Living A Better Life
As a risk consultant, Kurt Eberspacher’s job involved inspecting heavy equipment like steam boilers in various industries: healthcare facilities, cities, and manufacturing throughout five states in the Midwest. Performing his job required a lot of crawling around the equipment, bending over, reaching, and twisting which put a tremendous strain on his back. Over the years he developed chronic back pain. The 45,000+ miles he spent driving his car to each location annually amplified his back pain.
The first signs of low back pain started in 1984, Kurt recalled. He struggled with finding relief for many years, and the constant pain affected his work and personal life. Kurt tried many treatment options. At one point, his family doctor referred him to a back surgeon for evaluation. The surgeon determined that Kurt’s pain was due to vertebrae in his lower back and that spinal fusion, a surgical technique that joins two or more vertebrae to keep them from moving, was needed.
Although Kurt had hoped that would give him his life back with less pain, it would not be the case. In 2005, he underwent a second spinal fusion and yet the pain continued. Kurt was then referred to a spine specialist in Washington in 2018. By that time, Kurt was in so much pain that he could no longer do his job nor fly back and forth for treatments. It was then that his family doctor referred him to Dr. Kelly Zach at Innovative Pain & Spine Specialists in Lincoln.
As a pain specialist, Dr. Zach’s approach is first and foremost to identify the cause of the patient’s pain. Following a thorough evaluation, and given Kurt’s history of years of back pain, Dr. Zach started him on epidural injections to reduce the inflammation and pain and continued to monitor his pain levels throughout 2019. In 2020, Spinal Cord Stimulation (SCS) was discussed as an option for treating his pain. Kurt began the SCS trial and because he was experiencing less pain, the SCS was then implanted in July 2020.
“The care plan Dr. Zach laid out is working,” Kurt noted. “Without him, I don’t know where I would be.”
Kurt recognizes that there are some things he can’t do any more, and other things he makes adjustments to, such as limiting the amount of walking he does on uneven surfaces, driving for long periods of time, and continuing to go hunting but not traveling as far away as in the past.
“This is a plan for the rest of my life, and I’m living a better life now than I was before.”
Kurt’s wife, Cynthia, has noticed changes in him as well. “Kurt has had so much pain, and since he has been seeing Dr. Zach, he is now able to interact with our grandkids and play with them – I’m so tickled that he has an upbeat, positive attitude and is happy again,” Cynthia said. On a recent trip to Texas to see their son’s family, her husband got off the airplane without pain and was able to enjoy their vacation, even playing paintball with the kids, something he couldn’t have done before.
For the past 20 years, Kurt estimates he had a procedure about every year which took a toll on him, but now he sees the light at the end of the tunnel.
“I know everyone at Innovative and they know me, and they are genuinely concerned about my health and well-being.”
If you have tried a number of therapies and treatments to relieve chronic back pain and nothing seems to work, contact the providers at Innovative Pain & Spine Specialists in Lincoln or Omaha, Nebraska at 402-413-5010. They can help you get back to doing the things you love to do.