My name is Calvin V (a patient of Dr. Allen Unruh's).
I’m writing this for all patients contemplating back surgery. My advice: Don’t do it until you have seen Dr. Allen Unruh for at least a month and commit to following his advice.
When I first came in I could hardly walk. I couldn’t sit, lay down, or stand up without pain. The pain went from my back all the way down to my foot. It was a sharp and shooting and burning pain. It would wake me up and I couldn’t get comfortable to get back to sleep.
My dilemma: I had committed a trip on a motorcycle with my buddy in which every year we ride 1000 miles in 24 hours. This year we planned on going to Salt Lake City Utah. Even the suggestion of not taking this trip by Dr. Unruh went in one ear and out the other. It was unacceptable. The trip was scheduled in 6 weeks and I told Dr. Unruh to just pop that bone back in place so I could get on my bike and ride, and ride and ride.
He tried to explain that sciatic nerve pain is not something that just goes away in 10 minutes. Especially one that causes the type of pain I had. He suggested an MRI and possibly an injection which I very reluctantly agreed to. The results were a LARGE EXTRUDED DISC with a hemangioma (blood clot) on the nerve.
Dr. Unruh explained I had several options:
- Do nothing and hope it goes away – the odds are zip.
- Live on drugs - only treats the symptoms.
- Have back surgery – skip the trip and be laid up for quite a while. It’s risky and very expensive.
- Last, get Chiropractic adjustments with the Cox distraction instrument daily for a month, and there is a good chance the pain and inflammation would subside enough to go on the trip. Also, he explained that often blood clots like this can reabsorb in the body as he continually distracts the discs apart. The distraction also creates a suction on the disc to bring the extruded disc off the nerve.
I had an injection, and took some pain pills at first because the pain was unbearable. The first week I started getting relief. Over the month the pain gradually left my leg but continued into my hip and my calf was still sensitive. The week before leaving my leg and back pain were completely gone.
I went on the trip. Rode 2600 miles in 4 days and I continue to feel great. Like Dr. Unruh said he does not take the credit because the human body did the miracle. His job is to convince people to have more faith in the human body than man made chemicals and a knife. I’m sure glad I did and highly recommend anyone else with sciatic pain like I had to get see Dr. Allen Unruh [
editor comment: or a
certified doctor like Dr. Unruh)] FIRST!
EXTRA INFORMATION from MRI Findings:
On the first MRI study of the lumbar spine performed 6-3-10, the size of the right L5-S1 lateral epidural space heterogenous soft tissue mass measured 150 sq mm. On a follow-up MRI study of the L5-S1 level on 7-9-10 revealed mild interval decrease in size of the previously seen heterogenous soft tisssue mass in the right lateral epidural space to 120 sq mm with decrease in the deformation of the right lateral thecal sac.
This reports a 20% reduction of the size of the herniated disc in a 36 day treatment period. Literature shows varying reports of the degree of disc reduction size in pre and post MRI studies of successfully treated lumbar disc herniation cases. The reductions range from zero to 100% reduction with some cases even showing increased size of the disc herniation in patients relieved of radicular pain. Authors have stated there is little correlation of the size of disc herniation to patient symptoms and the majority of asymptomatic people will show disc herniation on MRI study.