Active and energetic, Stephanie Skidmore has never been one to complain or to put her work aside because of a few aches and pains. She has even tried to master significant pain on her own before realizing that going it alone is not always the best choice.
In October, Stephanie was injured while starting a furniture-refurbishing project, her new hobby.“ I was lifting a heavy metal cabinet with my husband, and when I lifted my side [ of the cabinet ] I heard‘ pop, pop, pop’ across my back, and I completely just went to my knees,” she said.
Stephanie crawled into the house, but she didn’ t think a trip to the doctor was necessary. For the next month, she took pain medications and muscles relaxers and hoped the excruciating pain would go away. When it did not, Stephanie went to the Sarah Bush Lincoln Walk-In Clinic for help, and then to Nurse Practitioner Lori Nottmeyer, APN, at Family Medical Center in Mattoon.
“ This just hit me like a locomotive. It came out of nowhere for me. I have always been very active and never thought twice about lifting something heavy,” the 57-year-old Mattoon woman said. While Stephanie had been taking Vitamin D for years for osteopenia, a condition characterized by low bone density that is often considered a precursor to osteoporosis, she didn’ t let it slow her down.“ I was a single mom until I remarried in 2012, and I was used to doing everything on my own. I refinished my house by myself; I put in new flooring and hung doors,” she said.
A CT scan revealed multiple compression fractures in Stephanie’ s spine, a common occurrence in people with osteoporosis. Nottmeyer rushed Stephanie into the Center for Interventional Pain for treatment.
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Dr. Mitry was so kind and confident about me getting better. It really put my mind at ease. The relief was almost immediate.”
Stephanie Skidmore
Stephanie was impressed with the compassionate care she received from Pain Physician Ragai Mitry, MD, and Nurse Practitioner Heather Heicher, APN.“ They couldn’ t believe I walked around like that for so long, and they genuinely wanted to help me feel better,” Stephanie said.“ Heather told me I could continue to let nature take its course, but she and Dr. Mitry really wanted me to consider a procedure called kyphoplasty to alleviate the pain.”
Kyphoplasty is a treatment option for people with osteoporotic spinal fractures. With it, doctors use a small needle to inject cement into osteoporotic bone cavity to fill and strengthen the vertebra. It is performed under local anesthesia and uses X-ray technology to allow doctors to see fractures while they work.
Stephanie went the next day for the outpatient procedure.“ Dr. Mitry was so kind and so confident about getting me better. It really put my mind at ease,” she said. While Stephanie experienced some soreness following the procedure,“ the relief was almost immediate,” she said.“ By the third day, I was like‘ wow, this is great,’ because I had been in pain for a month. My husband had to keep reminding me not to reach up into the cabinets or to try to pick up the dog.”
Ragai Mitry, MD
Stephanie then returned to Nottmeyer’ s office for follow-up care and to have a DEXA( dualenergy X-ray absorptiometry) bone scan, which confirmed osteoporosis. Skidmore is determined to manage her condition, so she takes Fosamax to strengthen her bones.
Now nearly pain-free, Stephanie is taking on new refurbishing projects and caring for not only her dogs but those she and husband, Greg, foster for a local shelter. If there is one thing Stephanie has learned through her experience it’ s that asking for help, while not easy, can be essential to one’ s recovery.
Kyphoplasty is one of the many services the Sarah Bush Lincoln Center for Interventional Pain offers. The most recent is a procedure for metastatic spinal lesions; radio-frequency ablation of the lesion is used, in addition to Kyphoplasty.
For more information about the Center for Interventional Pain, call 217-238-4495 or go to www. sarahbush. org.
Heather Heicher, APN-BC
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