April 22, 2025 • 30 mins
In this episode, Dr. David Hanscom continues his discussion with Sachit Ega, an avid outdoorsman, runner, and weightlifter. He talks about the physiological and psychological aspects of his pain and emphasizes what he learned about the body's ability to heal and the importance of maintaining a positive outlook. He also discusses the process he used for overcoming pain, including the role of persistence in healing, and the significance of challenging one's beliefs about pain management. Download the transcript Sachit Egan is an avid outdoorsman, runner, and weightlifter. In his early twenties, Sachit was diagnosed with spondylolisthesis and bulging discs that caused him severe low back and sciatic pain. A half-dozen doctors recommended that Sachit get immediate multi-level spinal fusion surgery, but a visit with Dr. Hanscom convinced Sachit to reconsider the surgical route. Today, Sachit resides in Seattle, WA where he and his partner enjoy backpacking, rock climbing, and cliff jumping in the beautiful Pacific Northwest outdoors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Please note that all XZBN radio and/or television shows are Copyright © REL-MAR McConnell Meda Company, Niagara, Ontario, Canada – www.rel-mar.com. For more Episodes of this show and all shows produced, broadcasted and syndicated from REL-MAR McConell Media Company and The 'X' Zone Broadcast Network and the 'X' Zone TV Channell, visit www.xzbn.net. For programming, distribution, and syndication inquiries, email programming@xzbn.net.
Please note that all XZBN radio and/or television shows are Copyright © REL-MAR McConnell Meda Company, Niagara, Ontario, Canada – www.rel-mar.com. For more Episodes of this show and all shows produced, broadcasted and syndicated from REL-MAR McConell Media Company and The 'X' Zone Broadcast Network and the 'X' Zone TV Channell, visit www.xzbn.net. For programming, distribution, and syndication inquiries, email programming@xzbn.net.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The following podcast is part of the Mind, Body, Spirit
dot fm podcast network.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello and welcome to Back in Control Radio with Doctor
David Hanscombe.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Back in
Control Radio with Doctor David Hanscomb. I'm your host, Tom Masters,
and our guest today is suched Egan. He's an avid outdoorsman, runner,
and weightlifter, and in his early twenties, he was diagnosed
with spondyli thesis and bulging discs that caused him severe
(00:44):
low back and psiatic pain. Multiple doctors recommended he get
immediate multi level spinal fusion surgery, but a visit with
doctor David Hanscomb convinced him to reconsider the surgical route. Today,
he enjoys a pain free life, and he and his
partner enjoy backpacking, rock climbing, and cliff jumping in the
(01:08):
beautiful Pacific Northwest outdoors.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Welcome, Thanks, Tom. I like to welcome such Egan back
to the podcast. I've known him since twenty thirteen. He
lives in the Bay Area. I'm sorry you live in Seattle.
I'm sorry, get that backwards. And I met him while
he lived in the b Area and he was about
twenty three years old at the time that I met him.
He's extremely active, physical, active person, hiking, you name it,
(01:34):
he does it. Wein no physical limitations at all. On
the first podcast, we talked about a about an eight
month or deal with back pain. He had five shirts
in the area you know, recommend surgery. And we finished
up that first podcast with the fact, which I've known
for long time, he simply pain free. Back pain is
simply not an issue. He has no restriction and he's
(01:55):
living his life. So such welcome back, and I just
want to spore this time now about some things you
actually did back then to heal. We talked about something
impression that you had in paradigm shifts that you had,
and what are some things that you do now to
maintain this level of activity, which is quite intense, by
the way, and so this guy does not sit around.
(02:16):
And I will mention that one thing I've observed right
from the beginning of my practice that a lot of
times the most capable people would become incredibly disabled. And
I never could figure that out until I understood the
inflammatory nature of pain. Whereas when you're frustrated, your body's
inflammatory goes up and you're as active as such, and
(02:36):
Alson can't do what you want to do. It's incredibly frustrating,
which makes the pain worse. So anyway, such we talked
about some of the paradisess you had the start of
the process, but I'm curious to get into the weeds
a little bit more where you read the book. You
worked with a little bit here here and here, but
I'm curious about some of the word detailed paradigm shifts
(02:56):
that occurred in your mind. Move forward, because this isn't
mind trickery, it's not mine ever matter And there's a
point where where I gave you permission just to lift weight.
