Client Spotlight – Betty Haas

In 2008, I heard about Pain Free Performance which was started by Susy Russell and Cindy Meyers, who I knew were in Physical Therapy. I had been to numerous spine specialists and to numerous alternative medicine practioners. The medications that were prescribed helped to a degree, but none had been bale to make me free of my severe sciatic pain or my very severe pain caused by Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) also referred to as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). In effect, my caregivers were telling me that I would have to learn to manage and/or “live with” the pain. For me, managing the pain meant planning each day’s activities carefully, so that I would not end up bed for a day or two — literally writhing in pain. I decided to the Egoscue method a try. Each day, I faithfully do the ecises that Susy prescribes me; and I AM MORE THAN THRILLED WITH THE RESULTS. Before Egoscue, I would have to leave UVA football games at half-time because of unbearable sciatic and or RSD pain. Not anymore! For the past two years I have been able to stay and enjoy the games with minimal discomfort. At basketball games, because of the narrow space between the rows at the JPJ Arena, my pain would start up and my foot would swell since I could not stretch my leg out to a comfortable length. I wouldn’t leave the game early, but by the time I go home I was a wreck and my next day would be spent in severe pain. Because Egoscue has helped me get my pain under control, that is all changed. I can once again enjoy the basketball games. I still can’t stretch out my left leg, but the pain does’nt overwhelm me and I’m fine the next day. In fact, I still have some level of pain each day – but it is bearable. I have very few “down days” and I can’t remember when I last spent a day in bed because of pain. Not to be trite, but, Egoscue and Susy have given me “a new lease on life.”