A local nurse’s recovery from chronic back pain

 

I began having chronic back pain in 2001. Insidious in nature, the pain increased to the point that it kept me from doing everything I enjoyed. As a very active person who loves to be outdoors hiking, biking, playing tennis, and skiing, it was very foreign to me. I am a nurse and the low back pain made it almost unbearable to work. Any free time that I had, I would go to bed to rest my back.

After physical therapy, acupuncture, multiple steroid injections, radiofrequency ablations, and a posterior/anterior fusion, I was referred to Dr. Mathew Paluck to discuss a spinal cord stimulator trial (HF10). It transmits mild electrical pulses to the spinal cord that calm the nerves and reduce pain signals to the brain.

The beautiful thing about a spinal cord stimulator is that you get to try it and see if it is going to benefit you before having a permanent one placed. Today, nearly two years since it was implanted, I have been relieved of all the nerve pain that was going down my hips and about 50% of my low back pain. I am now enjoying daily walks with my dog, Truffle, and playing pickleball twice a week without back pain.

Learn more about spinal cord stimulators. Click Here.