George was a 78 year-old businessman who acted and looked about half his age. He was pleasant and talked freely about his LBP and pain down the side of his left leg, which had been a problem for about six months. It was consistently more severe with standing and walking, … Read More
A person’s stress level has a marked effect on both your central and peripheral nervous systems. The central nervous system (CNS) consists of your brain and spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system (PNS) includes all other nervous system tissue—the nerves exiting your spinal cord, all sensory receptors, and sensory and … Read More
Jean was a 48 year-old woman who came to me from a neighboring state for a second opinion. She filled out an extensive spine pain questionnaire, which included many questions about her quality of life, in addition to a history and diagram of the pain. She was a healthy physically active … Read More
There is deep basic science and clinical research that documents effective treatments for chronic mental and physical disease. Most of it has not entered into clinical care and our burden of chronic disease continues to grow. In fact, much of what is being done is not only risky, based on … Read More
This letter was sent to me by a woman that I have corresponded with a few times but I have never met or worked with. One of most powerful aspects of the DOC process is that is simply a structure that presents well-established documented treatments. Once a person understands the … Read More
Mike is a local physical therapist who is a friend of mine. He has been interested in the DOC project and, like me, has struggled with severe chronic pain. I have been helping him work through different strategies to pull out of it and he is slowly coming out of … Read More
My surgical decision-making dramatically changed over the last five years of my practice. In spite of watching so many successes of people healing from chronic pain without surgery, I still had a surgical mindset and was always looking for a surgical lesion that I could “fix”. In the first edition … Read More
A friend of mine asked me for an opinion a couple of years ago about his back. I was giving him advice as a friend, not as a surgeon. He was having some pain and numbness down the side of his leg. It was down the distribution of his 5th … Read More