UPDATE
Joshua is working super hard and making good progress at Spero. His functionality has improved dramatically and he is now walking without the wheelchair. Unfortunately however at the moment the pain remains very high and treatment will take longer than we had hoped. We have therefore reopened this page and raised our target to £60,000 to cover the extra weeks needed at the clinic.

This is Joshua's story in his own words.

When I was 10 in year 5, I was playing out at lunchtime like any other day when I fell off a steppingstone and hit the thoracic part of my spine. At the time it hurt but after a few days it started to feel a bit better until about two weeks later when I woke up screaming. It was pain like no other I had felt before it was a searing red-hot pain, right down my spine and all over my back. I just screamed and could not stop it was agonising. We rushed to the hospital to see what was wrong. What followed was months of specialists and Doctors, tests and scans and so many medicines. Four and a half years later I really struggle to do anything. The pain is just too much for me to handle. I get very little sleep, and all my life is consumed by pain..

Over the last few years, I’ve been on pregabalin, amitriptyline, codeine, naproxen alongside pain relief patches and paracetamol and ibuprofen. At one point I was taking 33 tablets a day and still no relief. To leave the house I have to use a wheelchair and often rely on my parents to help me move around the house. The pain is so awful and so isolating, I feel like I am missing out on growing up.

This last year and a half have been the worst it has ever been, every day my pain is at a 9 to 10 on the pain scale and it doesn't go down at all. I haven't been able to get to school since November 2022, can rarely get out of the house and rarely see my friends. The pain now covers my entire body and on the worst days just lightly stroking my hand is so painful it makes me cry.