Three doctors. One answer I refused.
You are only as young as your spine is flexible.
Joseph Pilates — I taught aerobics, step and cycling for years, in pain the whole time, before I ever found his method.
In my mid-twenties I was diagnosed with spondylolisthesis — a condition where a vertebra slips forward onto the bone directly beneath it. Three doctors, an orthopedic surgeon among them, told me the same thing: I needed a bone fusion.
I opted out, and what followed was twenty years of trying everything that traditional doctors recommend. Chiropractic three times a week, paid out of my own pocket — not to get better, just to be able to function. And the whole time I was teaching fitness. Aerobics, step, cycling, up at the front of the room, hurting through every minute of it.
Eventually came the pain clinic, the epidural injections, and the medication that went with them. Within a year I wasn't only fighting pain anymore. Getting off it was the hardest week of my life.
I knew God had a better way for me to manage my pain — and ultimately to see healing in my low back.
Pilates is what turned it around. After all those years of conventional fitness, it was the first thing that worked with my back instead of against it. I've now been pain free for over five years.