Bruce Springsteen famously sang, “You can’t start a fire without a spark.” For Freehold resident Mary Beth Wilson, that spark came in the form of emergency hernia surgery. Mary Beth, 52, an avid Springsteen fan, had been overweight for most of her life. She had struggled for years to [...]
A few years ago, Walter “Bud” Burch’s wife, Kathy, found him on the kitchen floor writhing in pain. He had to be carried to their truck before being driven to the emergency department. Suffering from a chronic condition called trigeminal neuralgia, Bud lived with this kind of intense pain [...]
Edward Stoner, MD, a board-certified internal medicine physician on staff at CentraState, has considered team sports as his “gym” for most of his life. A self-proclaimed aging athlete, his interests have ranged from high school football to tennis, golf, and racquetball. But over the past decade, he’s found a [...]
Alan Schultz had dealt with pain in his left knee for nearly a decade. More recently, however, his throbbing knee was waking him up like clockwork every night at 3 a.m., and he had trouble walking up stairs. At that point, the 65-year-old retiree knew it was time to [...]
Last Christmas day, Scott Fischer felt bloated and uncomfortable. The 47-year-old Manalapan resident and comic book store owner thought he had food poisoning, but the symptoms persisted and he went to the Emergency Department at CentraState a few days later. When a CT scan revealed that his appendix had [...]
When Gail Olin of Laurence Harbor began experiencing occasional pain in her upper side, she was bothered but not overly concerned. As a transporter who drives nursing home residents to appointments, Gail, 77, frequently helps patients in and out of the bus, so she assumed she had pulled a [...]
The most important aspect of surgery isn’t what’s new, but what’s best for the patient, particularly when it comes to joint replacement surgery. While robotic techniques are emerging, research and experience has shown that minimally invasive surgery delivers the same or better outcomes at a lower cost. For example, [...]
Cathy Larson is nearly half the woman she used to be. Three years ago, she was severely overweight, suffering from terrible acid reflux and high blood pressure. She also was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which, combined with excessive weight, caused debilitating joint pain. Cathy, 57, had tried nearly every [...]
Sunny summer weather means more time enjoying outdoor sports like tennis and golf. The repetitive motions these sports require, however, can make a day on the court or links a painful one. Stacey Gallacher, MD, a board-certified, fellowship-trained orthopedic surgeon on staff at CentraState Medical Center, offers the following [...]
Roger Domis is a man on the move. As the patriarch of a blended family of six adult children and 11 grandchildren, he and his wife Patricia spend many afternoons at football, baseball, and soccer games and dance recitals. So, when Roger developed yet another severe kidney infection, he [...]
