A car accident 40 years ago left Joyce Graham with a lifelong battle with pain.

More back surgeries led to more plates, rods and screws until she contracted spinal meningitis 11 years ago. At that point, doctors discovered she had a blood disorder preventing any further surgeries. As the nerve damage continued to debilitate her, she was put on 60 milligrams of morphine twice a day. The spinal meningitis also left Graham with a Parkinson’s-like tremor in her right arm. She was handicapped from even the simplest tasks. 

“My tremor just took my life away,” Graham said. “I’m a very artistic person, I made my kids clothes, I sewed 4,000 pearls on a wedding gown ... and with the tremor you can’t curl your hair, you can’t put lipstick on straight, you can’t do anything ... it changed my life completely.”

Graham’s 11 grandchildren continued to pray that God would send help. In June, those prayers were answered.

The 68-year-old Wheaton resident was referred to Dr. Ahmed Elborno, medical director of Adventist Hinsdale Hospital’s pain management center. Elborno manages patients’ chronic pain with a spinal cord stimulator device. The device sends mild electric shocks to interrupt the spinal cord’s pain signal to the brain, causing a mild tingling sensation.

The outpatient procedure begins with a trial before the permanent stimulator is implanted. Graham first had the procedure performed on her lower body in March and said it helped greatly reduce her pain. When it came to do the trial for her upper body in May, Graham said her arm flopped on the table like a seal. Elborno had never done the procedure on a patient with a tremor. He had no idea if it would have any impact on the shaking.

When the stimulator was turned on, the shaking stopped. When they turned it off, it returned. A new discovery was made.

“The nurses and I just had a good bawl, and he put my permanent one in two weeks later, and I haven’t had a tremor since,” Graham said.

Now Graham is back to her old form, making bows and wreaths and carrying things in her hands. She is down to 15 milligrams of morphine and hopes to be off the drugs within the next two months.  

Elborno, who has been implanting spinal cord stimulator devices since 2000, said since his experience with Graham he has tried the procedure with more than five other patients who suffer from various tremors. He has eliminated tremors completely in nearly every patient.

“To me this could be a cure rather than just a treatment because it will change the thinking from previously,” he said. “From 1817 until now, Parkinson’s was believed to be treated through the brain and not through the spinal cord.”

Elborno said this opens up a whole new level of thinking, and he has already received calls from across the world. He plans to seek approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use the stimulator device to treat patients with tremors. A series of clinical trials likely will follow.

Elborno said this discovery also has channeled many other improvements in his patients, including sensitivity to light, flexibility and cloudiness of their thinking.More back surgeries led to more plates, rods and screws until she contracted spinal meningitis 11 years ago.