The message: “After all the years of pain and uncertainty”
Updated 07.25 | Published 07.16
The “Traitors” winner Patrik Norqvist can barely turn his head.
Now he talks about the unusual diagnosis that has affected him since he was a teenager.
– At any time I knew my back could collapse, says Norqvist in “Summer in P1”.
The space physicist and the “Traitors” winner Patrik Norqvist lived for several years with then inexplicable back pain.
When he was in the eighth grade and had ping-pong as his main hobby, the first sign of the diagnosis that would affect the rest of his life came.
– The training starts as usual, but when a friend hits a sneed ball that I reach for, something happens. I feel a pain that I have never felt before. It feels like something in the lower back is breaking. I can barely straighten up and when I try to take a step longer than a decimetre, it cuts, says Norqvist in “Summer in P1”.
– Unfortunately, this was only the first of many similar events. Anytime I knew it, my back could break. I visited a doctor who took x-rays. Maybe I had suffered from growing pains, he thought, because I had grown ten centimeters in the last year.
Norqvist about the diagnosis of Bechterew’s disease
The summer before Patrik Norqvist was to start high school, he can no longer continue playing tennis because of the back problems. Over the next few years, the pain spread from his lower back up to his neck, his mobility became progressively worse.
When Norqvist was 23 years old, he learned that he has the unusual diagnosis of Bechterew’s disease. It is a rheumatic disease that affects approximately one percent of the population.
– Right then, after all the years of pain and uncertainty, it was just nice to get a diagnosis. Not so much grief over getting a life sentence.
Can live a normal life today
In the medical notes, the doctor had written that the old X-rays he had taken as a child also showed signs of the diagnosis.
– Already several years earlier, I could have received my diagnosis. Am I bitter? No, actually not. If I would have been diagnosed at fifteen, it would have been a very hard blow for me. It would have completely shattered my existence. As a 23-year-old, it only felt like a relief as I already realized that my back would never get better. But today I can live a very normal life with my back.
“Summer in P1” with Patrik Norqvist will be broadcast on Monday, June 29 at 1 p.m. and in the Sveriges radio app.
