Show 1071: How You Can Get Relief from Chronic Pain

Spine surgeon David Hanscom does some of the most complicated surgery you can imagine on bad backs. But his patients get even more benefit from chronic pain by employing the nonsurgical techniques he offers them in preparation for surgery. Sometimes they feel so much better they don't even need to go under the knife.

How Can You Alleviate Chronic Pain Without Surgery?

Learn how a skeptical patient whose years of crushing back pain started with a bad fall from horseback reluctantly put Dr. Hanscom's expressive writing advice into practice. What happened next was astonishing. The principles Dr. Hanscom uses in his practice apply not only to back pain, although that is his specialty, but to any form of chronic pain.

This Week's Guests:

David Hanscom, MD, is a board certified orthopedic surgeon specializing in complex spine problems in all areas of the spine. He has expertise in adult and pediatric spinal deformities such as scoliosis and kyphosis. A significant part of his practice is devoted to performing surgery on patients who have had multiple prior spine surgeries. He works for Swedish Neuroscience Specialists in Seattle, WA. The photo is of Dr. Hanscom.

Though he believes that surgery and medication have a role, he knows that these standard courses of treatment aren't what's needed to treat chronic pain. Instead he provides the framework so the patient can find his or her solution allowing them to live free of pain. His book is Back in Control: A Surgeon's Roadmap Out of Chronic Pain, 2nd edition.

His website is http://www.backincontrol.com/ Facebook Amazon link

Mark Owens, MEd, worked for more than two decades as a wildlife scientist in some of the most remote parts of Africa. He survived a plane crash, charging lions, leopards, elephants and Cape buffalos, as well as ivory poachers who tried to kill him . In 2006, after he had returned to the USA, being thrown from a horse broke his back and crushed his chest. He suffered excruciating chronic pain for the next nine years. Then Mark met Dr. David Hanscom who offered him an alternative to yet another spinal surgery. His experience is detailed in the foreword to Back in Control.