Retired Lieutenant Joseph Brady of the Pinellas County Sheriff Office is all too familiar with trauma, having experienced debilitating pain after a number of injuries at his job. “In my first accident, I was working at the Sheriff’s Office when my car was hit as I pulled onto the road,” Brady explained. “But when I was investigating a domestic dispute late one night, I helped a woman outside and I ended up falling through some stairs that gave-way. I went down—the pain was like a knife stabbing in the back.”

At the time of those accidents, Brady had suffered ruptured discs that bulged because they were so swollen. “I knew it was bad,” Brady said. “But I still had to get up and brush off like nothing happened. I just had to ignore the pain to do my job.” For Brady, ignoring the pain was a grueling task.

“The day after that accident, I couldn’t even move. But I didn’t want to resort to surgery because I had to get back to work.” Then Brady noticed that the pain was aggravated every few months and he would have to take up to six weeks off of work. He opted for a less-active job that would ease the pain he suffered in his prior position. “I had to switch to doing office work and even that didn’t help.”

Brady had a laminectomy to alleviate the pressure and pain, and to increase blood flow to his spine. By the time he went back to work, he was still in pain but he admits, “It certainly was an improvement.” However, an improvement to Brady just meant that he could get-up and move. “My life revolved around my pain. I had to plan every day around it. I couldn’t brush my teeth without my back locking-up.”

Even after another surgery, the pain was still getting worse. “I had to relearn how to do everyday things but I still couldn’t be out of the house for more than an hour or so. All I could think about was getting back to work.” At the time, disability wasn’t an option for Brady, so he hoped to finish his career and retire. The pain was on-and-off for 11 years, when Brady retired from his job as a lieutenant in 2006.

“After everything I went through, my doctor referred me to Dr Charles Friedman at Pain Relief Centers. Dr Friedman didn’t waste any time!” He responded to Brady’s pain with a combination of radiofrequency therapy and nerve blocking shots. Dr Friedman adds, “In cases like this where the patient experiences such severe trauma incidents, one right after the other, it is important to take action immediately. The sooner the better!”

“My doctor really understood how the pain affected me,” Brady says. “He showed me little things, like how to sit differently in a chair and how to turn my body so it wouldn’t send pain shooting down my back. My quality of life improve dramatically after that.”

Luckily, Joseph Brady left his most painful days behind him. “Just last week, I visited my grandson in the Dominican! It’s amazing how a few visits to the doctor brought so much joy back into my life.”

[Source: Pain Relief Centers. Additional resources gathered from: The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health]