times, and spent thousands of pounds having a fibreglass brace fitted from my hips to my shoulders.

By this time, I was a culture correspondent for BBC news nationally. I wore the brace for eighteen hours a day, so had to cover it up on television with scarves. I even interviewed celebrities wearing it, including Pierce Brosnan (one of them - Rene Russo - had had scoliosis herself, and we talked about it). After a year, the curves if anything seemed to have got worse so I quit the treatment.

I decided to go back to the NHS. I saw a consultant who laughed when he saw the brace I had been wearing. He told me that scoliosis does not cause pain – instead, the pain is psychosomatic. He asked me if I was single or depressed. I was certainly depressed after seeing him.

Next I headed to Australia. Back treatment there is very advanced, and I learnt from lots of alternative therapists more about my condition, and started to wear orthotics in my shoes. But I still had my back pain. It was only when I got back to Britain that a friend told me about another treatment – a hydraulically-powered handset, which manipulates your spine into a straighter position. After three treatments at a clinic in Surrey, my upper back pain had pretty much gone. But I still had constant pain in my neck…

Finally, last December, I found out on the web about a new clinic that had opened in Suffolk, Scoliosis SOS. It was the first English-speaking clinic offering an exercise programme developed in Germany years ago. After a month of this back borstal, my neck had deteriorated by two thirds. The pain had gone. I was two centimetres taller. I looked straighter – partly because my posture was so much better, but also because my muscles were pulling my body into a more aligned position. My spine was still curved, but it showed much less. I have to do the exercises every day – which is tough with two small children – to keep the correction. But it is worth it.

I have become passionate about the Katharina Schroth exercise programme. It seems it can actually reduce substantially the curves in teenage patients – so it offers a safer and cheaper alternative to spinal rod surgery. The NHS needs to take this treatment seriously and do clinical trials.

I also think so much more could be done to increase awareness of scoliosis – posters in surgeries and gyms, more media coverage…It is such an easy condition to spot – you just bend over and if you have a bump on your back you probably have it. If only my parents had known this when I was a girl.

Finally, I think there should be compulsory school medicals in the early teenage years. It would save so much suffering.. and so much cost to the NHS. 

Madeleine Holt
August 2007