Pippa is young athlete who developed excruciating pain while running. The pain was so intense she had to quit the sport she loved. She saw dozens of doctors and endured countless tests and scans but no one could understand or treat her pain. Her dad found videos on YouTube about other young athletes treated by Dr. Tim Tollestrup, a pain-focused peripheral nerve surgeon. Pippa traveled across the county to see Dr. Tollestrup who performed a simple procedure that eliminated her pain.
“My name is Pippa. I’m 16 years old and I’m a senior in high school. I enjoy running both track and cross-country. When I was running towards the end of my freshman year, I developed a pain in my side. It was a sharp pain on the right side, just a few inches away from my belly button and it worsened as I continued running. I tried over-the-counter painkillers like ibuprofen and Tylenol, but none of them gave me relief. The only thing that worked was if I stopped running, which was very annoying when I was trying to practice.
I saw a total of 12 doctors, had three MRIs, two CT scans, numerous blocks and three steroid injections. Each doctor diagnosed me with something different. First it was a stress fracture then it was hip dysplasia and an ovarian cyst but all those were wrong with many painful and expensive tests.
I was beginning to lose hope when my dad showed me one of Dr. Tollestrup‘s videos. The symptoms of the person in the video were very close to my symptoms just in a different place. My dad and I decided to fly out and meet with Dr. Tollestrup in Nevada even though we lived in Florida. During our meeting with him, I immediately noticed a difference between him and the other doctors. He was not confused by my symptoms. He even explained to me what he thought the problem was.”
Tim Tollestrup MD/Pain-Focused Peripheral Nerve Surgeon
“The fact that she had seen all these other doctors and undergone all the imaging studies and had a million work up and nothing had come up just means that it is most likely a peripheral nerve problem of some sort. Based on her description, it was clear that this is very likely to be an entrapment of one of the small anterior cutaneous nerves in the abdomen.
We gave her a diagnostic block in that area and that temporarily eliminated her pain. Based on the success of the diagnostic block, it was straightforward to just take her to the operating room, make a small incision directly over the area of tenderness and then carefully dissect down and find the nerve that was the problem and then address it.”
Pippa
“It was a very short procedure with little recovery time. A month later I was able to go back to running short distances with only minor pain. But as I built up my endurance, the pain lessoned and lessoned until one day it was completely gone. Thanks to Dr. Tollestrup’s videos like this one, I was able to get back to doing what I love pain-free. He was calm and very understanding of my situation. For the first time I felt as if someone finally understood what was going on.
If you’re having symptoms similar to mine, I greatly encourage you to contact Dr. Tollestrup. Maybe he can help you just as much as he’s helped me.”
Dr. Tim Tollestrup MD Website https://nevadanervesurgery.org/
Dr. Tim Tollestrup MD Facebook https://www.facebook.com/timtollestrupmd