“You feel safe in their hands”
Dora Aguilar sits down and immediately pulls out a stack of business cards for Dr. Seth MacMahon and Dr. Robert Norton from her bag.
“I take them everywhere I go,” she explains. “I’ve even interrupted people’s dinners when I hear them talking about back pain just to share my experience and offer a card.”
For the last 10 years, Aguilar, 63. has trusted Florida Spine Associates to treat the pain in her neck and spine. She first began visiting the practice for injections and medication to relieve back pain that consumed her life.
“I couldn’t lift things. I couldn’t do things around the house,” she said.
Dr. MacMahon, an Interventional Pain Management physician, realized there was more going on than just normal aches. The pain was caused by the ligaments at the top of her spine, a section called the cervical spine. He immediately consulted with Dr. Norton, an orthopaedic spine surgeon and founding partner of Florida Spine Associates, to decide the best course of action that would fix the problem.
“Dr. MacMahon and Dr. Norton are the type of doctors that you trust,” Aguilar said. “They’re the type of doctors that care. When you have a question, they really answer it, and you feel safe.”
Together, they determined that a surgery was the best way to give Aguilar a better quality of life. Almost immediately, Aguilar received the relief she so desperately needed.
“It’s like I don’t have it. I don’t have pain,” she said. “They did an amazing job. That’s why I keep coming here.”
The next few years consisted of visits to monitor her progress and to address other issues that had been uncovered, including pain caused by a bone in her lower spine. With each new condition, Dr. Norton and Dr. MacMahon set out to create an individualized care plan that combined nonsurgical and surgical treatments. Each time, Aguilar was astonished at how quickly she resumed her daily activities.
“I had surgery about four months ago, and everything is amazing. I’m already doing more than I was doing before, so I think it’s a blessing,” she said. “When I opened my eyes after anesthesia, I was ready to run, ready to do stuff!”
Aguilar says she trusted their assessments implicitly. “Every time I have had a surgery, I tell them, ‘I’m in your hands. I trust you,’” she said.
Now, she insists that her family and friends only see physicians associated with Florida Spine Associates. In fact, Aguilar has been trying to convince her cousin, who lives in Miami, to come into Florida Spine Associates.
“She has had like seven back surgeries, and none of them have worked,” she said. “So I tell her, ‘You should go to them. I know they can fix you, because that’s how much I trust them with anything.”For relief from chronic back pain, book an appointment with Florida Spine Associates.