Fox 5 Features VSI Patient’s Motivational Story

As seen on Fox 5 DC’s ‘Good Day DC’ – Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Fox 5 DC Anchor Erin Como produced a powerful Wellness Wednesday feature highlighting the importance of prioritizing your health, especially during the pandemic. She came to the Virginia Spine Institute to introduce a mom who has an important message to other busy women out there about prioritizing their physical health, especially during the pandemic. The patient is accompanied by her spine surgeon Dr. Colin Haines who shared the inside story on the disc replacement surgery that returned this active patient back to her life as a personal trainer (and big on the fitness scene) and dancing with her young daughter.

Like many women, 38-year old Morgan Tebeau didn’t prioritize her own health, until the pain got to a point where it was unbearable and impacting her physical and emotional health. This morning we are at the Virginia Spine Institute with an important message, not to put your own health on the back-burner. If you’re feeling any pain, make sure you deal with that and get it checked out.

“I started experiencing pain in my upper back and I kind of wrote it off as overtraining and maybe a pulled muscle. So I continued to work my business, do everything I needed to do at home, and it continued to progressively get worse. I self-diagnosed, and my guess was muscle overtraining and thinking I can push through. So I was making my own modifications and backed off of my personal training; I was throwing away energy into my clients and my classes and my family the way that I could divide that up, but it was still extremely draining.

What Neck Symptoms Was Morgan Dealing With? 

“The pain really progressed to the point where lifting my arms or having reaching anything was pretty much out of the question. I was putting a lot of extra pressure on my husband to pick up all of the things I would do around the house, it took away from my relationship with my daughter, I was not able to engage or play with her the way that we normally would. We used to have dance parties and I was unable to do that with her. I was coaching in a neck brace and I was having to modify all movements and rely on my clients to demonstrate the class, instead of doing it for them myself.”

What Was the Final Moment That Pushed Morgan to Schedule a Neck Consultation with Virginia Spine Institute? 

“What really happened at home with my daughter, she really wanted to play with me because she felt that I was miserable and in pain. And she wanted me to dance with her, and tried to pull me up from the couch and I just had shooting paint down my body and I just couldn’t do it anymore. I had to reach out.”

Dr. Haines says,  “the fastest way to get answers and the faster you seek treatment, the quicker we get results. Sometimes that means we get the pain to calm down, with physical therapy or safe medications, or even sometimes injections or regenerative medicine. If we do wait too long, that’s when the nerve damage can show up, resulting in the need for spine surgery, but nine times out of 10 people come to our office and get back pain-free, and back to their normal lives, without needing surgery. If we get the answers quickly and then we jump on the nonoperative quickly or spine-specialized physical therapy, strengthening the muscles getting the range of motion, better medications, or doing injections and adding in regenerative medicine, and ultimately the range of motion is preserved.”

Let’s talk about Morgan’s recovery.

So had her cervical disc replacement surgery in January (2021), and what kind of journey did she have after that in recovery?

Dr. Haines responds, “Morgan experienced pretty exponential improvement right off the bat and then had to play a little bit of catch-up with physical therapy to get that completely pain-free life. Because we chose a disc replacement surgery, Morgan was able to restore the natural motion in her neck and get back to the fitness scene, her business, and her family fairly quickly!”

When is it Time to Seek the Care of a Medical Professional? 

If something doesn’t feel right, something may not be right. If you have pain, discomfort, or just an overall feeling of being ‘off’ in your physical health it’s time to get answers. Seek the care of a medical professional and take the first step in owning your health.  If you’ve been experiencing back pain, neck pain, or associated radiating pain, numbness, or tingling in the arm(s) or leg(s) — give us a call so we can begin your road to recovery.

To schedule a consultation, call 703.709.1114 or chat with one of our experts by clicking on the icon in the bottom right-hand corner of this page.