It's something shifted that you can't really put into words.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Absolutely, I'm gonna try, and you can. You can redirect me,
you know, as you'd like. I'm gonna I'm gonna actually
share just a bit of context around this that I
haven't shared with you before. So you in the last podcast,
you described life as a miracle and healing as a miracle,
and that's a great word. I agree with it completely.
I think that sometimes life and healing and pain can
also feel like a mystery. And so when you're in
(03:35):
a state of chronic pain or you know, like like
any any struggle in life, you're in the dark. You
don't have a flashlight, you don't have a you know,
an angel or whatever guiding you, and so you're trying
to find things in the dark that you can hold onto.
And these things are often beliefs. There are beliefs about
who you are, who you are, what you're capable of,
what you're not, and what's gonna help and what's not
(03:57):
gonna help. So the parts that I kind of having
share with you are when I met you early twenties,
I had some clues about who I thought I was
coming into our encounter. Clue number one. We had an
elementary school. We had the presidential fitness tests that we
would do twice a year, I think, and for a
week we would do push ups, pull ups, sit ups,
(04:18):
things like that, and you had to meet certain standards
in order to, you know, earn the presidential award. As
I started to round out into feeling like a bit
of an athlete, I would be able to hit the
presidential level for all of the different tests except one,
and the one that I would always just fail miserably
at was we called it the V sit and reach.
You sit on your rear on the ground with your
(04:39):
legs extended outward like a V, and your feet are
about a foot apart, and you need to lean forward
and stretch and get as far as you could. And
I was woefully bad at this. I was tight. I
could never make it very far. And what are you
told as a young person, what does your teacher tell you?
It's because you're not stretching enough, right, And you hear
stories about other kids who were bad at it and
(05:00):
stretched every day, every night, and then they achieved the
presidential level. But I knew I was the worst in
the class at the v set. Okay, that's clue number one.
The second clue that I had, and I mentioned this
in the last podcast, is once I became high school
college age, and I'm lifting weights, I'm running every quarter,
I'm having a setback, I'm throwing my back out, I'm
(05:20):
losing two weeks in the gym. I'm on the floor,
my back is spasmed, I'm needing cortizone shots, I'm meeting
physical therapy. I have this very recurring. It's not once
a year, it's every quarter. Okay, So my point is,
what is this plant? And what seed is being planted.
I'm starting to suspect there's something wrong with me, right,
I can't do the v sit. I'm always injured at
(05:41):
the gym. There's something wrong with me. Then I have
the incident where my back, you know, I feel a
snap in my back at twenty two to twenty three,
and the chronic pain does not go away, It gets worse,
it doesn't respond to anything. I get the MRI, I
get the X ray, and what do they tell me?
Degenerate dis disease, spondalois thesis, her neated disks, slipped disks.
(06:01):
What's the solution? Multi level fusion? Okay, this fits with
my schema. This when I'm navigating around in the dark,
I'm thinking, huh, I've had some sort of anomaly. I
read that it was spina bifit a culta which likely
led to the you know, imbalance and eventually the discs
slipping on one side. Everything fits. It makes sense. It's
a logical narrative. Right, I'll pause here. Do you see
(06:25):
what I'm trying to get at is like this narrative
leading to surgery. It makes a lot of sense. It
carries a lot of water versus being told when I
met you. Hey man, hey dude, you need to just
kind of let go of that narrative that you believe
in and try something different that's more self focused. Does
this make sense what I'm trying to communicate.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, yeah, it's the norm. In other words, we are
pretty sull almost your brainwashed by our entire life. We're
programmed every second bike who everybody else thinks we should
be number two. The medical profession has actually brainwashed the
public that they that there's always something wrong. It causes pain,
a structural problem, and they can fix it. And when
(07:04):
they can't find it, there's EEno a turnout called mus
medically Unexplained symptoms, which is a terrible diagnosis because it means, Okay,
you have pain, we don't know the problem, will help
you manage it the best we can, but you really
have pain the rest of your life. That's what that
diagnosis says. If you look at the physiology of the body,
which you're not going to go into today, if you
look at the body in fight or flight, every symptom
(07:27):
is completely medically explained. So first of all, pain is
a stress. Then you have other life stresses, Then you
get pissed off about being in pain, which actually fires
the nervous system. More so when you're in fight or flight.
