How Bill overcame low back pain with the Intracept™ Procedure

As an operating room (OR) nurse at a pain management practice, Bill Morrison is used to helping patients get relief. What he is less familiar with is seeking out this pain relief for himself.

But that was the situation Morrison found himself in after his decades of chronic low back pain became too much to bear.

“Over the years, it just continuously got worse,” he says.

A long quest to find relief

Morrison’s back pain started in 1987 while he was enlisted in the U.S. Army. He had a rappelling accident during practice, which damaged his shoulders, knees, neck and back. He was eventually discharged from the Army for medical reasons and went to nursing school. As his career progressed, he dealt with increasing low back pain that forced him out of a job as an ICU nurse.

“I just couldn’t bear it anymore,” Morrison says.

Morrison was committed to finding a solution, visiting the VA, a pain clinic and a chiropractor throughout the years to relieve his pain – without any success.

“I’ve had epidural injections,” he says. “I went through numerous physical therapy regimens. I tried acupuncture.”

Once Morrison exhausted these conservative treatment options, his path to lasting relief started when he transferred jobs to an OR where Tim Deer, M.D., worked.

A new diagnosis and treatment for chronic low back pain

After examining Morrison’s MRI and noting his physical symptoms, Dr. Deer, an interventional spine physician with The Spine and Nerve Centers of the Virginias, diagnosed him with vertebrogenic low back pain. This specific condition is caused by damage to the vertebral endplates, with common symptoms including pain in the low back made worse by physical activity, sitting, bending forward or with bending and lifting.

Vertebrogenic pain also has a biomarker called Modic changes, which are visible on an MRI and occur with endplate inflammation. These inflamed endplates cause the basivertebral nerve (BVN), located inside of the endplates, to send pain signals to the brain.

Based on this diagnosis, Dr. Deer felt Morrison was a candidate for the Intracept™ Procedure, a minimally invasive, same-day procedure specifically designed to address vertebrogenic pain.

How the Intracept Procedure works

The Intracept Procedure specifically targets the BVN by directing a needle through a small incision in the body to heat the nerve with radiofrequency energy and prevent it from sending pain signals to the brain. The procedure takes approximately one hour to perform. It is clinically proven to be safe and effective¹, and to provide durable pain relief more than five years after a single treatment.²

“Intracept brought us the first evidence-based therapy for vertebrogenic pain that we could point to in an FDA-regulated study,” says Dr. Deer. “That led to us having a tool of hope for patients who, before, we would maybe have given an opioid.”

“For the first time in 19 years, I don’t hurt”

After receiving insurance approval, Morrison underwent the Intracept Procedure in June 2023.

“I woke up from the surgery feeling better than I did before I went to sleep,” he says. “The pain was almost instantly gone.”

The relief he felt not only made it easier for him to do his work, but also helped him more readily maintain his rural property in West Virginia, including mowing his fields, rewiring his chicken coops and rebuilding a four-stall barn.

“It’s kind of nice being able to do all of that and still come in and move,” Morrison says. “Before the surgery, I would usually hurt so bad if I tried to do all that with the tractor that I couldn’t walk the next day.”

For Dr. Deer, helping patients like Morrison to get durable pain relief is paramount to his role as a physician.

“When I see people like Bill – who is a nurse, a farmer and a veteran – getting back to the things he wanted to do…that’s what it’s all about. That’s why I’m here.”

Learn more about vertebrogenic pain and see if you may benefit from the procedure by connecting with an Intracept-trained physician near you.