Alere Helps ICI Employee Reduce Back Pain And Doctor Visits

Mary Skryp’s back was never the same since that fateful day when, seven months pregnant, she slipped on the ice trying to pull down the garage door of her home.
That was 14 years ago. At first, the Chicago mother of four learned to live with the pain. Juggling life as a single mom with a full-time job took all of her time and energy.

But as the pain worsened, she began seeing a physician, who tried to avoid using prescription medications. He recommended that she see a chiropractor. If that didn’t help, he said, he would consider prescribing a medication for the pain.

Mary started seeing a chiropractor, who took an X-ray that revealed a few vertebrae in her lower back had compressed. The chiropractor told her the bones were rubbing together with no cartilage in between and she needed to increase movement in the area.

Upon enrolling in the Alere Back Pain Management program about two years ago, Mary learned about the benefit of increased activity and movement in addition to chiropractic adjustments.

She learned from Alere’s nurses that she needed to exercise to get the blood flowing into the area to bring nutrients and clean out toxins that accumulate from lack of movement.

While the chiropractic adjustments helped, the relief from the pain was only temporary. But Mary never had to ask her physician to write a prescription.

“The literature Alere sent me was extremely helpful,” says Mary, a chemist for United Kingdom-based ICI, a premier chemical company.

“I started doing stretching and strengthening exercises that my chiropractor never told me about, which alleviated a lot of the pain. I also learned that stress exacerbates the problem, and it so happens that I have a stressful job.

“It was a big help talking to someone about it. Every six months, a nurse from Alere would call and ask a lot of questions that would remind me to keep doing certain things so the pain wouldn’t come back.

“Talking about my back pain with someone was very educational. I learned about all these activities I was doing that could be stress-related. Alere made me realize that I needed to spend more time taking care of myself.

“One thing I found out is that it’s hard to get that much information. You have to find it on your own. My mother was diagnosed with congestive heart failure recently, and I spent a lot of time trying to learn about her condition.

“Now she’s in a disease management program offered by her health insurance and doing much better, just like I am!”