A WORCESTER man who found holistic therapies helped his depresssion and anxiety has opened a shop to benefit others.

Rob Shotton developed Perthes disease as a child. The an illness caused his hip bone to dislocate and crumble.

As a result he spent his teenage years in and out of hospital and needed crutches to walk.

The effect was profound and the confident, clever high school student became withdrawn, depressed and prone to panic attacks.

But Mr Shotton, now aged 29, turned his life around after discovering holistic techniques such as hypnosis, reiki and crystal therapy.

Last month, he achieved a dream and opened his own shop. Prana, in King Charles Place, St John’s, Worcester, sells natural healing products and promotes alternative therapies, from scented candles and organic cosmetics to books on meditation and healing jewellery.

Mr Shotton said: “I’m not the sort of person to just accept things.

“It may be because of my leg, but I will always try to push myself, challenge myself.

“If I can get better, I might be able to help other people get better.”

After leaving Christopher Whitehead High School in Worcester, Mr Shotton went to the city’s Sixth Form College to re-sit GCSE exams and study business.

He said: “Even then I wanted to set something up but I couldn’t think of anything.

“I ended up getting a job working in an IT department.

I got comfortable and lazy. I’m not sure how or why it developed but every time I left the house I’d have panic attacks.

“It became quite serious but, I guess, I was able to hide it from my friends.”

Then, over a short period, a number of friends and relatives died and Mr Shotton was gripped by depression. Three years on, a work colleague recommended hypnotheraphy to help with anxiety.

Mr Shotton said: “Almost instantly I began to gain control over the panic attacks.

“I was a lot calmer. Something broke away and I could see that light. I knew I couldn’t carry on doing nothing.”

It was that revelation which lead to Mr Shotton to doing a course in reiki, a Japanese healing treatment using only hands, looking into meditation, massage and crystals.