Heidi’s way back to competition fitness

Alongside her career as a public health engineer designing water systems, Heidi, 31, from London, trains six days of the week, competing in CrossFit-style events, running and HYROX.

“I’m a competitive athlete, but I’d been over training a fair bit and started to develop back symptoms and had some left glute symptoms. I was referred to a physiotherapist, and I’d been seeing her regularly, but she went on holiday, and I was given a different physiotherapist and this is when everything changed.”

Heidi was told by the new physio that she didn’t have sciatica – (pain from the sciatic nerve affecting the lower back/buttock and leg) but that it was a glute imbalance. The physio said Heidi ‘needed to push through the pain’ as he painfully elbowed her glute.

She recalls, “Yeah, it was painful at the time, but I was okay. That was the 19th of November last year. I asked if it was okay to go for a run and he said,’ yeah, you’ll be fine’.

But as she tried to ‘walk/jog’ it became too much and when she got home she couldn’t get back up from the sofa and was in severe agony.

Heidi was no longer thinking about competitions or personal bests. She was thinking about how to get through the next hour.

“I had to move in with my partner because I wasn’t able to look after myself at all and struggling to walk, I had to stop going to work and I felt bad as it was a relatively new job I had started.”

Heidi made an appointment with Consultant Neurosurgeon & Complex Spine Surgeon, Dr. Gordan Grahovac from the London Clinic in November, who immediately ordered scans.

The scans showed a bulging disc and hip bursitis. A steroid injection helped her hip improve but her back showed no signs of improvement.

A Christmas family get together in the Cotswolds was far from idyllic. Heidi explains, “I could barely move and on very strong pain relief taking eight Cocodamol. They have all sorts of side effects and I hadn’t been to the loo for around three weeks or so. I decided on Christmas Eve to go cold Turkey on the pain relief, from eight a day to zero. I started to think I had the flu, which got worse and I thought I was dying, but it was withdrawal symptoms. Then on December 27th I was in hospital having an enema. It was all just horrific.”

After being bed bound for most of December, Heidi, decided in the New Year to try a return to work, despite her back not really being better.

“I was at that point able to walk for 15 minutes or so before needing to sit down.

But by the end of the day, when I got home, I’d be crying in pain.”

By March, everyday life had narrowed dramatically. Heidi could only walk for minutes at a time, sitting became unbearable and even showering required careful planning. She also started getting pins and needles symptoms.

A visit to her local NHS hospital did not offer surgery options but morphine and pain management drugs and being discharged to care for herself alone at home.

“I had to move in with my partner because I could not cope on my own. I physically could not get off the sofa at all. My partner Nathaniel had to carry me physically up to bed because there was just no way that I was going to be able to do that” she recalls.

This is when Heidi decided to look into her private medical insurance options as part of her employment package.

“As soon as I moved to The London Clinic, everything changed. I was cared for properly but still had some stark decisions – wait and hope, try an epidural injection, or proceed with a microdiscectomy. The procedure involves shaving part of the disc that’s compressing on your nerve with the aim of easing leg pain and restoring mobility.”

At first, Heidi was hesitant. Spine surgery sounded daunting. But after months of pain, medication and uncertainty, her fear shifted.

She said, “If I’m honest, I wasn’t scared of dying because I was in so much pain. I wasn’t scared about the surgery but I was scared of waking up and still being in that pain.”

Heidi had her microdiscectomy surgery, which took around an hour and a half on 31 March.

“The impact was immediate. The next day, I was walking up stairs. I felt better immediately after months of feeling trapped by pain, the difference was “night and day”.

She says she is so thankful for private healthcare but puzzled why surgery on the NHS wasn’t possible, saying, “I’d probably be at home and probably on benefits and extensive pain meds. It doesn’t make sense.”

Dr Gordan Grahovac said, “As anyone who has suffered from sciatica knows, it can be an all-consuming pain, making day to day life extremely difficult. Microdiscectomy is a minimally invasive spinal surgery which removes part of the protruded disc and decompresses the nerve root to reduce the pain and increase mobility.

“I am delighted to have helped restore Hannah’s mobility and it’s wonderful to hear she is back to her competing sports activities.”

Her recovery was supported by physiotherapy at The London Clinic. Her physiotherapist Ryan helped tailor rehabilitation to the sports and movements that mattered to her, working through exercises in the hospital gym and advising her on what she could safely do. That personal guidance mattered, especially after previous negative experiences elsewhere had made her wary of physiotherapy.

Today, she is cautiously rebuilding her confidence and carefully following advice about what to avoid and returned to competition. More events are now on the horizon, including future HYROX competitions.

“It was a traumatic, frightening and lonely period. My life has changed dramatically since having that operation. It changed absolutely everything. I’m forever grateful to The London Clinic. They absolutely changed my life.”

Find out more about spinal surgery here.