Mother left in constant pain by medical errors ‘wants to help others’

A mother who lives with constant pain after medical malpractice left her with a spinal injury and bowel paralysis has said she wants to help others avoid her condition.

Toni-Claire Miller, a single mother of two from Kent, was 32 years told when she was repeatedly “fobbed off” by GPs after complaining of numbness in her legs, excruciating back pain and bladder problems in 2018.

When her Cauda Equina Syndrome (CES) was finally identified in hospital, a surgeon initially decided she did not need the appropriate surgery.

Multiple medical errors, evidenced in a high court case where Ms Miller received a substantial payout from the NHS in 2024, have left her living in constant pain.

Ms Miller told the PA mews agency: “I’m in pain all the time. There’s no let up, and along with the spinal cord injury, there’s severe nerve damage.

“So you have electric shocks, you get cramps, you get spasms, obviously my bowel and bladder are permanently paralysed so along with that, you use medical equipment to be able to live, basically to stay alive.”

CES has a number of “red flag” symptoms which patients and doctors should look out for, and Ms Miller wants there to be more awareness.

These include numbness in the legs and saddle area and a loss of bowel or bladder control.

“The public has a responsibility as well to know the red flags and to have confidence in themselves, to go actually ‘something’s not right here, I’m going to the hospital’,” said Ms Miller.

Three GPs at a Kent practice failed to identify the red flags for Ms Miller, instead offering her more painkillers and referring her for an MRI scan with seemingly little urgency.

Recounting one meeting, she said: “I explained to him that when I go to the bathroom, it feels like I’m in labour, and he literally just fobbed me off and was like: ‘Well, I don’t know, what do you want me to do? We sent you. I can send you back to physio, that’s it because you’ve been sent for an MRI, you’ve been given extra painkillers’.”

Days later, her son, who was seven at the time, found her in such “horrendous” pain that he called her parents, who got her to go to A&E.

Her injury was then properly identified and surgery was planned before the surgeon decided instead to try a spinal block.

“They did the spinal block, and unfortunately, the inevitable happened. They had to go in, and they had to do the actual operation where they cut you open and they remove the disc and relieve the spinal pressure,” said Ms Miller.

Unfortunately it was “too late” and she was left with a permanent injury, which left her in hospital for seven months after the surgery.

She said she feared that being in hospital for so long may would affect her relationship with her then two-year-old daughter.

Ms Miller explained happily that her daughter is now her “mini-best friend” and her son is her “hero” for always helping to look after her.

They have used the money from the settlement to move into a house with appropriate modifications and to afford the care they need but she acknowledged not everyone suffering with CES has that option.

Her lawyer Nadia Krueger-Young said because Ms Miller was young and her case was so black and white she received “one of the largest” recorded Cauda Equina settlements.

Ms Miller said: “We were fortunate enough to win our medical case. So in turn, I can have carers, and I can have a nanny and people to help, and it’s still so difficult, and that’s with help.

“But there are people out there, and it was us before, because we had nothing, and we were in this flat that was well below par, that wasn’t catered very well.”

Speaking on Thursday, which is Cauda Equina Syndrome awareness day, she explained that she wants to raise awareness of the “red flags” because the quicker someone is treated, the more likely they are to make a full recovery.

She said: “My path is set. There’s nothing I can do about that. All I can do is try and embrace each day as it comes, and make as many memories as possible with my children.

“What I can do, though, is I can hopefully make a difference for another person and prevent it happening to anybody else.”