Avoid Back Surgery!

Denise Moxon, 66, is a retired registered nurse who stays fit by engaging in a variety of activities, including yoga, weight training and the challenging horse-riding discipline called dressage.

Looking after her barn and horses requires physically demanding chores, but that never fazed her – until the day her back went out while she was shoveling dirt.

The intense pain started in her lower back and radiated into her right thigh. At first, Denise thought rest would help alleviate her pain, so she stopped exercising and riding.

When the pain persisted, Denise looked for remedies with two priorities in mind: avoiding surgery and pain medications. Over four months, she tried physical therapy, massage, steroid injections and acupuncture.

“I did all of these things just trying to get out of pain and thinking time would take care of it,” she recalls. “But it kept getting worse and worse until I couldn’t even walk my dog for a short distance.

“The acupuncture alleviated the pain, but it wasn’t a cure. I’d be pain-free for a few days, but then I’d need acupuncture again. After six months, I couldn’t tolerate it any longer. I was beginning to believe that surgery was the only thing that could help.”

Denise consulted a neurosurgeon, who ordered an MRI. The imaging study revealed two herniated discs in her lumbar spine. She agreed with her physician that surgery was needed. However, due to the surgeon’s busy schedule, the operation could not be performed for three months. Denise was resolved to suffer until then.

Shortly after scheduling the surgery, Denise learned about Tyler Albrecht, DC, at St. Augustine Spine Center. She was intrigued by a therapy Dr. Albrecht uses to treat herniated and bulging discs called nonsurgical spinal decompression. Wanting to learn more, Denise made an appointment.

“When Denise came to us, she was in really bad shape,” Dr. Albrecht states. “She could only walk or stand for about two minutes before the pain would become severe. She couldn’t do any bending or lifting, and the pain was interrupting her sleep.”

Time to Decompress

Denise’s herniated discs were causing spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal canal that puts pressure on the spinal cord or spinal nerves, triggering pain.

Jordan Pysz / ifoundmydoctor.com
Since undergoing spinal decompression treatments at St. Augustine Spine Center, Denise has resumed her five-day-perweek
riding regimen. She also stays active by participating in yoga, weight training and golf.

Through his examination, Dr. Albrecht determined that Denise was a candidate for nonsurgical spinal decompression, a treatment designed to restore herniated or bulging discs to a healthier state, thus relieving the pain.

“What I’ve found is that spinal decompression is usually the best treatment for a herniated disc because it helps to reverse the pressure on the disc and allows the disc to heal rather than just trying to cover up the pain with injections or medication,” Dr. Albrecht points out.

The practice’s SpineMED® decompression table does this by gently pulling the vertebrae on either side of the disc, producing a vacuum effect.

“This allows bulging material and nutrients to be drawn back into the disc over time, allowing it to heal naturally,” the doctor notes.

SpineMED’s advanced technology and computerized load sensors combine to create a gentle, pain-free treatment that avoids the muscle spasm or guarding reflex commonly triggered with rudimentary traction or inversion devices.

Denise liked that Dr. Albrecht explained the process clearly and comprehensively.

“Dr. Albrecht is very articulate and knowledgeable,” she describes. “He’s informative and factual. The result was that I could make the decision on my own about whether to pursue treatment. He didn’t try to make the decision for me, which I appreciate in a doctor.”

Denise began a seven-week regimen, which calls for three treatments each week. In addition, she received other modalities that are part of the disc rehab program at St. Augustine Spine Center. They included manual therapy, chiropractic care, ice, electrical stimulation and laser therapy to help accelerate the healing process.

A Full Recovery

The therapy sessions were pleasant experiences, Denise relates.

“The atmosphere in Dr. Albrecht’s office is lovely and peaceful,” she says. “And the decompression treatments were very comfortable and easy to do. They’re pain-free. You can watch videos while you’re lying on the decompression table, which I did a lot, so it’s quite restful.”

Halfway through her treatment program, Denise discovered how much spinal decompression was helping. She went to a boat show with her husband and was stunned to realize that walking didn’t hurt anymore.

“After about 45 minutes I stopped and said, Art, I have no pain,” Denise remembers. “Before, I would go places, even though it hurt to walk, and I would walk, hurt, sit; walk, hurt, sit. At the boat show, it suddenly dawned on me that I had been walking for 45 minutes and hadn’t needed to sit down because I wasn’t hurting.”

Before her first visit with Dr. Albrecht, Denise says her average pain level was six on a scale of one to 10. By the end of the treatment, she says, it had dropped to zero.

Dr. Albrecht uses another feedback measure, the Low Back Pain and Disability Index, to gauge results. The questionnaire focuses on how much pain interferes with daily activities.

“When we started out, Denise was at 66 percent on how much the pain was disabling her,” Dr. Albrecht states. “When we finished, her disability score was zero; she experienced a full recovery.”

Since then, Denise has resumed her active lifestyle. After a regimen of stretches and exercises to strengthen her core, she is once again riding five days a week and continues to improve her dressage skills.

She’s again doing yoga and weight training and has added golf to her list of hobbies. What Denise is most happy about, though, is that she succeeded in finding a treatment that took away her severe back pain without surgery or painkillers.

Once she felt certain that spinal decompression had given her long-lasting relief, Denise canceled her surgery date.

“It was a long road because I tried so many things,” she relates. “I’m especially pleased with my treatment by Dr. Albrecht. It’s pretty impressive.”