Ron’s Story

His heart surgeon said he might never walk again.

Ron is a decorated veteran who spent 22.5 years in the Army, serving from Vietnam through Operation Desert Storm. He says he’s been on enough 50-mile road marches that not walking again was simply not an option. Even after knee surgery almost 40 years ago, he was back on duty the next day, running two miles.

Ron’s neuropathy began after a triple bypass heart surgery in 2017. To prepare, doctors harvested veins from his legs that would be used to create a bypass around the blocked sections of his coronary arteries. Ron thinks that the harvesting may have resulted in his peripheral neuropathy. It was either that or the mini-stroke he had after heart surgery while still in the hospital.

​He left the hospital in a wheelchair, completely numb from his knees to the bottoms of his feet. Outpatient physical therapy helped him walk again, but it didn’t fix the ongoing numbness he felt from the knees down, which made it difficult to balance, take the stairs, or go for his daily walk. The numbness in his legs slowly improved.

A neurologist performed tests on his feet and legs and noted some neuropathy. Ron was referred to a vein specialist, who performed corrective vein surgery and referred Ron to RealWave®  saying he believed it could help. However, the neurologist was less optimistic.

​Ron says the RealWave®  medical staff knows exactly what they are doing. After his first ultrasound treatment, he felt tingling sensations in his left foot. He describes it as the feeling you get when you have hit your funny bone, and it wakes up. His left shin, which had been numb since that knee surgery so many years ago, also woke up; he describes this as a nice side effect of treatment.

After about 25 appointments and significant progress, Ron now goes for an ultrasound treatment once every two weeks.

Ron recently saw a podiatrist at the Veterans Administration Medical Center for his annual appointment who tested the sensation in his feet. Ron’s right foot measured a 10 out of 10, while the sensation in the left foot was an 8 out of 10. When Ron asked about scheduling the next appointment, he was told that he didn’t need one and was good to go.

​Ron and his wife, Nancy, have been married 51 years and have two sons and six grandchildren. He feels fortunate that he can take the stairs again, do yard walk, play basketball, take a walk, and keep up with his grandchildren. Ron says that RealWave®  treatments have made a world of difference.