Advancing PAIGE's Health

Paige Freitag is an active 35-year-old Bloomington attorney.  She has always taken good care of herself.  In 2006, however, severe back pain nearly took away her ability to walk and even sit up.

“I’m married and have two Labrador retrievers, who are like my children, and I spent a lot of time with my husband hiking and walking,” says Paige.

In February 2006, however, Paige began experiencing low back pain.  But, she wrote it off due to her changing jobs and using a new chair at work, among other explanations.  She tried to ignore it as much as possible, assured nothing could be seriously wrong.

Over that summer, the pain worsened and Paige developed sciatica, a condition in which severe pain begins in the lower back and shoots down the back of the leg.

“Sitting was a huge problem for me when the sciatica was at its worst, and there were times where I would try to get into the car and go somewhere with my husband, and I would literally be in tears after about five minutes in the car,” Paige remembers.  “During those times I did wonder whether I would ever get back to being able to do the types of things I used to be able to do.”

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In the following months, Paige visited her family practice physician and began seeing a chiropractor.  Her pain, however, continued to worsen and her left leg had become numb.

“I think when I couldn’t walk, I was finally convinced that there was something seriously wrong,” Paige says.

Paige visited Bloomington Hospital’s Advanced Pain Center, part of the Regional Neuroscience Institute, and received an epidural shot to help ease her pain.  According to Plato Lysandrou, M.D., a board-certified pain management physician at the Center, an epidural shot is an injection in the epidural space, which is the space next to the nerve root.

“We inject a medication comprised of local anesthetic and cortisone,” Dr. Lysandrou explains.  “The local anesthetic numbs the nerve giving pain relief to the patient for a few hours.  But what helps the most is the cortisone, which usually takes three days to kick in.”

While the epidural seemed to work wonders for Paige’s back, a few days following the injection, her pelvic area went numb.  She returned to the Advanced Pain Center and Dr. Lysandrou referred her to local Neurosurgeon Marshall Poor, M.D.

“Once a pain doctor tells you that what’s happening to you is not normal and you need to go see a neurosurgeon immediately, it’s a little alarming,” Paige says.  “But Dr. Poor has such a wonderful demeanor that he makes you calm.”

The following day, Dr. Poor performed neurosurgery on Paige and found two herniated discs.

“His nurse Kelly after the surgery was telling my family members that was the biggest herniated disc that she’d seen all year.  So I was proud to have that honor,” Paige remembers.

In addition to the herniated discs, Dr. Poor also discovered that a nerve in Paige’s back had begun to turn brown, a sign it was dying.  By the time he had completed the excision, however, the nerve root was starting to turn back to a pinkish color and was gaining elasticity; a sign it was beginning to come back to life.

Two days following surgery, Paige was back at home.  She wore a brace through November 2006 and then began rehabilitation at Bloomington Hospital’s Rebound.

“The first goal was to try to get me walking with a more normal gait, and building up the muscles in the left leg, especially the left calf, so that I could walk normally,” Paige says.

Paige also participated in aquatic therapy at Bloomington Hospital’s Rebound East location.

“It’s funny because I never took swimming lessons as a little kid and I’m definitely not a very strong swimmer, so I had a little bit of anxiety,” Paige remembers.  “I wasn’t really sure what the aquatic therapy would entail, but as soon as I got there and met with the aquatic therapist and saw the facility, I was totally at ease.”

Paige continues to swim and has taken up yoga again.  She’s walking well, but still has some numbness in her left leg and foot.

“I’ve learned that I really didn’t appreciate what my body could do before.  I mean I think that’s normal.  People just don’t appreciate what they have until they don’t have it any more,” Paige says.