Men's Health Stories

A few years ago I began suffering with an annoying back ache, the sort that you think will clear up in a few days.

As I was working away at the time, I put it down to the excessive amount of driving I was doing, an uncomfortable mattress or any number of other possible everyday issues.

Discussing it with colleagues - all of which seemed to have an opinion! - the general consensus was that it sounded like sciatica.

Being some distance from home meant that I couldn’t visit my own GP without taking time off, and I didn’t feel it was worth finding a local one – after all, it’s only a bit of backache, right?

Over a couple of weeks, the discomfort turned into a constant nagging pain and quickly began to affect my work, and so I booked an appointment with an osteopath recommended by a colleague.

Within a couple of days I found myself lying, in quite some pain it has to be said, on his table. He gave me what appeared to be a thorough examination and came to the same conclusion - sciatica. For me, knowing what is wrong goes some way to reducing the stress and uncertainty. Or so I thought.

Forty minutes of pummelling later, I rolled off the table and shuffled out into the street. If I was in pain before, I now found myself off the scale and hardly able to walk back to my car!

While the pain subsided a little, I couldn’t do even the simplest things without careful planning . Needless to say, I soon gave in and went to my GP, who packed me off for a scan.

A short while later, the hospital consultant talked me through his findings, which showed a bone had grown a little larger than its neighbours, which may never have caused a problem except I also had a particular disc that had slipped, with nowhere to go but up against the self-same bone.

At this point, I knew what was genuinely wrong, had seen the evidence and got professional advice on how to deal with it for the next few weeks. I was soon back out tripping the light fantastic, well, at least walking without my Quasimodo gait, anyway.

This is a tale of how ‘being a bloke' about your health is not particularly clever. Thinking ‘it’ will go away if ignored long enough or figuring out what the problem is with friends and family makes no sense at all (no offence to my friends and family intended).

If you’re lucky, ‘it’ may go away but pick the wrong problem and you could find yourself dealing with a far more serious situation than you started with.

It’s so simple, even for a bloke like me. Get checked out by a professional... and earlier!