CANMORE – Keri Davis has been living with debilitating pain for far too long.
The 59-year-old, who has lived in Canmore for about 40 years, has experienced significant injuries to the alar ligaments in her neck over the years, which have caused upper cervical spine instability (CCI), and in a nutshell, means Davis’ neck can no longer support her head.
The treatment she needs is not available in Canada, but there is now hope with a new procedure that has been developed in the United States. Without this treatment, Davis’ quality of life is quickly deteriorating into endless days of agonizing pain and neurological problems.
For Davis, who was very reluctant to go public with a GoFundMe account and had to be persuaded to do so by friends, said she hopes that knowledge of her journey helps educate others on potential treatments out there.
“Everything about my life as I knew it has changed, but I’m not a person that lays down very easily,” she said.
The GoFundMe campaign started last week and aims to raise $45,000 for Davis to go to the Centeno-Schultz Clinic, a regenerative medicine and non-surgical pain management centre, in Colorado specializing in CCI.
A poorly understood medical condition in which the strong ligaments that hold the head to the upper neck are loose or lax, CCI is often missed or misdiagnosed by medical providers, who in turn treat the symptom, often by way of medication, rather than getting to the root cause.
However, in 2015, a non-surgical treatment option for CCI called Percutaneous Implantation of Cervical Ligaments was developed at the Centeo-Schulz clinic, which involves injection of a patient’s own bone marrow concentrate which contains stem cells into the damaged alar and transverse ligaments.
The demanding procedure, though, comes with a high price tag and is not covered by Alberta Health or any health insurance plan in Canada. So far, just over $7,515 of the $45,000 GoFundMe goal has been reached to help get Davis, who is self-employed with limited savings, on her way.
“Keri is now faced with a debilitating condition which has brought her life to a near standstill,” state friends Claire Honeyman and Steve Mowvley in their GoFundMe post.
“What’s more, it is a degenerative condition, meaning that if left untreated, the older Keri gets, the worse her symptoms and their effects will become until she is resigned to a life of pain and dependent living.”
According to the Centeo-Schulz clinic’s website, treatment of CCI is challenging and not having an accurate diagnosis can make it even more challenging.
“A lack of diagnosis can send patients on a many-year journey looking for assistance,” reads the clinic’s website.
Davis said her path through the Canadian health-care system hasn’t been an easy one, but Maureen Mooney, a physiotherapist at Calgary’s BodyCheck Prevention & Health Physical Therapy Centre, has helped lead her down this path of new treatment in the U.S.
“I’m not a pill-popper and I realized this isn’t getting better unless I get something more stable,” said Davis.
“I was walking around for a long time, going ‘why do I always struggle with migraines and other things’, but what got my attention is when I started getting neurological stuff in my limbs all up my back and in my neck and in my face. That’s when I thought, ‘what the hell is going on’?”
According to the Centeo-Schulz Clinic, the six most common symptoms are headaches, brain fog, rapid heart rate, neck pain and visual problems – along with a painful, heavy head, which is described as feeling like the head is too heavy for the neck to support, and characterized by patients as a “bobble-neck”.
For Davis, the instability has caused movement and damage to the upper cervical joints, disc nerves and blood vessels in her neck, and in turn, this has caused intense body pain, migraines, visual and sensory problems, balance, digestion and even heart rate issues.
In addition, she said her muscles and tendons have been working overtime to stabilize her upper neck, creating further injury.
“I’ve got a lot of central nervous system stuff happening in my body… it’s from my head not being attached properly,” Davis said.
Davis’ life has changed dramatically with her progressing deteriorating health.
Headstrong, good-humoured and with a fun-loving sense of adventure, this is a woman who, in her younger years, jumped from planes, hitchhiked through remote areas of Mexico, and drove days to New Orleans to rescue dogs and cats displaced during Hurricane Katrina.
More recently, Bow Valley residents will likely recognize her from all of the volunteer work she did at the Bow Valley SPCA as well as devoting much time and energy brightening the days of local elderly, helping them with shopping and chauffeuring them to medical appointments.
“I can’t really do many things anymore, because I pay for it afterwards,” said Davis.
The GoFundMe page can be found here: www.gofundme.com/f/heads-up-for-keris-cause.
