It was a beautiful summer day in August, 1993. Floyd Dicey was camping with his wife and young daughter. They decided the best way to spend time in the sun was to enjoy the waterpark near their campsite. One trip down the slide changed Floyd’s life forever.
“The pool at the bottom of the slide didn’t have enough water in it, so when my daughter and I came off the slide and into the water, I went straight to the bottom and slammed my back against the cement, suffering a slipped disc,” recalls Dicey. “I got up and knew immediately something was very wrong.”
Floyd had surgery to repair the disc, which led to more surgeries, complications, and even infections that required treatment and pain management.
“I took oxycontin pills for 20 years, but it just never really helped,” says Floyd. “When they once recommended a higher dosage, I decided it was time to try something else.”
Dicey didn’t want to take more pain killers, but he wasn’t able to fully function at his job as a general contractor. “The pain was becoming unbearable,” says Dicey. “On a scale of one to ten, I was right at the top and I couldn’t do anything for any period of time. I was miserable.”
So he began to research his options. That’s when he found Dr. Mohamed El-Ansary and Ally LeGacy, APRN at the CMC Pain Center. “They talked to me about my options, and what I recall about them both is that they were so nice and compassionate about my pain and discomfort.”
“His quality of life was impacted,” recalls Dr. El-Ansary whose goal is to treat the root cause of pain, not cover it with medications. “Many patients come to us with pain and a lack of function and they are dependent on narcotics. To have good treatment, you need a good diagnosis. That means a thorough examination, listening to the patient, and doing diagnostic images and test, if necessary.”
The solution for Dicey was a combination of injections and ablations—both of which are minimally invasive, outpatient procedures. The treatment essentially numbed and deadened the nerves in his back that were causing the worst of the pain. “It was kind of like turning off a circuit breaker in my nervous system in my back,” explains Dicey. “It worked right away and now I only go back if and when the pain starts to build again and they do another quick procedure and then I’m back on my feet.”
Life is totally different for Floyd and his family, which now includes three-year-old Sophia, his granddaughter. I can’t move as quickly as she can, but at least I can move with her and play and enjoy my time with her every day,” says Dicey, who also works part time with a local ride-share company and occasionally does some general contracting work.
“I can do a lot more than I could when the pain was off the charts,” says Floyd. “I am careful not to go overboard, but I am active again and the pain is nothing like what it was before.”
His advice to those who suffer from chronic and debilitating pain? Make an appointment with the CMC Pain Center.
“They made a huge difference to my quality of life,” says Dicey. “I have tried a lot of different pain management over the course of 20 years of discomfort. Nothing really worked for very long and I just couldn’t keep taking more and more pills. The Pain Center helped me and I am so grateful to Doctor El-Ansary and LeGacy. They are simply wonderful.”
Pain Center
CMC Medical Office Building
88 McGregor Street, Suite 301
Manchester NH 03102
Mon-Fri: 8 AM–4:30 PM
603.314.7246
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