Back At It: Cathy Baker’s Grateful Patient Story
June 8, 2026
Cathy Baker had been dealing with back issues for 20 years. She knew she had a degenerative disk and some arthritis, and seeing a chiropractor on a regular basis had given her some relief for the most part. But this flare-up was different.
“I woke up one morning, and I couldn’t walk,” she recalled. “I think it took me 10 minutes to get to the kitchen. Every step was just intense pain.”
Baker went to see her chiropractor the next day, but the adjustment didn’t help. Neither did icing it or another adjustment. And since her chiropractor recommended against over-the-counter pain medication, she did her best to manage without. That included sleeping in a chair for 10 days because lying down was just too painful.
After one final chiropractic treatment (that featured an uncomfortable popping sound she’d never heard before), she made an appointment to see her primary care provider, Dr. Lynsie Bane, at Diley Ridge Medical Center. She needed a wheelchair to get to the office.
After imploring her to rest and not return to the chiropractor, Dr. Bane prescribed a muscle relaxer, some pain medication, and an MRI. When she went for the MRI, though, Baker couldn’t lie comfortably on the table, so she completed a CT scan instead.
“They said my back was a hot mess,” she joked.
That’s when Dr. Bane referred her to Mount Carmel pain management specialist Dr. Danamarie Aminian, an anesthesiologist who’s part of the Mount Carmel Spine Program. Dr. Aminian could tell right away that the bulging disk in Baker’s back was compressing a nerve that was triggering the pain, the numbness between her hip and knee, and her inability to sleep, stand, or walk.
After another too-painful attempt at an MRI and a reminder not to go back to the chiropractor, Dr. Aminian used her CT scan to direct a pinpoint injection to calm the nerve. Baker went home with a precise medication chart and the hopeful expectation that her pain would begin to subside.
Slowly, it did. In five days, she was standing and walking again. Two days later, she was pain-free. It seemed like a miracle.
Baker felt “100 percent back to normal” when she returned to Dr. Aminian’s office six weeks later for a follow-up. She’d followed the doctor’s strict instructions to ease back into normal activities and avoid any lifting, and it had worked.
“I still have some bulging in my back, but I don’t want to have back surgery,” she said. “So I ice it a few times a day, and that keeps it under control. The nerve pain, though, is gone.”
“I’m back to helping around the house again,” she added, “but I take things slow. If I feel a twinge, I stop. I’m just more careful now.”
And grateful.
“Every day I thank God,” Baker said. “I’m just happy to be back to moving normally again. I lost nine weeks of my life around the holidays – time I could have spent with my husband, my daughter, our granddaughter, and my friends. Now it feels like I can do almost anything. And it’s thanks to Dr. Bane, Dr. Aminian – she’s a rock star, by the way – and all the great people that helped me. They gave me my life back.”