I've spent two years battling GPs, suffering excruciating pain, hardly able to walk... yet I am one of the lucky ones

A LITTLE over a year ago, I could barely walk, was suffering agonising pain 24 hours a day and desperately waiting to have spinal surgery.

- MARTYN BROWN

Nuclear-grade painkillers had no effect, neither did a pair of secondhand crutches bought from a charity shop for £2.

Like many other people, I just had to grin and bear it.

The problem was that I'd been grinning and bearing it for almost two years, ever since the day I'd hobbled into my local GP surgery with severe lower back pain. The cause a football injury.

A day before, I, like many men in their mid-40s, had been tearing around a pitch trying to recreate my youth.

After a quick consultation my doctor, the head of practice, diagnosed me with a pelvic (SI) joint strain and packed me on my way with a prescription for some painkillers and an appointment for physiotherapy.

A quick check with "Dr Google" later that day confirmed, or so I thought, the real GP's diagnosis.

But in the ensuing 18 months, the problem got a lot worse.

During this time three further visits to the same GP surgery (I was seen by a different doctor each time) came to the same conclusion - more pills and physio.

On one occasion I was asked by one of them: "What do you want me to do?"

An osteopath couldn't crack it, so to speak, either, despite hundreds of pounds spent in appointments.

Finally, after intense pressure and pleading I finally managed to persuade one of the GPs to refer me to an orthopaedic specialist.

In a world where my mobility was rapidly diminishing, it felt like a big step forward.

Within minutes, he knew what the problem was spondylolisthesis. A quick X-ray confirmed my lowest vertebrae had slipped forward, to my untrained eye, by a considerable amount.

Subsequent scans showed a nerve had been completely crushed, hence the excruciating pain, and two discs were damaged for good measure.

The reason I've broken a self-imposed rule of my 24-year journalistic career to not write about myself is to highlight a major GP crisis in the UK which is seemingly getting worse.