Patient Stories

Background

Andel is a fifth-grade teacher. Her pain came on gradually, and when she finally went to the doctor, it took about a year and a half to be diagnosed: the cause of her pain was the SI joint. They considered other sources first, including the hip and back, but she wasn’t getting any relief.

When she got an SI joint injection [to see if the SI joint was the cause], she said it “changed her life, at that moment. Relief was incredible.” She was referred to an iFuse surgeon, who, with a second injection, confirmed that the source of pain was the SI joint. Then came her battle with insurance that lasted three years, but she finally got approval for SI joint fusion with iFuse. “Two and a half months later, I was out hiking, back to being me, back to being fun,” she said. One of the first things she did was go to the movie theater and actually watch a whole movie, because she could sit in the seats without pain.

Andel’s advice for others: “If you’re in that kind of pain, and you know that you can come out of it and not be in that kind of pain, there’s no reason to say no to [iFuse].” She recommends finding a doctor who specializes in the SI joint who will ask the right questions to help reach the right diagnosis.

This is one patient’s experience, results may vary.