Heather Kashman: UNH Hockey Player


 

Heather Kashman fell in love with hockey at the age of two and grew up skating in Canada. During her senior year of college, she suffered an acute back injury while weight training for her position as center for the University of New Hampshire hockey team. Heather went to doctor after doctor who gave her strong painkillers and told her to just give it time. She was in so much pain that she couldn’t sit for more than 20 minutes to study, and even getting dressed was a struggle. Heather recalls, “I couldn’t cough without being in pain. I couldn’t shower. My whole life was in shambles because of this, and having doctors tell me there was nothing they could do was heartbreaking.”

When her determination to find a solution led her to Dr. Ashton Stanton, a physiatrist at the Center for Orthopedics & Movement, she nearly cried in relief when he told her he could help. Dr. Stanton performed a series of steroid injections on Heather and got her back on the ice and on track to finish her hockey career at UNH. She now runs, weight trains, and is not at all limited in her active lifestyle. “I am so thankful that I found Dr. Stanton,” Heather said. “I thought I was going to have chronic back pain for the rest of my life. Dr. Stanton not only got me healthy.


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