For 80-year-old West Portsmouth resident Linda Moore, 38 years in a school kitchen doing a lot of heavy lifting and moving objects like 50-pound slabs of butter to where they’re needed took its toll. 

The work, she said, contributed to leg pain that developed over time that was initially treated with 10 epidurals over a four-year period. By the tenth one, however, their effectiveness began to wane. 

Linda then met with a Columbus-area physician who told her she was experiencing calcium deposit buildup in her spine from the large number of epidurals. She had surgery on her back that involved metal rods and screws to remove the calcium buildup. 

More time passed and the back pain returned, so she asked her primary care physician where she lives what she could do to ease the pain. She was given a referral to Adena Orthopedic and Spine Institute. 

There, she met with Xiaogang Jiang, MD, who evaluated her condition and administered two nerve block shots and had her undergo ablation therapy within the last year. Since then, she said her back pain has become a thing of the past and she has regained the quality of life she so badly waited so long to return to.  

Linda said everyone she encountered at Adena was very kind and easy to understand. She was so pleased with Dr. Jiang, in fact, that she recommended him to a good friend who also found relief from her pain thanks to his efforts. 

That’s important, because nobody should have to live with pain unnecessarily.