Dr. Norton is a consummate professional. Around May 2019, I woke up one morning with a medium degree of sciatica in my leg left, with the pain originating in my lower left back. I still cannot pinpoint exactly where or how I hurt it, whether it was in the gym, helping a friend move, developing a habit of constantly crossing my legs at my desk, or something else. Regardless, the pain just continued to get worse and worse. As I knew, despite however significant the issue in my back was (I had no idea at the time), that surgery was a last resort for me, I sought alternative methods to alleviate the pain and rectify the issue. Some of the methods I used include: constantly applying ointment (such as an icy hot roller) to my back to ease the muscle tension, chiropractic care, percussion gun therapy on myself, deep tissue massages, and extended use on an inversion table. All of these methods helped, but they were all band-aids: temporary solutions to a seemingly permanent problem, and many of them resolved the pain for no more than an hour, sometimes less.
Considering how young I am, only 30 years of age, as well as how active I’ve been over the course of my life, I felt I could weather the storm without the use of surgery. I was wrong. Knowing how much of my life I still had to live, the time had come to take extreme action before this ailment overtook my entire life. I found Dr. Norton via a Google search and read reviews raving of his qualifications and also patient success after surgery. It was a no-brainer. After receiving an MRI on my lumbar spine and determining that I had a herniated disk on my L5-S1, I decided to go through with surgery. On September 23, 2020, Dr. Norton performed a lumbar microdiscectomy on my herniated disk.
The thing that really stands out to me about the surgery itself was that I did not feel the need to use any painkillers whatsoever post-surgery for my incision. That spoke volumes to me about how much care Dr. Norton and the staff placed on my body that day. More importantly, after a short time of recovery (for those who undergo this procedure, the most effective way to recover is to WALK as much as possible), I was back to performing activities I was physically unable to perform a year prior, such as weight-lifting, walking long distances, and even standing in one spot for more than 30 seconds (yes, the sciatica was that bad). I went from a pain level of 10.5 to 1 in a matter of less than two months after surgery, and Dr. Norton and his staff was with me every step of the way.
At 30 years old, I thought my life was over. I never use overly literal phrases like this impulsively, but I can confidently say that Dr. Norton saved my life. Thank you Dr. Norton, and God bless you.