I cannot praise the treatment given by Mr Ishaque and his team enough.

David H

November 2018

I cannot praise the treatment given by Mr Ishaque and his team enough. I had an accidental fall from a ladder last year then, several months later, I was shovelling snow when I further damaged my lower back. The pain was terrible and after several weeks of treatment by my GP with no improvement I consulted Mr Ishaque on the recommendation of a friend. 
At the time I was taking a cocktail of pain relief and anti-inflammatory drugs, taking upwards of 17 tablets at a time. After the initial consultation where Mr Ishaque carried out a set of routine tests and questions he sent me for an MRI to confirm his diagnosis. This was difficult as I could not keep still for the imaging as the pain was so severe. Despite this the image showed the cause of the problem, I had disc protrusions on L4/5 and L5/S1. At the explanatory consultation Mr Ishaque carefully explained what this meant and outlined his treatment plan which was to administer two injections of steroid as a lumbar epidural... 
At the time there were national press articles suggesting back injections were ineffective and a waste of NHS money. Mr Ishaque  talked this through with me and it transpires that they can be ineffective when not performed correctly, typically a patient will be given a local anaesthetic and the doctor will administer the injection. At Nuffield I was given a light general anaesthesia so that Mr Ishaque could accurately place a stout needle in exactly the right position guided by x-ray and fluorescent dye and there was no danger of me moving about because of any pain it may cause. I can understand this as my partner has had a lumbar injection under local anaesthetic with the NHS and she can testify to it being very painful indeed. 
After the procedure, which was entirely pain free, I was sent home and physiotherapy arranged 
Ten weeks later at the review consultation I was still pain free even though the steroid would have by now been out of my system so the treatment was deemed successful and I was discharged. 
I would have no hesitation in consulting Mr Ishaque again should the need arise as the relief of intense pain is well worth the fees I paid as a self funding patient.