Spinal treatment has avid golfer moving again
Steve Melling has booked a late March golf trip to the United States desert.
That’s perhaps not a big deal for many winter-weary Albertans who seek time in the sun to play their favourite sport.
But for the 52-year-old Lethbridge owner of his own insurance/estate planning company, it signifies a return to one of his big loves after a debilitating period of bad health.
The father of four’s problems began at age 37 when he suffered a herniated disc while playing indoor soccer.
Soccer, skiing and other physical activities became things of the past. Four years ago, it got worse when arthritis caused excruciating pain through his back and a leg.
“I was barely functioning,” Melling says of the pain that was treated by both a chiropractor and physiotherapist, and involved the use of an inversion table and steroid injections into his back for pain relief.
“I showed up for work, but I was not there. It was all consuming.”
By spring last year, he was almost immobile.
“I couldn’t tie my shoes or put on my socks. I love golf and I couldn’t swing a club.”
He went to his doctor, paid for an immediate MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and started researching possible surgical options.
“I am a big supporter of the public health-care system, but there is a real hole in spinal care,” says Melling, citing a lack of specialist access to operating rooms and to up-to-date technology. “There is a lot of money spent on pain clinics, but they are not solutions.”
Meanwhile, he developed a limp in his right leg: “I knew it was serious; the nerves were getting damaged.” Melling wasn’t interested in invasive surgery after hearing of bad results from friends and clients. In Alberta, he says surgery meant “cutting me open, cleaning it out and fusing the spine.”
He looked at private clinics in Canada and the United States and his chiropractor suggested Benefis Health System in Great Falls, Mont.
Melling sent his MRI results to the clinics he had researched and most answered with a price quote for a discectomy (surgery to remove herniated disc material) — except for Benefis.
The specialist there called Melling and said he didn’t think the issue was the disc, but scar tissue trapping the nerves.
The doctor suggested an X-ray to see how Melling’s body was moving and an electromyography (EMG) to assess the health of muscles and the nerve cells controlling them.
Facing an EMG waiting list of a year in Lethbridge, he drove two and a half hours to Great Falls, Mont., and paid to have it done right away at Benefis.
“It’s a good thing, because he told me there was nerve disruption down my leg.”
The doctor suggested an endoscopic laminotomy where an endoscope is inserted through a small incision that spreads the back muscles instead of cutting them. The procedure removes some material from the lamina — a bony part of the spinal column — to make more room in a constricted spinal canal. The constriction can place pressure on the spinal cord and the spinal nerve roots, causing pain, numbness or weakness in the legs.
With no guarantees the procedure would solve his problems, Melling and his wife returned to Benefis in October.
An hour and a half after surgery, “I was walking around with no pain. And I haven’t taken any medication since — including (over-the-counter medications) that I was taking like Chiclets before.”
Melling now sleeps better and is back walking the dog for an hour at a time. He says he’s lost 18 pounds “from just being able to move.”
People at work have noticed the difference, too, including increased energy and clear eyes that used to be “squinty with pain.”
Melling knows he is fortunate he could afford the $20,000 price tag for his path to wellness, and wishes the treatment could be made accessible to all in Alberta.