A gardening enthusiast from Hornchurch has spoken out about how she avoided having metal rods inserted into her spine after learning unique exercises.

Doris Mill, 60, is now raising awareness of her condition and letting others know and said there are alternatives to surgery that worked for her.

Doris was fit and active throughout her life and she was passionate about her garden and flowers. But she started to experience severe pain around her shoulder blades and struggled to spend more than 20 minutes weeding at a time before keeling over.

After the sudden onset of pain she saw her local chiropractor, but the pain returned and got worse.

Her GP diagnosed her with scoliosis, which causes the spine to excessively curve sideways.

The condition affects more than four percent of the population and if it is left un-treated it can lead to fatal heart and lung problems.

Currently people with the condition are only treated when the curve becomes so severe that the only option is to operate, which is a risky procedure involving metal rods inserted either side of the spine before the spine is fused solid.

A specialist orthopaedic surgeon said she could either accept her condition and take painkillers for the pain; or go on a waiting list for major surgery, which had a serious risk of paralysis.

But then she discovered Scoliosis SOS in central London, which is the only clinic in the world to offer the ScolioGold method - a combination of non-surgical treatments - and booked on to a four-week course.

Within two weeks of treatment her pain had practically vanished and her back looked dramatically different. She said at the end of the course her confidence had returned and she was given advice on how to deal with the condition.

Doris said: “I couldn’t cope with the idea of the pain getting any worse and I thought the only way of dealing with the problem was to go under the knife.

“Happy, ecstatic, overwhelmed are all just words, but I cannot explain how glad I am to have found the clinic. They have given me a second chance at life.”