I have been in the gym and active since the 8th grade. I was an avid kickboxer from 8th grade up until I began experiencing severe pain in fall of 2010. This pain led to seeing doctors and being evaluated by 8 different PT’s in efforts to determine what was causing this pain. If you have ever experienced pain consistently for a long period of time, you understand the toll it takes on your life (every part of it). The 8th PT I saw was a PT that was in town helping out, she was from AZ. She REALLY LISTENED to every part of my journey and what worked and didn’t work and this led her to know the problem. She set me up with an ortho, who performed an arthrogram MRI and got me headed in the right direction.

Ortho discovered that I had femoroacetabular impingement with significant tearing of my labrum. Thank God. Finally an answer. I had persevered for a solid year with severe pain. I was working full time through it all.

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Ortho gave me two options in the US for surgeons to see for this problem. One just so happened to be in my hometown where my family was currently living, so this was an easy decision. I saw Dr. Byrd the end of December of 2011. He was awesome. We went over everything and he could help me. We discussed surgery and plans moving forward. Unfortunately, insurance gave us a hard time and I had to fight to get surgery approved. I wrote a letter including every ounce of conservative treatment, imaging, and medical providers I saw that led to this discovery and in May of 2012 I received the call for approval. I remember exactly where I was when I got the call. My great friend Ashley and I were at Chickfia. Thankfully I was fully transparent with all my supervisors at work through this process and as soon I could get scheduled, I was on the road headed for Nashville.

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I had a lot of time to make preparations leading up to surgery, so that was the positive in this process. I had been living in a 3 story town home, which I was able to move out of. My good friend lived in a one story house, and let me rent a room from her, so I got all this set up prior to surgery. She was a great friend, my gym buddy, and an awesome nurse. So a wonderful support person! After a year and a half of seeking answers and persevering through severe pain, I had surgery in May of 2012. This began a process that was both painful and challenging, but the beginning of healing. I will share more about the process in another email, one day. I learned a lot about healing, surgery, exercise, and life.

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If you are dealing with pain that you have yet to figure out the cause. I want to encourage you, don’t give up. An answer is out there. The person to help you is out there. It will take perseverance, strength, and a lot of courage to walk through, but you can figure out what’s wrong, get the right treatment, and heal and fully recover. It won’t be easy, but worth it completely. I spent every single day after work on the phone with insurance trying to figure out how to fight the denial from surgery. EVERY DAY. It was exhausting. I was already exhausted from the severe pain and work, but after weeks of calling insurance, I FINALLY got to a person willing to help. She told me exactly what I needed to do and who to submit this appeal letter to. While it took a couple months for them to approve the treatment/surgery I needed, it was approved. So friend, please persevere. Please keep going. Don’t give up. If you are not finding an answer under your current provider, seek out another one. As I said, I saw 8 PT’s before finally discovering what the problem was. I completed a year of treatments, most of which made my symptoms worse, until the root problem was discovered.

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Action Step

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Is there something in your life that you need to persevere and seek answers about?

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Do you have a pain that you have yet to find the answer for?

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Is there a courageous step you can take today to finding the answers you need to heal and recover?

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Is there anything that is preventing you from doing what is best for you?

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Life can be very hard and pain does not help. As a physical therapy professional and someone who has spent extensive time as a patient from 2010 on, I fully understand the frustrations and exhaustion that comes from not having answers and feeling like you are beating your head against the wall. Severe pain affects EVERY part of your life. If you need any support feel free to reach out! Happy to do what I can to support your journey to discovering how you can heal and recover! There is help out there, you may just have to connect with other health professionals to discover the answer you need to get better. Keep persevering! Don’t give up!

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