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Medical Diety

 

A touch of toning and woman can walk

again after 17 years

By Nick Britten

 

(Filed: 06/09/2006)

 

A woman who has been paralysed from the waist down for

17 years is walking again after a chance two-minute

session on a toning table.

 

Anne Bennett, 57, had consigned herself to a

wheelchair after an accident carrying books caused a

disc in her back to collapse and burst, crippling her

with fibrosis.

 

But after losing weight and doing exercise, the

pressure on her back from the toning table caused scar

tissue to crack, allowing nerves to reconnect to her

brain.

 

" It is absolutely astounding, " she said last night. " I

have been confined to a wheelchair for so long that I

had almost given up hope of recovering.

 

" I had resigned myself to life in a chair, and didn't

think for one second that the trip to the toning

tables would lead to this. "

 

Her GP, Dr Mark Ferris, said: " Given the thickness of

the fibrosis, which I saw in Anne's notes, it should

never have happened. It is very rare. I have only seen

it once in 25 years of doctoring.

 

" Anne's determination, together with the sustained

exercise programme she'd devised, time spent at the

toning tables and losing weight all contributed to the

breaking through of the fibrosis that she actually

felt when she used a machine at her toning table

class. "

 

Mrs Bennett, of Llandudno, who also suffers from ME,

was forced to give up her teaching job after the

accident and became almost housebound. Doctors told

her that it was unlikely she would walk again.

 

But she was determined to prove them wrong. She tried

to keep fit and five weeks ago booked herself a

session on the toning table — a machine that gently

exercises a particular muscle group. She said after

two minutes, she felt an excruciating pain in her back

and initially feared she had done more damage.

 

" I went home and straight to bed, " she said. " I was

scared and didn't tell my husband what I'd done. Later

that night I realised that my legs were doing what I

was telling them to. My legs were listening to my

brain for the first time I could remember.

 

" I got out of bed and put some weight on my feet. I

wouldn't say I was walking, but I was staggering and I

could put one foot in front of the other. It was

astounding.

 

" The movement loosened scar tissue and allowed my

nerves to work again.

 

" Now I have so much to look forward to. I find the

most simple things exciting, like getting on an

escalator or visiting a restaurant for the food and

not for the wheelchair access. "

 

She and her husband, Denis, 58, are planning to throw

a huge party and will visit Venice next year.

 

" I missed out on so much while I was in the

wheelchair, " she said. " I had young children so there

were things I couldn't do with them. My youngest

child, Tamsin, is 21 and can't remember ever seeing me

walk. When she saw me stand up for the first time she

sobbed. I feel like my husband has his wife back after

all these years. "

 

copyright of Telegraph Group Limited