I used to brace myself for a Agony every time I moved
ELLE IANNACCONE was leaning into her newborn daughter’s cot when she felt a sudden stab of excruciating pain in her lower back.
Her GP prescribed painkillers, but things got progressively worse over the next year. Sometimes the pain was so bad Elle could barely walk and had to use her daughter’s buggy as a walking frame.
Fifteen months after her first symptoms, she had an MRI scan that revealed she’d suffered four slipped discs — these spongy ‘cushions’ between the vertebrae had ruptured, their contents leaking out and pressing on the nerves, causing pain.
Last year, Elle, a 36-year-old graphic designer from Watford, Hertfordshire, had surgery to remove the excess disc material.
‘The operation did help, but the recovery was very slow,’ she says. ‘The pressure of the discs on my nerves had been so bad that at one point I lost all feeling in my lower body. Afte to walk again. I was in a perm my back would go like it did b
‘I had always been such a lai chronic pain had made me r anticipate pain in every mov time I turned over in bed and tally as well as physically) eve up my daughter, Fiorella.
‘The pain — and the prospe just so frightening.’
Nick Sinfield, who treated about her back made her p about carrying her daughter ieties because she worried t be the mother she wanted to
‘As her condition had gone her fear levels had risen to
er the op, I had to learn anent state of fear that before. id-back person, but the really anxious. I would ve — tensing up every d bracing myself (menery time I went to pick
ect of more pain — was Elle, says her anxiety pain worse. ‘Her fear r compounded her anxthat she wasn’t able to o be. from acute to chronic, o the point where she simply wasn’t functioning properly. I was able to reassure her that she could do far more than she realised, and gradually her confidence grew as she became more active.’
Elle is convinced psychological factors played a part in ramping up the pain. Her pregnancy had been ‘a bit of a surprise’, the labour had been long and difficult, and she and her fiance, Olly Mardling, had financial concerns.
‘Once I’d learned to relax — which is very hard when you are in constant pain — I finally started to feel better. I now realise just how powerful fear and anxiety can be when you are in chronic pain. At times, I thought I really was going mad. But now I force myself to be active — even though it is sometimes frightening — and I go through a series of stretches every day. I swim, do Pilates, and no longer have to take painkillers.’