Katherine MacDougall - Fix my shoulders

Hi, my name is Katherine MacDougall, I am a 19-year-old climber based in Leeds/Sheffield. I have been climbing pretty much all my life, and I've been on the GB climbing team for the past six years. In September 2021 (14 months ago), I started having trouble with my shoulders; pain and inflammation stopped all consistent climbing and training.

The last time I competed was in April this year, where I competed in the Continental Youth Cup in Soure, and I made finals finishing 7th.

Over a year ago the problems with my shoulders beagn. Unfortunately misdiagnosis and inconclusive results have sent me straight back to square one, time after time (and I've got way too many letters to prove it); tests, scans and uncountable hours of physio seemingly leading nowhere. But there might finally be a solution. Injections, physio, MRI scans, bloodwork, rheumatology consultations. Safe to say it's going to be a long treatment process - and even more expensive. At this stage, NHS treatment is hardly an option - a minimum of eight months to get back to training simply isn't feasible, leaving me without a competition season next year and still unable to train. Also, the nature of the problem means the solution is quite specialised. With that in mind, the current estimation sits at around £5000 - a cost simply too high for me to manage.

I will be doing all I can to support this cost, but any support would go a long way, so if you are in a position to do so please consider, if not, thank you for taking the time to read this.

katherien