About Me
Hi, I’m Colin MacGregor
Originally from the UK, I have spent most of my professional life living and working in the USA and Europe.
I have helped hundreds of people reduce their chronic lower back pain/sciatica and return to a life of normality.
You see i was in your shoes…back in 2005 i suffered a lower back disc herniation and the resulting sciatica pain that came with it.
From being constantly active and sporty to being barely able to walk 6 feet across the room just like that….
However, with my 25 years of experience in the strength and rehabilitation industry, i was able to create a program that got me back to an active lifestyle in record time
My Journey
Whilst in the USA I had to the opportunity to work as a strength and conditioning coach with some of the best known players in the NHL such as Martin St Louis, Ryan Shannon and Michael Cammalleri.
This was during their off season when the focus was in rehabilitating previous injuries and getting them in top shape for the upcoming season.
I could never have anticipated that a few years later, at the young age of 30, I would be in a much worse position than the athletes I was helping, and in desperate need of my own rehabilitation.…
it was a cold spring morning with ice on the ground and I slipped on the way to my car…as I caught myself I felt a sharp stabbing pain my in lower back.
The Diagnosis
At first I didn’t think too much about it but as the week progressed I noticed the pain began shifting more towards my right buttock and that’s when alarm bells started to ring.
I thought to myself this is sciatica most likely caused by a bulging or herniated disc…I needed to get this checked out.
I got a great referral to a local physiatrist who also worked at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York so I figured I was in good hands.
Sure enough the MRI showed a herniated disc along with another one bulging…the doctor told me the sciatica pain will most likely get worse before it gets better…
He wasn’t wrong….within a few days from being active on a daily basis and feeling invincible I couldn’t walk without agonizing pain and had to spend my day living on the floor and pumping myself full of Aleve and Excedrin
Living with pain…
I stood up with my dinner plate, determined to get it to the kitchen a mere 20 feet away, but after 2 steps, I knew I had to give up. The pain across my lower back, and running down the back of my leg, was so intense, that sweat began to roll down my forehead from clenching my jaw so tightly…Yep, having a herniated disc is no fun, as I was beginning to find out.
This is not how I expected to be feeling in my early 30’s, suffering with chronic pain.
It’s tough to say why some people are more predisposed to lower back herniations than others.
Sometimes it’s genetics, sometimes it’s repetitive movements, or activities that we perform every day. It could be a previous injury from when we were younger, coming back to haunt us. It could even be a combination of all of these factors.
Regardless, lower back herniation and the typical following sciatica nerve pain may be one of the worst physical pains you will ever feel, and it can completely destroy your ability to lead a normal life.
Old before my time…
Something as simple as taking a drive, and getting in and out of a car, can suddenly feel like a huge burden.
I’ll never forget the road trip I took to Florida, and the scene that ensued that day, when I stopped off to grab some things at Walmart, in South Carolina.
I pulled in to the parking space, and orchestrated a rather elaborate exit, preceded by the following steps:
Step 1: Open the car door as wide as possible. Step 2: Swing both legs out of the car. Step 3. Grab on tight, and pull myself up to the standing position(which, in my case, was the stooped over position). Step 4: Wait 5 minutes for the stabbing pain in my right leg to subdue enough that I could walk reasonably normally.
I was so focused on reducing my pain during my performance, that I was completely unaware that I had a captive audience. An amused voice called over to me…”son you are moving like someone of my age…what’s wrong with you?” I looked up, and noticed an older gentleman in, what must have been his 70’s, looking over at me, with wild astonishment.
This is just one of many incidences I endured before I made my recovery.
I felt like a complete failure…depressed….helpless…weak…with no way forward.
Prior to this, I had been a competitive martial artist, mountain bike racer, and avid gym goer. I was invincible, unbreakable…
WRONG!!!
It was a real blow to my ego, and my pride, to be hobbling around like someone in their 80’s, unable to pick up a dinner plate or even get out of the car properly.
Going under the knife…
Surgery started to seem like a very real possibility. I lived in the USA at the time, and I could have got myself a microdisectomy the following week, no problem.
But after doing my research and talking to several doctors, what I discovered was enough for me to completely disregard surgery as an option and confirmed what one wise orthopedic told me,
“Colin, unless it is life saving surgery never let anyone cut you open with a knife…” wise words form a man who cuts people open for a living…
What I found out, was that 50% of back surgeries are unnecessary, and have a marginal recovery rate. I also found that, of those people who had had a microdisectomy, a second one was often needed within the next 5 years, and eventually, a spinal fusion.
This is where they put large screws into your verterbra and attach them together to prevent the verterbra from actually moving, they create a “fused unit”.
You now have a whole lot of hardware sitting in your lumbar spine….Which isn’t even guaranteed to work!!
Yes, screws can come loose, hardware can break, muscular strains can increase about the area, and the research performed on patient outcomes has shown up to a 46% failure rate.
For those that did not have a failed surgery, 2 years after the fusion operation, 40% of patients were unsure/dissatisfied with the outcomes, reporting ongoing back pain, and limited daily function.
Why the hell would I want to go through surgery if I didn’t really have, if the chance of success was so low, and in the long term, I could end up in an even worse position than I was at the time….?
The road back
And so…taking a long hard look at my problem, I made a plan for what I thought was the only viable option: self-rehabilitation.
I laid out a rehabilitation plan, drawing on my own knowledge and expertise, as well as on teachings from Dr Guy Voyer, the world’s most famous back rehabilitation specialist.
My rehabilitation was successful and I regained full strength, without the need for surgery.
Over the years, as more injuries cropped up, I used the same approach to self-rehabilitate, over and over again.
My body wanted to keep testing me and I knew exactly what to do.
Hip bursitis came a calling in both hips, and with further investigation, dysplasia, along with torn labrums, along with femoroacetabular impingement to boot….great news! Not to mention, falling down a flight of stairs and twisting my knee.
I proceeded to rehab my knee, as I had with my injuries, but it wasn’t till a year later or so, when I tweaked it again, that I decided to get an MRI done.
The doctor was like “Woah! That’s a bad one, how do you feel?”Turns out it was a third grade meniscus tear!
My response?“Well actually pretty good doc, I can squat, run and jump, and pretty much do everything I need to do.”
He was like, “Okay well whatever you are doing keep doing it…”
A way forward
The years roll by and I am still surgery free from my conditions and injuries, which I 100% credit to being able to create, and follow, my own rehabilitation program, that has brought me back time and time again. It is from my years of experience and learning from the best, and going through the recovery process myself, that I have been able to hone my upcoming program, and offer it publicly to chronic, lower back pain sufferers.
This program, I have used successfully with hundreds of people over the years, and it has even led to getting client referrals from neurologists and orthopedic surgeons, due to the success I have had with it.
Many of these clients, when they come to me, have already spent 1000’s of dollars on all kinds of health specialists and late night infomercial devices promising to end their chronic pain, to no avail.
My program, without me first realizing it, was massively impacting and changing the lives of my clients. They were starting to lead normal lives again, and were able to return to activities they hadn’t been able to partake in for years, such as golf, tennis, weight lifting, squash etc.
It was these results that inspired me to create a course that could be adapted for, and accessible to lower back pain sufferers, on a much larger scale.
So if you recognize yourself in my story, and the stories of my clients, who had tried all sorts of treatments, yet still experience persistent lower back/sciatic pain, then my lower back pain recovery course is for you.
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