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. For most of that stretch I was seeing a chiropractor three times a week and paying for it out of my own pocket — not to get better, just to be able to function. Nights spent on the floor instead of in bed, trying to keep my back stable. The relief never held.
And the whole time, I was teaching fitness. Aerobics, step classes, cycling — up at the front of the room, high-impact, counting out the beat, and hurting through every minute of it. I could get a room full of people moving well. But I could not fix my own back.
Eventually my long-time chiropractor told me he was no longer comfortable adjusting me. He sent me to a pain clinic, where I started receiving epidural injections in my spine — $2,500 each. The injections came with medication, and at the time that relief felt like a gift.
Within weeks I was dependent on Norco. I was taking one first thing in the morning just to get my day started. My pain management doctor told me to stay ahead of the pain, so that's exactly what I did — for about a year, until I understood I wasn't only fighting pain anymore.
I quit cold turkey.
The next five days were among the hardest of my life. I stayed curled up, shaking and sweating and praying, feeling like my ribs were coming through my skin. But I came out the other side certain of one thing: this was not the life I was meant to live.
“I knew God had a better way for me to manage my pain — and ultimately to see healing in my lower 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 stopped looking outward and started paying attention — pairing what Pilates taught me with everything I could learn about holistic pain management: stretching, pressure points, myofascial release, breath. I learned to listen to my own body instead of overriding it.
I became pain free, and I've stayed that way for over five years. It's rare now for my lower back to flare at all, and when it does I know what to do about it — usually in a minute or two, without reaching for so much as a Tylenol.
That's what I teach. Not a quick fix, and nothing complicated. Just the simple things that actually work, whatever your age or fitness level, however long you've been hurting.
