Between his work running a farm and his passion for the outdoors, 40-year-old Tim Watts was constantly on his feet and on the move. Both work and play were becoming more difficult, however, because Tim endured constant sciatic nerve pain that extended all the way down his right leg and was starting to manifest in his left leg, too. Numbness in both his feet made it even more difficult to take care of even basic chores.
“I just was in a tremendous amount of pain,” Tim recalls. “I was having to take two or three muscle relaxers a day, and Tylenol and everything else just to deal with it.” His sciatic pain had not been sufficiently responsive to steroid injections or physical therapy. Tim talked with a few physicians about traditional back surgery, but it wasn’t until he got on the phone with Dr. Kamson that he “felt like this was the place I needed to go.”
Two ruptured discs in his lumbar spine and the resulting stenosis in that area were causing Tim’s pain. Using minimally invasive spine surgery, the damaged tissue in those discs was trimmed away and decompression relieved the pressure on his spine. “All the tension that was in my legs was gone as soon as I came back out of surgery,” Tim says. In fact, he left the Spine Institute Northwest and went out to lunch with his wife and parents.
Tim has eased his way back into his regular activities. “I’m back out in the field pretty much, [but] just real light lifting right now,” he says. “As far as all of my pain that was there, it’s 100% gone.” From being able to pick up his toddler granddaughter to planning to get back on his snowmobile this winter, Tim’s gotten back his life.
Hear Tim’s story in his own words, and learn why he recommends Dr. Kamson and the Spine Institute Northwest: