Aaron Shingler: Wales forward reflects on career-threatening infection

Aaron Shingler won the last of his 27 Wales caps against England in the 2020 Six Nations

Aaron Shingler wasn't thinking about resurrecting his rugby career when he lay in bed in pain for months on end with a "bizarre" mystery blood infection.

Instead the 34-year-old Wales and Scarlets player could only hope he would go on to enjoy "a normal life".

Now on the brink of making his 200th Scarlets appearance, the forward star of Wales' 2018 Six Nations campaign, can reflect on his ordeal.

"I wasn't even thinking about rugby. I was thinking 'am I going to be able to walk?'," says Shingler.

"I couldn't go out with the kids - I couldn't do anything - this was five or six months after [it started] and may even have been longer than that - I couldn't go out of the house without being in pain.

"So I was just hoping for a normal life, if I'm honest.

"Luckily I've had some good doctors and they managed to turn it around and as I say, I'm still on medication and hopefully it will never come back because if it does, that's probably me done."

During the worst stages of inflammation caused by the "reactive arthritis" that laid him low, Shingler was being cared for by his wife, who had recently undergone a caesarean to bring their third child, Ronnie, into the world.

And while young daughters Ava and Lottie also needed their parents' support, Covid-19 and the lockdowns that followed meant no-one could visit to offer back-up.

"It was not good for me, but it was probably a lot worse for my wife because she was meant to be recovering from a caesarean and she was trying to look after me and a newborn, plus we've got another two girls and it was a pretty rough time to be honest with you."

Shingler could barely move for three or four months after first noticing symptoms as the 2020-21 season approached.

"I couldn't get out of bed"

He takes up the story: "I was about to start pre-season and had a little bit of pain in my foot and then I had a little game of golf and I couldn't walk after it.

"I came in and saw the physios and they thought I must have torn something and didn't think much of it.

"They thought I'd get better and as the days were getting on I was getting a lot of pain in my ankles and then it spread to my knee on my left side and then it went to my right side and then it went to my (right) knee and the next thing you know I couldn't walk.

"I couldn't get out of bed. I had an operation in hospital because there was a lot of fluid around my knee and no-one really knew what was going on.

"Obviously the worst point in the hospital was basically I couldn't get out of bed and had to get a wheelchair to do a scan and then it was diagnosed as reactive arthritis, which took me months and months to even be able to walk pain-free.

"It was really bizarre. I went from being pretty fit into just couldn't move. It was a bit worrying."

He adds: "Every two weeks I was getting something drained and it wasn't looking good for me really, not as a rugby player point of view, but just general life.

"I was just crawling out of bed after I'd got out of hospital and then I was on the sofa all day, just in pain from this inflammation.

"Normally [for] inflammation in your body they score you five. Mine was up to 150 blood inflammation, so that gives you an example of how much that was.

"So then my liver - normally the score is around 40, which it is at the moment - mine was like 650.

"I'm still on medication now - I'm on a drug called methotrexate, which is an injection once a week. It's quite a strong medication to try and control [the inflammation].

"I'm hoping to come off it soon. I take it on a Tuesday and the next day it runs me down."

The root cause

As for the cause of the issue that meant Shingler playing no part for Scarlets until March 2021, he suspects the pandemic played an indirect role.

After the first stage of root canal surgery, the follow up procedure was postponed because routine dental appointments were off the agenda.

"I was having a root canal done during Covid and obviously there were two parts to the root canal and I'd done the first part and then everything closed down," says Shingler.

"Then I was getting infections in my mouth and we believe that some sort of infection got into the blood stream and affected all my lower joints."

He adds: "If Covid wasn't there, it probably would never have happened. It's just all the dentists were closed and that's what we think and nothing else could have caused such a strange thing."

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Even when he managed to return to training in the second half of the 2020-21 campaign, Shingler needed crutches to move from car to his rehabilitation sessions in the gym.

But with the medication helping control the pain and spurring on his recovery, Shingler has returned to regular Scarlets duties this season, albeit as a makeshift lock amid injury issues.

While the immediate focus is on recovering from heavy recent defeats by Munster and Leinster against Benetton, Shingler also has some personal targets.

"I'm running around well. I'd like to get back to really good form," he says.

"I feel like the basics of my game - making tackle, running the line-outs are pretty good so I've just got to keep getting some game time."

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