Not too late for a cure

Good health is the most indispensable weapon that a person can ever possess and even brag about. I came to realize and to conclude so after 6 years of agony, sadness and pain. I couldn’t work effectively anymore and had a hard time taking care of my bills during the six years. This made me come to that earlier conclusion.

Who am I and why should you listen to me?

I’m James Kilonzo and I come from Kenya in the county of Garissa. I studied civil engineering and the better part of my career life was spent working in the building and construction industry; a field that I loved the most and hence I registered and launched a construction company which had been my dream for long.

In 2004, I had applied for a construction contract with the UNHCR who were helping refugees in my country and was so lucky to be awarded the contract. I was supposed to build classroom for the refugees in Dadaab region where they were located. Everything was fine and the project kicked off well. We did a good job in the work during the first 5 weeks before something unfortunate happened to me.

My agony.

That day, we were from lunch when I went to help my masons offload a truck full of 50kgs bags of cement because they were understaffed. I helped with the first 4 bags successfully but when I tried to lift the 5 bags which was on the ground, I felt a slight pain on the left side on the lower part of my back. I carried it to where we were loading them and on putting the bag down I felt a very sharp and excruciating pain on that region of my back. It was as though that I had been stabbed with a knife.

It was so painful that when I tried standing up I couldn’t. All the workers there came to my aid. To them they thought that it was something else; a heart attack or something (it’s rare to hear cases of back pain in Africa). I couldn’t explain to them and when they saw the pain and agony in my face, they called for the Red Cross Ambulance which quickly rushed me to the health center. There they x-rayed and scanned me but the results showed that none of my bones or the spinal cord was fractured or injured.

The six years of painful torment.

They treated me with by giving me some pain relievers and scheduled some appointed for me to see the physician. I never thought that this would be the start of some 6 years of pain and agony. The drugs that they gave me relieved the pain but they never made it go away. It kept on coming from time to time. At times it was more intense than other times.

After 3 weeks of no meaningful progress, I decided to seek better health services in a more advanced health care center in the capital. This was too futile because whenever I felt that a health care center I was visiting was not helping me, I rushed to the next.

My Mistakes.

All this time I could barely get out of bed for more than four hours and preferred resting. I was too frustrated because no medical help seemed to help me. For almost four months I had spent so much in several medical centers and no breakthrough. Actually I at times felt that it was getting worse.

My company was not in the good hands and was too failing. This depressed me. Taking care of my bills as well as those of my family was too proving to be a challenge.

When the fourth month of the pain was coming to an end, a miracle came through. I had decided to try Chinese herbs and other medications and when I visited a vendor about this she advised me that what I needed was an holistic approach to treat my back pain which by then had spread to the whole lower part of my back. She gave me a contact of an osteopath physician that she knew.

The breakthrough

When I visited the osteopath, he examined me and took my history of all what I had done in my search for a cure, my lifestyle during the period, my resting patterns, exercise programs and other personal details. He was quick to conclude that I had elevated the pain myself because all what I was doing was wrong.

He came up with a plan of treating the back pain which started with manipulation of my back joint and ligament and a guide of some habits which I were to observe.

First be suggested that although it was painful for me, I spend less time of resting on the bed because this was one crucial factor which worsened things. He also formulated some exercises for the back and advised me on the posture that I was to maintain as he treated me.

10 weeks into following his guide and showing up on appointments so that he could examine and work on my back, the pain had subsided. I could be much grateful to him. I felt so much relieved and I was even at a position to work.

I followed his advice for the next around for weeks and voila. All the pain was gone. I can’t imagine how much time and resources I wasted in the hands of doctors and other health care providers who were completely clueless about what they were doing.