Finding Relief: Bill’s Story

After doing some heavy lift­ing one day, Bill Gra­ham turned to get in his truck and was over­come with pain.

“It hit me all of a sud­den. I walked to my truck to get in and went to the ground. That’s how bad the pain was. I have done lift­ing like that before, but I just nev­er had any­thing hit me like that before,” he remembered.

The pain con­tin­ued for sev­er­al days before he called his pri­ma­ry care provider, Dr. Pranathi Kodu­ru, who referred him to the Inter­ven­tion­al Spine and Joint Well­ness team of Dr. Albert Singh and Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er Jor­dan Hogan. By that point, Graham’s con­di­tion had got­ten worse.

“I was hav­ing pain up and down my leg. I couldn’t even lie down and sleep. In fact, the only sleep I did get was in a reclin­er. It was a pain that wouldn’t go away. It was con­stant,” Gra­ham shared.

When Dr. Kodu­ru referred Gra­ham to Hogan and Dr. Singh, he hadn’t heard of their ser­vices before. Inter­ven­tion­al Spine and Joint Well­ness care incor­po­rates injec­tions and min­i­mal­ly inva­sive spine and joint pro­ce­dures to relieve pain and improve function.

Dr. Singh said in talk­ing to Gra­ham and see­ing his con­di­tion, it was clear his qual­i­ty of life had been great­ly impact­ed by his pain.

“He pre­sent­ed to our office with sci­at­i­ca symp­toms trav­el­ing from the back down the left leg. His pain came on after he did some heavy lift­ing,” Dr. Singh explained. ​“His MRI showed that he had a sig­nif­i­cant amount of arthri­tis in the low back, with severe nar­row­ing around two nerve roots on the left side which trav­el from the back down the left leg (L4 and L5 nerve roots). There­fore, the heavy lift­ing fur­ther exac­er­bat­ed and pinched these nerves that already had severe nar­row­ing around them.”

Dr. Singh per­formed a left L4 and L5 trans­foram­i­nal epidur­al steroid injec­tion under flu­o­ro­scop­ic guidance.

Gra­ham said he appre­ci­at­ed that Dr. Singh took the time to make sure he was at ease with the pro­ce­dure and under­stand­ing of what to expect.

“He was great. I was scared to death, but it was a walk in the park. He explained every­thing he was going to do before he did it. As he was doing it, he talked me through every­thing,” Gra­ham said.

The results were imme­di­ate. The pain that kept him from walk­ing was gone, and he was able to walk out of QMG pain-free.

“I had no pain. And, that night, for the first time in a long time, I slept all night in my bed with no pain. That’s how much he helped me,” Gra­ham said.

At 76 years old, Gra­ham said he is active and wants to stay active, and he’s grate­ful to both Dr. Singh and Hogan for the care they pro­vid­ed him.

“Dr. Singh and Jor­dan are both a bless­ing to me. They’re won­der­ful peo­ple. If it wouldn’t have been for them, I’m not sure what I would have done. If I start get­ting pain again, I guar­an­tee I’ll give them a call.”