Back pain left me crawling around on all fours
The guitarist tells SUE CRAWFORD how a slipped disc has caused him agony for 40 years
WHEN PUNK Glen Matlock pogo-ed across the stage with The Sex Pistols, he never for one second thought his high-energy antics would come back to haunt him. The notorious band symbolised youthful rebellion and passion and threw everything into their live shows. Now, decades on, guitarist Glen has revealed that the punishing rock and roll lifestyle came at a heavy price, leaving him with back pain so severe that at times he has been forced to walk with a stick and even left bedridden for weeks on end.
Glen, who wrote some of the band’s greatest hits including Anarchy In The UK and God Save The Queen, says: “The pain is totally debilitating and when it strikes I can’t move. It’s like sciatica – the pain travels down my legs – and when it happens I can’t do anything. I just lie there.
“I remember once I’d been decorating my en-suite bathroom. I went to bed and woke up early in the morning and couldn’t move even though I needed the loo.
“I lay there for a couple of hours, but I couldn’t wait any longer and I was on my hands and knees walking along like a dog.The pain was so bad.
“I’ve had occasions where I’ve had to walk with a stick. It’s not just the pain in the back, all the opposing muscles go into spasm to compensate and that adds to the agony. If I’m performing I just battle through.
“There are normally quite a few storage cases that I can hang on to as I’m getting on stage. Before I go on I take the painkiller ibuprofen and rub Voltarol on to my lower back to help ease the pain and I wear a surgical support belt underneath my shirt.”
GLEN, 63, who began his music career as a teenager, first experienced back pain when he was in his mid-twenties.
With a busy recording and touring schedule, he simply shrugged it off. “Back then when the pain came on it was normally an excuse to have another port and brandy – medicinal of course,” he smiles. “I enjoyed the rock and roll lifestyle.”
But as the pain worsened over the years, Glen decided to seek professional help. He initially tried gentle stretching exercises and muscle-relaxing tablets prescribed by his doctor.When they didn’t work he visited several osteopaths, a back pain clinic and even top Harley Street specialists. “Once while on tour with The Sex Pistols in Finland I had to break off and go to see an osteopath as I was really struggling,” he recalls. “Everyone I saw helped a little bit, but they didn’t totally get rid of the pain and in the end I got resigned to living with it.”
Three years ago an MRI scan revealed that the cause of Glen’s pain was a bulging disc, where a soft cushion of tissue between the bones in the spine pushes out.
A common spinal injury, also referred to as a slipped, prolapsed or herniated disc, it can cause severe lower back pain, numbness in the shoulders, back, arms, hands, legs or feet, neck pain, problems with bending or straightening the back and pain in the buttocks, hips or legs, if the disc is pressing on the sciatic nerve. Glen, who has spent 40 years in the music business, including five reunion tours with The Sex Pistols and a successful solo career, believes several factors contributed in his case.
“You’re always humping guitars and equipment around when you’re in a band,” he explains.
“I used to play bass guitar and they’re quite big. I think driving and bad posture are part of the problem too, as well as stress, which is a big thing in people’s lives.
“It’s a strange thing. I could do a weekend of gigs and nothing would happen and then I’d come back and on Monday morning I’d bend over to pick up a letter on the doormat and that would trigger the pain.”
Slipped discs are usually initially treated with a course of painkillers and gentle exercise, but if that doesn’t work doctors might prescribe muscle relaxants or steroid injections. Surgery is not usually needed, but there is some evidence that manual therapies, such as osteopathy, can help.
THE ROCKER decided against surgery but after 30 years of pain a friend finally persuaded him to visit cranial osteopath Gerald Lamb at his west London clinic.
Osteopathy is a way of detecting, treating and preventing health problems by moving, stretching and massaging the muscles and joints.
It is based on the principle that a person’s wellbeing depends on their bones, muscles and ligaments functioning smoothly together.
Cranial osteopathy involves the head and uses very gentle pressure to encourage the release of stresses throughout the body. It isn’t widely available on the NHS, and despite trying countless ways to tackle his problems, Glen admits he was initially sceptical. “The first time I went I thought, ‘This is a load of old rubbish, he hasn’t done anything’,” he recalls.
“I was only there for 30 minutes, but it straightened me right up and now when I go, I come out feeling an inch taller. I’m a different man since I’ve been going to see him.”
Glen, who lives in west London, is currently working on a new album for release towards the end of the summer. In the autumn he is back on the road touring with the Glen Matlock Band, playing a selection of songs from his solo career, along with classics from his chart heyday with The Sex Pistols and The Rich Kids. Glen still has cranial osteopathy sessions every six weeks. “If it sorts me out, it’s money well spent. It’s important to find what works for you.”