Jack has been living with piriformis syndrome pain for three years, and he is sharing his story before it has a clean ending — because he knows that most of the people searching for answers right now are still in the middle of their own story too. His pain started after a demanding hike in the Grand Canyon and compounded through a series of sports injuries. What began as an annoyance in his right lower back, glute, and piriformis area gradually became something he could no longer push through or explain. He tried chiropractic care that made things worse. He completed every exercise his physical therapist assigned him and still did not improve. He questioned himself constantly — wondering if he was doing the exercises wrong, doing them enough, not being diligent enough — when in reality he was doing everything right. Nobody had identified the actual source of his pain yet. Watch his full story below.
Jack Kaufman has been living with piriformis syndrome pain for three years, and he is sharing his story before it has a clean ending — because he knows that most of the people searching for answers right now are still in the middle of their own story too. His pain started after a demanding hike in the Grand Canyon and compounded through a series of sports injuries. What began as an annoyance in his right lower back, glute, and piriformis area gradually became something he could no longer push through or explain. He tried chiropractic care that made things worse. He completed every exercise his physical therapist assigned him and still did not improve. He questioned himself constantly — wondering if he was doing the exercises wrong, doing them enough, not being diligent enough — when in reality he was doing everything right. Nobody had identified the actual source of his pain yet. Watch his full story below.
The physical reality of living with undiagnosed piriformis syndrome:
One of the things Jack describes with particular honesty is how chronic pain changes over time in ways that are hard to explain to someone who has not lived it. The longer you carry pain, the more you adapt to it, and the harder it becomes to describe — not because it is getting better, but because you become so accustomed to the baseline of suffering that it starts to feel like normal. An MRI showed a slight bulging disc on the right side, which correlated with his pain location, and for a time that explanation seemed to account for what he was experiencing. But the treatments that followed a disc diagnosis did not provide lasting relief, and Jack kept pushing through procedures and rehabilitation that were addressing the wrong problem.
Chiropractic care was particularly counterproductive. A manual release technique performed specifically on his piriformis caused his right side to give out — making the pain worse rather than better. This is not unusual for patients with piriformis syndrome whose nerve involvement has been misidentified or whose piriformis is being manipulated rather than treated as the source of nerve-related pain. For Jack, each setback of this kind reinforced the isolating feeling that something was genuinely wrong that nobody around him was able to identify.
The mental toll of chronic pain:
Jack speaks openly about the mental health dimension of his experience, and he does so specifically because he believes other people going through the same thing need to hear it. Chronic pain does not stay in the body. It moves into your personality, your relationships, and your sense of who you are. Jack describes feeling irritable in ways that were out of character for him — a short fuse, a low threshold for frustration — and he connects those behavioral changes directly to the ongoing physical suffering. Depression became a significant part of his story. He shares it without embarrassment because he knows it is not a personal failing. It is what happens when a person spends years in pain that nobody can explain or fix, doing everything they are told to do and still not getting better, while the life they want to be living continues on without them.
This is an important and often underdiscussed dimension of conditions like piriformis syndrome. The psychological weight of chronic pain — particularly undiagnosed or undertreated nerve pain — is real, measurable, and deserves to be acknowledged alongside the physical symptoms. Jack’s willingness to name it directly is one of the most valuable things about his testimonial.
Finding Dr. Tollestrup and the path to diagnosis:
Jack eventually found Dr. Tim Tollestrup at Nevada Nerve Surgery in Henderson, Nevada. At his consultation, Dr. Tollestrup identified that Jack presented with classic signs of piriformis syndrome — a diagnosis that finally matched what Jack had been experiencing. For a patient who had spent years being treated for the wrong condition, simply having a physician name the actual problem accurately was itself significant.
Treatment began. After the piriformis was addressed, the pain that had been radiating down Jack’s leg resolved. That was a meaningful result. The pain that remained was more localized in the lower back — and while that might sound discouraging, Dr. Tollestrup stayed in close contact with Jack and explained why more localized pain actually represents a real improvement. When pain becomes more localized, it means the treatment is working at some level — the broader pattern of radiating nerve pain has been interrupted, and what remains is a more targeted area to address. Jack found that ongoing communication from Dr. Tollestrup during his recovery was itself a significant part of the experience. Having a surgeon who keeps in touch, explains what the changes mean, and recalibrates the treatment plan based on how the patient is actually doing is not something every patient finds. It mattered enormously to Jack.
Two days of feeling like himself:
About six or seven days after a subsequent procedure, something shifted. Jack had two consecutive days of complete pain relief — zero pain. For the first time in three years, he felt like himself. That experience is worth sitting with for a moment, because anyone who has lived with chronic pain for an extended period understands what it means to have a window of normalcy after years of constant suffering. It is not just physical relief. It is a reminder that the person you were before the pain is still there, and that getting back to that person may actually be possible.
Jack is still in the process of recovery. He still has some pain. He says so directly and without minimizing it — because this is not a story about a complete cure. It is a story about finding the right doctor, getting the right diagnosis, and beginning to make real progress after years of going in the wrong direction. The two days of total relief were evidence that Dr. Tollestrup had found the right approach. The work continues.
What Jack says about Dr. Tollestrup:
Jack’s endorsement of Dr. Tollestrup is straightforward and unpolished in the best possible way. He is not telling a story of miraculous overnight recovery. He is describing what it means to have a physician who has not given up on a difficult case — who is still actively looking for answers, still willing to try new approaches, still invested in the outcome even when the path forward is not simple or linear.
“He hasn’t given up on me. It’s a lifesaver honestly just knowing that I have someone that wants to try new things and is still looking into the pain.”
“I would just endorse Dr. Tollestrup. I’m sure he’s not able to help everyone, but he’s helped me a lot.”
That kind of endorsement — honest about the limitations, specific about what actually helped, grounded in the reality of an ongoing process rather than a finished outcome — is more credible than any polished success story. It reflects what working with a specialist of this caliber actually looks like for a patient with a complex presentation.
About Dr. Tim Tollestrup:
Dr. Tim Tollestrup is one of only four peripheral nerve surgeons in the United States performing pain-focused nerve surgery at this level. He specializes in conditions that are frequently missed or misdiagnosed by conventional medical evaluations — piriformis syndrome, superior cluneal neuralgia, ACNES, meralgia paresthetica, CRPS, and a range of other nerve entrapment conditions. Patients travel from across the country and internationally to his practice at Nevada Nerve Surgery in Henderson, Nevada because this surgical expertise is not available from most physicians anywhere. If your pain sounds like Jack’s — if you have been doing everything right and still not getting better — a consultation with Dr. Tollestrup may be the next step worth taking.
