Annie Lennox opens up on ‘excruciating’ back pain fight

Scottish singer Annie Lennox has revealed she still suffers from “excruciating” back pain more than a decade after having surgery on her spine.

The former Eurythmics star pulled out of appearances and saw the release of her greatest hits album postponed after being struck down with back pain at an Aids conference in Mexico in 2008.

She had suffered a back spasm, which required an operation to release a trapped nerve.

She went under the knife at the time, but has told how the condition flared up again over the recent festive period, leaving her in agony.

In a post on Instagram, ­Lennox, 64, originally from Aberdeen, revealed her ­ongoing struggle with chronic pain caused by the injury.

She wrote: “We are but human. Things happen to our bodies as we traverse through life.

“Over a decade ago I had to have a back operation and a lot of things changed after that.

“Long story, but I occasionally suffer from excruciating nerve pain, which comes in with a vengeance when I least expect it. It hit over new year and I’m hoping it will settle down as I go into the third day.

“It has given me an insight as to what others have to deal with … far more or less than this.

“My gratitude when it dies down is immeasurable. Fingers and toes crossed this too shall pass.”

Lennox was flown back to the UK from Mexico in 2008 and emerged from the flight in a wheelchair. Before leaving Mexico, she was treated by a doctor who was attending a chiropractors’ conference.

On her return home, surgeons operated on her at a London hospital to free a trapped nerve.

The singer has previously told how she feared the operation would leave her permanently disabled. She said at the time: “I’m walking with an almost imperceptible limp, but that ain’t bad considering I didn’t know if I was going to be permanently disabled a couple of weeks ago.

“Now I’m empathising with anyone I see on the street who walks with a cane or a disability. Not that I didn’t before, but now I feel like we’ve got a lot in common.

“If we all could get a sense of walking in someone else’s shoes, then we’d understand each other so much better.”

Lennox, whose birthday was on Christmas Day, became the first female chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University last summer. She inducted into the Scottish Music Hall of Fame in December.