David

DAVID’S STORY

Many chiropractors can trace their origin stories back to childhood injuries and miraculous cures, mine isn’t one of those.

My watershed moment came in 2017… at this point I was already a well-established chiropractor running a successful clinic.

We had invested as a brand, heavily in technology designed to aid in the treatment of the toughest cases, little did I know that that my fitness and heath was about to take a big knock and that I would become top of my clinics list of patients.

Never to do something by haves, my moment of mishap happened in true flamboyant fashion halfway through a 5-hour 2000ft gradient hike to see one of the most beautiful sites in the world ‘Pulpit Rock’ (Preikestolen) overlooking the UNESCO Heritage Norwegian Fjords.

I overstretched and lost my rear footing and somehow ended in a semi splits position, much to the hilarity of my friends, but laugh and joke as we all do… as I stood up, I knew something was very wrong.

Obviously, the clever thing to do would have been to head back down the mountain, but for any of you that know me that simply wasn’t going to happen… Happily the view from the top was worth the effort although getting back down proved to be particularly difficult.

I woke the next morning in a full-on spasm with a clearly twisted pelvis, I’d never experienced pain like this before. Every movement sent lightning bolts up my back and into my buttock… once back in England despite having one of the most technological clinics in the country at my disposal and some very talented clinicians it took a full 6 months to get the pain under control and to get back to a gym.

One of the reasons why it took so long was that my case was complicated by the torn pelvic ligaments; it wasn’t until after the acute pain of an unstable pelvis was resolved that I started to notice the vice like feeling around my ankle, which was eventually diagnosed, via an MRI Scan, as Sciatica, caused by 2 damaged discs in my low back.

Having gone through a somewhat chaotic treatment plan myself I soon realised that our understanding of disc injuries and their treatment was a blind spot in both ours and the medical professions. There was a gaping hole between cases that were treatable via traditional roots and those cases which had no choice but a risky surgery.

So, I sat down re-read the literature, attended courses, and audited the systems we used; all to define a clear-cut protocol for patients who like me, develop with disc pain and sciatica. We’ve spent the last 5 year filling the gaps in knowledge and increasing the technology available; all whilst gaining the experience of when to utilize the various aspects of our protocol.

Our flagship program has been running since 2019, with great success. It has evolved and adapted, as do many of the cases in clinic, its rarely a straight line between pain and fitness. Having lived through the experience I understand the finer points between acute and chronic disc pain; the need for different rehabilitation strategies and alternate planning if cases aren’t heading in the preferred direction.

We know the protocols work, and now as we launch the first UK specialist disc clinic, The DISC Chiropractors, we are excited to show the world what we can achieve.