It is a long time since I have written anything on here, and it has also been a long time since I've ridden my bike in anger - since July I have been suffering from excruciating neck and upper back pain.

What follows is probably interesting to nobody but me and my osteopath, but just in case you are suffering from similar symptoms, I hope this story of how I tracked down my problems helps you find the cause of your pain as well.

The last few months of pain were brought on by an intense period of DIY (painting ceilings!),but I'm a prime candidate for a stiff neck and shoulders regardless: I sit on a computer all day and then hunch over a bicycle in my spare time.

Since August I have been seeing an osteopath on a weekly basis (expensive!), and while he could help bring some relief to my symptoms - stiff neck, limited movement in the shoulders and upper back - every week when I returned for another session we seemed to be back to square one (despite regular stretches and exercises at home as instructed by the osteopath).

I have also received massages, I have seen the GP and been prescribed pain killers - I even attended a Feldenkrais session - but my stiff neck and back have persisted (with varying degrees depending on the day).

It's all about posture

Very early on in my treatment, my osteopath established that it was my posture causing the problem. In response I addressed my posture at work and changed my desk set-up. I also bought a stability disc and a posture correction support strap for my shoulders, all the while carrying on with various stretches.

All of these things helped reduced the pain down to a nagging, recurrent stiffness - which I still have right now.

After shifting his attention from my upper back, my osteopath's next area of concern was my hips - they were regularly diagonal with one side higher than the other, despite my legs both being the same length.

He felt this problem with my hips was the cause of the curvature in my spine and that, in turn, was causing all kinds of spasms in my back muscles. It could also be the cause of my recurrent tight hamstrings.

However, despite straightening out my hips and giving me more exercises, my back pain persisted (as do the tight hamstrings).

Walk this way - over supination

Returning to the osteopath yesterday, my hips were once again out of alignment.

To get to the bottom of it (pardon the pun), he asked me to walk up and down regularly so he could observe me.

What he noticed was this: I tend to walk on the back on my heels and then roll my foot forward on the outside, rather than through the centre of my foot. It was most pronounced on my right side.

This condition is known as either over-supination or under-pronation.

Quite often it's caused by the shape of the foot - a foot with exceptionally high arches.

However, I have neutral, regular arches.

To firmly establish the link between my walk and my wonky hips, my osteopath asked me to perform some lunges.

These lunges showed that while lunging with my left knee forward, I was fine - the left knee sat vertically above my foot and my body was not at all twisted.

However, when lunged forward with my right knee, the knee leant inwards, causing my hips and my upper body to tilt.

What this all now seems to point to is a weakness in my right ankle - several times in the past I have had to wear an ankle support on that ankle, and I think this weakness combined with not wearing particularly supportive shoes has led to me rolling my foot (and my hips!) to compensate.

I now have some new exercises to strengthen my legs and ankles - I'm also thinking of strapping the ankle support back on for a while and buying some footwear (or insoles at least) with greater cushioning for my heels.

It's early days but we finally seem to be on the right track. The human body is an amazing and complex thing - it simply didn't occur to me that excruciating neck pain could be caused by a weakness in my ankle.

Answer to prayer

As I said it's early days, but this looks very much like an answer to prayer: over the last nine days I have been praying a Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for two issues.

I received a text message yesterday morning saying that my prayers for one of the issues had been answered - which only left the healing of my back...then hours later I had this breakthrough of pinpointing the cause.

Praise the Lord!