Vilela Difference
Sharon Fidgeon was plagued with backache for decades and thought she was doomed to a life of pain. Then a new treatment changed everything, says Andrea Smith.
When glamorous social worker Sharon Fidgeon was 13, she received a playful kick in the backside during a pillow fight that was to have repercussions for the next 20 years. Having suffered with recurrent back pain, Sharon was also dogged with chronic tiredness, and she was feeling pretty miserable until a diagnostic technique known as medical thermography was able to pinpoint the exact cause of her health problems and set her on the road to recovery.
Now aged 34, and mother to pretty eight-year-old leah, Sharon recalls how the childhood prank was the first of three injuries to her back. “My coccyx [tailbone] was injured and I was in a lot of pain at times, with numbness down my legs,” she recalls. “It was when I went to college at the age of 18 that it really began to bother me, and my mother was at me to have the problem sorted out.”
Sharon embarked on the search for a cure and tried everything from chiropractors to acupuncture, which gave her sporadic relief. “The pain was affecting me from my neck down to my lower back,” she says, “and I then had two falls: one off my bike at the age of 21 and another when I slipped on jagged rocks by the sea in Tailand, There were times when I was in severe pain and would have to lie on my back in bed for a week, which meant I wasn’t able to work.”
Although she had been a sporty child, Sharon found herself increasingly unable to live a normal, active life. In addition to the physical limitations imposed on her, being in constant pain took a toll on her spirit. “I’m a naturally optimistic and positive person, but is was hard not being able to do the things I wanted to do with my little daughter,” she says. “Even simple things like driving and bringing her to school were affected.
“I was lucky that I had great support from my family, and I had physiotherapy which helped to a point. I went to a specialist and he diagnosed me with a degenerative disc disorder, and I was devastated with that news. I had visions of being wheelchair-bound, and he painted a fairly bleak picture. It used to get me really down at times, because I couldn’t believe I was going to have to live with this pain for the rest of my life.”
Sharon lived with this diagnosis for several years until, on her mother’s recommendation, she decided to go to the Irish Centre of Integrated Medicine in Naas, which offers a combined approach, using both conventional and natural medicine to treat people. One of the services on offer is medical thermography, a non-invasive form of screening which uses an infrared camera to detect areas of inflammation, injury or abnormality using thermal readings.
“I had so much pain all down my back, so it was hard to pinpoint exactly where the pain was,” recalls Sharon, “but the doctor could see exactly where the problems were by looking at the areas of inflammation, which showed up as being hotter than the rest of my body. The thermography revealed that I didn’t in fact have a degenerative disc disorder, which was a great relief.”
Having ascertained where the problems were, Sharon’s doctor was in a position to treat her with osteopathy in the areas that needed it by looking directly at the results of the scan.
“The doctor adjusted the position of a bone in my neck, for example, and the pain I’d had in that area just vanished,” says Sharon. “It was remarkable how amazing I felt walking out of there that day.”
The thermography also showed up other areas that were contributing to Sharon’s general feeling of unwellness and tiredness.
“I was suffering from sinus problems at the time, and it showed up very clearly across my forehead,” she says. “Parts of my tummy were cold, and it showed that I was in the early stage of leaky-gut syndrome, where nutrients from the food I was eating weren’t being absorbed effectively. I was put on a very strict diet for five weeks, and I stuck to it rigidly, and when I went back it had cleared up completely. I felt great, and the tiredness went away, and I meant that the problem didn’t develop into something serious.”
Sharon’s doctor at the clinic is Dr Harald Gaier, who has four decades of clinical experience. A naturopathic physician, he has been president of the British Naturopathic Association three times and has served on the research committee of the Prince of Wales Foundation for Integrated Health. He firmly believes that non-orthodox medical treatments exist for virtually any disorder and has regularly published peer-review papers on various topics including gut-related medical research.
Sharon feels that the combination of the thermography and osteopathy since September has improved her back pain immensely. She is also a huge advocate of marrying conventional and alternative medicine, and feels that there is a place for both in people’s lives.
“I feel that I’m 60-70 per cent improved already, and I have still got a way to go,” she smiles. “I have been carrying the problems for so many years that it will take a while to completely fix me, but I hope it will be gone in the next couple of months. It’s hugely improved the quality of my life, both psychologically and physically. I don’t feel that I’m labelled as having a degenerative disc disease, which in itself makes me feel much better. I’ve also learned about the effect that good posture and nutrition have on my body.”
For Sharon, life has become rich with possibilities, now that she has become well and almost pain-free again. “Everything is wonderful in my life at the moment,” she says. “I enjoy my job a lot, am in a fabulous relationship, and have a gorgeous and amazing child. I’m looking forward to my back improving further over the next few months, and I would love to become more flexible and athletic again.”
Medical thermography is available at the Irish Centre of Integrated Medicine, St. John’s Grove, Johnstown, Naas, Co. Kildare, tel: (045) -844819 or visit http://www.icim.ie/
Tags: Dr. Gaier, Osteopathy, Thermography