Emy’s Story

Emy didn't want pills or injections. She wanted someone to correctly diagnose what was wrong with her back and fix it.

“I had pain 24/7. It didn’t matter what I did or didn’t do, I had pain. It affected every part of my life.”

That’s how Emy described her lower back pain, which started after she was in a car accident in July, 2018. Before the accident, she was a busy, happy mother of five who thrived on taking care of her family and finding time for her favorite activity: running. 

But after it, she struggled to do even the most ordinary things, like pick up her 2-year-old, get in and out of the car, or sit cross-legged on the floor. And running was out of the question. Some days, Emy couldn’t do anything but lie on her bed, and after several months of dealing with the pain, she began feeling depressed. She was no longer the kind of mother she wanted to be, and she felt bad that her husband, Jake, always had to pick up the slack. 

Unfortunately, Emy’s story is not uncommon. Back pain is the #1 disability worldwide, the #1 reason why people miss work, and the #2 reason why they go to the doctor. 

For Emy, trips to the doctor became the new normal. She consulted with at least a dozen different medical professionals, ping-ponging back and forth between her primary care physician, chiropractors, orthopedists, pain doctors and physical therapists. They offered a variety of treatment plans, from pain medications to injections to back exercises. Each one promised that, given enough time and continued treatments, Emy would feel better.

But she didn’t.

The medications made her groggy, and she couldn’t take care of her children. The injections and back exercises didn’t provide any relief. Invariably, she would return to the doctor and say, “I don’t feel any different.” 

Emy worried the doctors would think she was just a drug seeker. But she didn’t want the drugs. She wanted to get better. “These things you’re giving me – they’re just band-aids,” she would say. “They don’t fix the problem. I’m not here to get drugs. I want to FIX my back.”

Emy began to wonder if she would ever find a solution, and then one day, a physical therapist suggested she talk to a Utah Valley neurosurgeon, Dr. John Edwards. “Do whatever you can to see him,” her PT said. “I think he can help you.” 

When Emy described her frustrations to Dr. Edwards, he said he knew exactly what to do. To Emy’s surprise, it didn’t involve surgery. At least not yet. He told Emy he was determined to find the root cause of her problem, and to accomplish that, he was going to send her to the best spine diagnostician he knew: Dr. Eric Lee, a spine-credentialed chiropractor. Emy thought, “Oh, great. One more office visit.” But what she didn’t know was this visit would be different. 

The first time Emy sat in Dr. Lee’s office, she was blown away. In fact, she remembers calling her mother after the visit and being on the verge of tears. “Mom! I’ve never had a doctor sit and talk to me for that long. He was really interested in my health. He asked questions that no one has ever asked me before.” Emy left the office feeling hopeful that she might finally be on the road to recovery.

“I see patients like Emy all the time,” Dr. Lee says. “They’ve seen several different professionals who’ve given the treatment their specialty provides. Everybody is trying to treat the pain, but nobody’s looking at the root cause. And that’s what I do. I spend a lot of time trying to piece together the whole story. Pain is an alarm system in the body – meant to alert us that something’s not right. I want to know what’s not right. What’s actually causing the pain? Usually, it’s a mechanical or structural problem that is only masked by traditional treatments.”

The traditional treatments for back pain aren’t necessarily helping people get better. Even worse, the tendency toward treating it with narcotics has fueled the opioid epidemic.

Back pain is an old problem in need of a new solution.

That’s why Dr. Lee and Dr. Edwards began working together a few years ago. An alliance between a chiropractor and a neurosurgeon is far from the norm. Traditionally, medical doctors and chiropractors haven’t seen eye-to-eye -- in fact, they have vastly different approaches to spine care. But Dr. Lee and Dr. Edwards believe that’s a strength, and have embraced those differences as a way to offer more options and better outcomes to their patients. Working together, they’ve created a system that gets to the root cause of the problem, and enlists the help of other specialists where needed. The bottom line? Their patients get better. 

And that’s what happened to Emy. As the “quarterback” of Emy’s case, Dr. Lee began with a comprehensive patient history. When he was finished with the appropriate imaging and workups, he pulled Dr. Edwards back in. In Emy’s case, he also consulted with Dr. Richard Jackson II, a neuroradiologist. Together the three of them discovered the root cause of Emy’s problem. She had “Bertolotti’s Syndrome,” a congenital condition of the lower vertebrae, which Emy was unaware of because it never caused her pain -- until the car accident severely irritated it. 

So on July 30th, 2019 – just over a year after the accident – Dr. Edwards performed surgery on Emy’s back.  

24 days later, when she was interviewed for this post, she said, “I feel amazing! I know that sounds crazy when I just had surgery 3 ½ weeks ago. But honestly, for the first time in months, I don’t have any pain. I have my life back.”

Dr. Edwards is quick to point out that, historically, patients in Utah Valley have relied on many good clinics and practitioners, but have not been able to go to a single comprehensive treatment center – until now. 

Right next to Dr. Edwards' office at Summit Brain & Spine, is the Vista Spine & Injury clinic at Mountain Point Hospital in Lehi. Dr. Edwards and Dr. Lee work side-by-side there to give people a superior brand of treatment. “Think of us as the quarterback on a team of spinal health professionals,” Dr. Edwards explains. “Working with a patient’s primary care physician, we pull in the right sub-specialty doctors to treat the root cause of the problem. The kind of care that Emy received is available at our clinic because we have more options than a single-specialty clinic.” 

Emy is grateful for the forward-thinking, collaborating efforts of Dr. Edwards and Dr. Lee. She is walking a couple of miles each day now, and can’t wait to start running again.