My Story
In 2004 I was in pain, and pretty bad pain! Pain that was stopping me moving as I wanted to and stopping me living my life.
During the course of one year I was beginning to think my body was falling to pieces! Everything seemed to be going wrong. At 48 years old, and always having been quite an athlete I couldn't understand why I was experiencing so much pain and disability.
At the time I had been practicing yoga for four years and had developed quite an intensive daily yoga practice. Cycling was a particular passion, I had been cycling with a club for 15 years and I was cycling on average 150 to 200 miles a week.
In 94 I had had spinal surgery as a result of a cycling accident, and I was continually experiencing acute pain in the right side of my lower back.
11 years later, I had knee surgery, cartilage repairs on both knees with a good prognosis, however the left knee was still causing me a lot of problems with pain, acute hypersensitivity, and tingling sensations in my left toes.
In 2003 just after I had began practising yoga I started to get a lot of pain in the left side of my neck, I would often wake up during the night, with numbness and tingling in my hands, although an MRI scan reported nothing unduly wrong which was puzzling.
By about April of 2004 I developed a complaint called ‘trigger thumbs' (similar to carpal tunnel syndrome - a narrowing of the tendon sheaths to the thumbs.)
A few months after surgical release on my thumbs, I developed tendonitis in my right wrist, and then promptly a couple of weeks later tendonitis (golfers elbow) in my left elbow. The pain of the tendonitis was dreadful, I had cortisone injections in the wrist and the elbow, both within a couple of weeks of each other.
I experienced only slight symptomatic relief in my right wrist, nothing worked at all with the elbow, and the pain was becoming worse. The next course of action my doctor warned me, would be surgery if I wasn't prepared to try another injection!
I was constantly at the physiotherapists and osteopaths for one problem after another and it was proving very expensive and time consuming.
I began to think it was ‘all my fault’ and that it must be something I was doing that was wrong. The question remained in my mind though: ‘why’?
I think when you are facing dramatic surgical re-engineering of your body you will probably try anything. Luckily for me I had an Ashtanga yoga pen friend in America, another yoga teacher, who had been telling me for months I was out of alignment! Well, being a yoga teacher of course I thought I knew all about alignment, and I did of course but alignment in a yoga posture is very different from alignment of the body. My friend had been telling me for ages to read the book ‘pain-free’ by Pete Egoscue, so finally in desperation I bought the book. And then……………………….. eureka!!!!! The answer.
On the 19th page of the book the answer to all of my problems.
The Egoscue ® method changed my life.
I hurriedly searched online for a therapist, at that time there were probably only two or three in the UK. After the first appointment my therapist told me to walk up and down the street before I got into my car, I could have cried! I felt as if I was walking for the first time in my life, it felt truly amazing. I felt taller, more relaxed and what's more I was in far less pain. My therapist gave me an exercise programme that I had to work with every day, I stuck with it in earnest, and went back for my next visit two weeks later.
Following my second therapy programme, I knew I was on the right track. It was about three weeks before the pain in my elbow had abated to a degree where I could once again feel comfortable about riding my bike and practicing yoga. As I continued to work with my programmes everything started to improve, my right wrist healed pretty quickly, the pain in the right side of my lower back started to ease and there were times when the left side of my neck didn't trouble me quite so much. I was no longer waking in the night with tingling and numbness in my hands and I noticed I could actually get out of bed in the morning without pain, that surprise was quite wonderful! Other pains took a little longer to heal, the sensations in my left knee and left toes took about a year to heal completely and although the right side of my lower back improved within a few months, once in a while it would niggle a little.
Nowadays, I don’t have any of the problems I had in the past and I am fitter and more functional than I was 30 years ago!
I had only three therapy sessions, before I signed up for the Egoscue ® education, it made so much sense to me with my background in fitness instruction and martial arts, healing by movement! I knew I wanted to work with the method and take it out to the world. A couple of months after I began the training, I flew out to the clinic in San Diego America to study, I wanted to meet Pete Egoscue in person, and I wanted to be there at the heart of the organisation.
I qualified in the basic ‘Egoscue Posture Alignment Specialist’ course in June 2005 and I have been practising ever since. I continued with my studies, and In January the following year I flew back to San Diego for the advanced Egoscue PAS training. This time I spent some additional time taking part in the clinic and observing the experts at work.
I have worked with my own daily therapy programme ever since, I think with my lifestyle and level of activity I need it, it enhances everything I do.
It wasn’t until halfway through my training, when I understood and was able to identify postural dysfunctions, that I have a degree of scoliosis. I think now that was a major contributor to all of my problems. We can trace the start of all these things back through incidents and injuries 
throughout our lives.