Desperate, depressed and even suicidal, many patients have hit rock bottom when they turn to spinal surgeon Manoj Krishna. Lucy Richardson discovers how he has transformed their lives and why they are jumping at the chance to give back.

SIMPLE everyday tasks from washing up at the kitchen sink, to climbing stairs and getting out of bed were unbearable for Clare Poulton.

After enduring excruciating agony for years, she feared her back pain was so great she couldn’t have a child.

Tragedy struck in 2002 when, two years after suffering a miscarriage, she gave birth to a stillborn baby girl, named Sally, at 22 weeks.

“I got it into my head that I couldn’t have children due to the pain,” explains Clare, from Stockton.

But five magic words uttered by Manoj Krishna, “I can fix you sweetie” were to change her life.

Not only was she walking only 12 hours after surgery with Mr Krishna by her side, but she is also now mum to five-year-old Ella, who she calls her “miracle baby”.

Jeannette Laughton was on the brink of suicide when she moved 250 miles from Oxfordshire to rent a house near Darlington in an attempt to get an appointment with Mr Krishna, consultant orthopaedic and spinal surgeon at University Hospital of North Tees, in Stockton.

Jeannette was so hunched with back and leg pain that she planned to book into a hotel and take an overdose of tablets to end her life.

“I couldn’t help thinking I wasn’t even 50 and I was in a wheelchair,” she reveals. “I wondered what life I had to look forward to and I decided I couldn’t live like that.

“I was in agony. I’d walk round supermarkets bent over a trolley because I couldn’t straighten up. I had to sit and rest on kerbs or against a wall when I was out. I’m sure people thought I was either mad or drunk. I had no self-esteem at all.”

Mr Krishna diagnosed that worn discs in Jeannette’s lower back were squeezing the nerves and causing her pain. She underwent a four-hour posterior lumbar interbody fusion operation to remove painful spinal discs and packing them with hollow cages filled with bone, releasing the nerves. Then screws and rods were used to stabilise her spine.

“When I woke up, I realised I didn’t have any pain,” Jeannette remembers. “When I walked out of hospital two days later, it was the first time my husband had seen me free of pain in 18 years. Mr Krishna literally saved my life and made it worth living. He is my guardian angel.”

Tori Fenny agrees that Mr Krishna has changed her world. “You cannot undersell this man – to us he walks on water. We owe everything to him. If Manoj had decided not to come to North Tees there would be so many more people in wheelchairs and disabled by back pain.”

She had been in a wheelchair for five months before she saw Mr Krishna. “He just said: ‘I can fix this’, it was a moment in my life I will never forget. I was depressed because I was in so much pain. I could no longer physically wash my daughter’s hair, so she had to do it herself, it used to kill me.”

EAGER to help other patients and their families, Tori, from Stockton, set up the Tees Valley Spinal Support Group Trust.

A small group of trustees, including Tori, Clare and Linda Botterill, now tell their stories to people contemplating spinal surgery, visit patients on the ward, and answer any personal questions.

For the first time, the support group is holding a 5K charity walk in Stockton, on Sunday, July 17, with the aim of raising £15,000 to buy a Sun Optics headlamp video camera for the hospital’s spinal unit. Walk organiser and trustee Linda, who has had neck and back surgery, explains: “Before having neck surgery and two back operations, physical exercise was impossible. Once surgery had been done I could exercise which I hadn’t been able to do for over 15 years.

“However, as the history of the support group shows, more and more people are getting their lives back after years of pain. Our motto is ‘bouncing back’ and this is exactly what this walk is about.”

Flying over from the US specially to take part in the event will be visitors from Princeton Brain and Spine Clinic, who turned to the Tees Valley Group when setting up its own support group.

The spinal unit at North Tees hospital includes consultant surgeons Tai Friesem and Chandra Bhatia and it sees 2,500 patients a year from all over the country.

Mr Krishna said: “Thanks to the determination and dedication of founder member Tori Fenny and all the charity’s trustees, we have a thriving support group, which sees about 100 people turning up at every quarterly meeting.

Dealing with people’s emotional response to pain is as important as dealing with the cause.

“Every human being has a right to life without pain. My aim is to provide the best spine care anywhere is the world. Spinal surgery is now so much safer, our outcomes are better and people return to normal function faster than a decade ago. What I do is all about giving people their lives back and I feel very privileged to be part of a team that is able to do this.”

To take part in the walk, email spinalfun walk2011@gmail.com or call 01642-624296 between 9.30am and 12.30pm, Monday to Friday.

The closing date for entries is June 30.

• For more information about Manoj Krishna and the Tees Valley Spinal Support Group, visit kspine.net