Surgeon n had the key to getting me back to my best; Vanessa Chi ick was so terrified of surgery she endured d years of agonising back pain rather than go under the knife. But as she tells Gre eg Tindle, a new keyhole procedure en nded her pain at last.

For years Vanessa Chick suffered with severe neck and back pain - problems that started after a car crash while driving home after work.

As the agony worsened X-rays eventually revealed that Vanessa had a damaged disc in her spine which was pressing on delicate nerves causing the pain to spread to her legs.

Doctors advised her the only option was to have surgery to repair the damaged disc, but Vanessa was adamant that any trip to the operating theatre was out of the question and flatly refused to take up the offer.

Her determination to ignore the advice of a top orthopaedic consultant was born out of a doom-filled fear linked to the personal experience of her father who underwent back surgery and never fully recovered.

She said: "My dad had back surgery when he was 42 and I remember he was covered in plaster from his neck to his waist and when it was removed he was still in pain and the operation ruined his life. He told me never to have a similar operation and I know other people who've taken months to recover because of damage to the nerves, muscles and ligaments and whose backs were even worse after surgery. What happened to my dad convinced me.

I was simply terrified I would end up paralysed."

As a result Vanessa, 42, a receptionist from Barry, continued to live with her pain which had spread with a throbbing intensity to one of her legs which she described as so intense it felt as if the limb would explode.

"Instead, I took lots of paracetamol. But, by January last year, the pain was dominating my life. It had spread to my left side and was so bad I had to stop going to the gym and had more than 40 days off work. I was just laying down at home in constant pain.

"I was now feeling really unfit - even climbing upstairs left me gasping for breath. I had to stop going out and dancing. Even walking was incredibly painful.

"The last straw was in June, when I had to go to A&E because the pain was unbearable - I just couldn't stand it. But because they said itwasn't an emergency they didn't give me anything sent me packing and told me to talk to my GP. y, g, "My GP referred me to Alwyn Jones, a spinal surgeon, and he explained he could remove the damaged disc and fuse the two surrounding vertebrae to hold my back together so that they wouldn't move and cause pain.

nrdh "He said that new nerve mon itoring technology allowsthe sur geon to 'see' the nerves and meant he could operate through my side, instead of through ma jor muscles of my back, which would mean smaller incisions less pain and a shorter recovery and less risk of nerve damage.

ah s,- "That convinced me, although I was still terrified of the op eration and what would happen if things went wrong. Would even wake up after the surgery? But I had the operation under general anaesthetic this August When I woke up, there was no pain in my right side at all - for the first time in five years. I was amazed. I had just two tiny woundsnearthesideofmywaist covered by a dressing.

"The next morning, the physio therapist helped me to walk few steps, and there was still no pain. I stayed in hospital for five days and couldn't drive for two weeks after the operation while my back healed. Now, I'm look ing forwardto gettingbackto the gym and gettingmy fitness back And when I'm out with my friends, I won't be sitting there feeling jealous - I'll be on the dance floor with them." k-k.

alf Mr Jones, a consultant spina surgeon at University Hospital of Wales and the Spire Hospital in Cardiff, said: "Lower back pain is very common and is often caused by the degeneration of the discs between the vertebrae, the bones in the spine.

"In around 70% of cases, this degeneration is hereditary. For other patients, there is no known cause, though it can be made worse by trauma such as a car accident. This may have happened in Vanessa's case.

"I wanted to remove the disc - I believed that fusing these vertebrae together would give the best chance of making her pain-free. Disc removal is a common procedure.

This surgery usually requires a 10cm incision in the back and, as you have to move muscles out of the way, it can damage major muscles, causing pain and flexibility issues. "You can also operate on the back by going through the patient's front, but this risks damaging blood vessels supplying the legs.

"But new technology developed in America six years ago, and used by just 15 surgeons in Britain over the past year, means we can operate through two small incisions in the patient's side.

"This uses nerve monitoring technology and means we can avoid nerves as we operate. The surgery is slightly shorter - around one and a quarter hours, instead of two with traditional surgery. With the patient under general anaesthetic, I make a 2cm incision in their back just behind the side of the waist, and move the bowel to give us space in which to work.

"Then I make a second, 5cm incision at the side of the waist, and using X-rays to guide me, push a probe through the muscle until it reaches the damaged disc.

"The probe's job is to make sure there are no nerves near the area where we're going to cut the disc out. If the probe gets too close to a nerve, the nerve feels these signals and the muscles in that area will move. Once we know where the nerves are, we can then go in and cut out the disc.

"Each disc is around the size of a Jaffa Cake and I fill the gap left by the disc with a plastic cage.

"This contains artificial bone graft which acts as a scaffold for the patient's own bone to grow into.

"In Vanessa's case, I also put two metal screws into her vertebrae and secured them with a plate to give that section extra stability.

"Then I closed the incisions with metal clips and stitches.

"Patients can go home as soon as they are pain-free, which can be anything from 24 hours to five days.

"They should be completely free of pain by the three month check-up."

The operation costs around pounds 15,000 privately, and a similar cost to the NHS.

CAPTION(S):

Vanessa Chick, who had pioneering, minimally invasive back surgery for a disc problem PICTURE: Richard Swingler [umlaut]