Julie V.

In June 2014 I was diagnosed with spondylolysis and grade 1 spondylolisthesis, along with a herniated disc at L4-L5 and a bulge at L5-S1. Throughout the summer I did physiotherapy and acupuncture. By November 2014 the pain was so bad that my doctor referred me to a surgeon at a Toronto hospital. I had a 7-month wait. And by February 2015 I could no longer stand or walk for longer than 15 minutes. During this 7-month wait I took a leave of absence from my teaching position, continued on with physio, tried osteopathy and even saw a Chinese medicine/energy healer. Nothing worked to ease my pain. I saw a lower extremities specialist in March 2015 and he gave me 4 cortisone injections in my back, hip and buttock. This eased some of the pain for a few months, which allowed me to work through my physio exercises. When I finally saw the surgeon my hope for being free of pain diminished; he told me that unless I had nerve damage, surgery would not be an option. By January 2016, the back pain was so bad that I was hospitalized; they sent me on my way with a prescription for pain medication. My MD then sent out a referral to an orthopaedic surgeon at another Toronto hospital.

It was this surgeon who recommended that I try the Back Clinics of Canada.

My initial consult in December of 2016 with Dr. Nusbaum was very positive. The environment at the clinic was warm and welcoming and the doctor and Shannon listened to my story intently. Dr. Nusbaum told me that based on my MRI results and his evaluation of my functional abilities that I qualified for the decompression therapy and Class-IV K Laser treatment. He also explained that there was no guarantee that the treatment would work on me, however he had treated numerous patients with similar conditions and they all did well on his program. I decided to move forward with the program at the back pain clinic because I had exhausted all other resources over the course of 2 years and had nothing to lose at this point. Within three weeks of decompression therapy I noticed an 80% decrease in back pain and had at least 60% less nerve compression on my herniated disc, less leg pain and less leg numbness. By the end of the program all my lower back pain was gone and the nerve compression from the herniated disc only bothered me intermittently throughout the day. One month after finishing the program I am ready to return to my teaching position at 100% and strong enough to manage my home and family. I can’t thank Dr. Nusbaum and his technicians enough, for all the time and care they put into helping me get better. I will continue to see Dr. Nusbaum as needed for any chronic pain I may have in the future because he is trustworthy and truly cares about his patients well-being.

*Results may vary. Please contact us for a free consultation to see if you are a candidate for care.