Hardy and Pain
In February 2005, I fell on the ice. The entire weight of my body came down on my right leg and had a tib/fib fracture. In the ambulance, I pleaded with the driver not to take me to the hospital closest to me but they could not. I had surgery to fix the broken bones and was placed in a cast from my toes to the middle of my thigh. After a few days was sent home with a home nurse coming every day for about a week. The first day home I was having pain in my thigh from a cast that was far too tight.
During the entire time I was in the cast I complained of pain beyond what I expected from the admittedly serious break but I was ignored. When the cast came off many months later, the pain I felt on my tight, leg, and foot, not only did not get better but the pain continued to increase. The orthopedic surgeon sent me to a pain doctor and I had my first three spinal injections. I gave up on these two doctors and got a referral to a Physiatrist, who with the EMG results from a neurologist and a consolation with another pain doctor concluded I had Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome Type 2 (CRPS2). At the start, my physiatrist gave me a list of protocols that he would follow to treat my pain. I began with neuropathic drugs, then opiates, PT, dozens and dozens of spinal injections, TENS units, a spinal cord stimulator trial, and on and on. Nothing seemed to help and my pain continued to increase. I was given ever increasing doses of opiates until I was on a dose of opiates high enough to kill a junkie. I saw another pain doctor and under went even more spinal injections while I was switched to a more powerful long-acting opiate along with the Oxycodone I was taking for breakthrough pain. I saw yet another pain management doctor and had more spinal injections. Nothing helped. Eventually, my Physiatrist said to me, "I have tired everything that western medicine can do for you; maybe it is time you talked with this non-pharmacological therapist." I began seeing this therapist who got me meditating. Meditation over the years has brought me to a transformation in how I perceived my chronic pain.
Another life-changing breakthrough came in December of 2010. By this time, I was virtually confined to a chair with the opiates not seeming to help with the pain enough for me to want to remain in this intellectually clouded state. I had gotten a new physiatrist who was young and who tired techniques for addressing my chronic at the level of the damaged nerves. He referred me to Dr. Hashemi for consultation about the possibility of peripheral nerve surgery,
So I decided to detox from opiates in anticipation of this peripheral nerve surgery.
The next step in my directly addressing the cause of my pain and not the symptoms of it was the first peripheral nerve surgery Dr Hashemi performed in May 2011. This surgery involved removing damaged tissue at several parts of my leg and foot and reducing the pressure on the peripheral nerves in my leg. Dr Hashemi is a very careful surgeon. He does not perform a procedure until he is sure that it is necessary because the preceding ones have not solved all of the issues. These surgeries gave me great relief. The swelling and redness that had been ever present for almost seven years subsided. The severe allodynia on the right side of the top of my foot improved markedly. I had not been able to wear of shoe on this foot for most of these seven seven years. I could not even sleep with a sheet touching the top of my foot.
I no longer require a cane to walk. I can wear shoes. My posture is improved since I am no longer have contracted my body in pain but have learned to relax.
I now get out of my house where I had exiled myself since I had such limited mobility. And I am considerably and noticeably happier and a more pleasant person to be around. As my daughters said, "Welcome back Dad." Dr Hashemi gave me back my life.
He is also a remarkable hand surgeon, who has operated on both my arms and hands for my having numbness in my fingers and compression of my ulnar and median nerves.
I have known and worked with Dr Hashemi for nearly seven years, and I can attest that he is both a caring and accomplished peripheral nerve and hand surgeon. If you want the best see Dr Hashemi. read more