Your nerve conduction doubles your brain. It solf has inflammatory cells,
it's hypersensitive. Your stress chemicals are in high gear. You
have cortisol taken for you out of the cells. Your
(07:49):
neurotransmitters in their brain go from calming to see calling
to glutamate. Then you have these cells all over the
body called cytokines, or molecules around the body called cytokines
that really inflame your entire body. So you're not thinking clearly,
you don't feel good, your energy being drained. You have
everybody telling you this stuff. So you have your own
life stresses, You have the story that you already dive
(08:12):
in your head. Then it gets confirmed by people in authority.
I'm surprised you didn't do the surgery. You should give
yourself quite a bit. Honestly, that's the key issue when
people engage. Again, I said, don't believe the enhancing. It's
the principles of healing allow you to heal. So I
think the only obstacle to healing, by the way his willing,
(08:33):
is to engage. So what do you think was about you.
So this is my particular challenge that I put my
practice to do this for people exactly like you. This
is the story that caused my practice. It wasn't the
mandis chronic pain. It was watching people heal at the
level I just didn't know as possible, including myself. Every
time someone heals at your level, my job just drops
(08:56):
because I can never tell when it's going to happen.
I had a guy today, I talked to his starting
it happened. I can tell. It's a bit of a
different story and is so inspiring to watch healing occur
at this level. It's not very hard to do. And
one thing my patients day all the time is that
this was disturbingly simple. Is that Is that a fair statement?
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Absolutely? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
So let's go back to that story. Okay, he came
to Seattle. He started this pressure arriety, which you thought
was just ridiculous and as a big block, because I
one of my big blocks for expressive rieting. Well, how
can something this disabling respond to something so simple? It
makes no sense.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
I just before we get to the writing and meeting
you in person, I just want to talk about it
before I met you. In person. I read your book.
That was the first step of the miracle. Is I'm
about to get on on the surgeon's table in the
Bay Area. Any I could have had my pick five
or six surgeons would have done it that week. It
seems right. The first miracle was finding your book. And
I mentioned this briefly last time as well, that you know,
(09:58):
there's a lot in your book that I related to.
There's stories you told about being in Yosemite and you know,
struggling with a partner that was worried about bears. There
was things that you described that I related to. So
that was nice. But if we go back to that
narrative that's searching around in the dark, trying to follow
the logical train of the story, the narrative of my
of my life, what interrupted it in that book? It's
(10:20):
the data. It's the fact when you define what success
means for back pain and spine surgery, when you talk
about the risks, when you talk about how many complications
there are, what does it do It It destroys the narrative.
You've been telling yourself this story. You've been fed this story,
you've been believing the story, and all of a sudden
there is no end, there is no path anymore. Right,
(10:43):
You've been on the train and the bridge in front
of you has collapsed. So that was the first part
of the healing journey, was just realizing, you know what,
this this path that I've been led to it actually
this nirvana doesn't exist. Right? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yep? Yeah, No, life has adversity in every story. But again,
just struck me as it's talking to you. Is that
I mean you have you didn't have an undue amount
of stress compared to life in general, but having pain
is stressful. But also having your activities interfered with is
really stressful. And so people forget when you're under stress,
your body's whole threat physiology fires up, but your total
(11:18):
body responds and you don't feel very good. Yeah, yep,
So let's jump ahead a little bit, maybe work backwards
a little bit. So it's been over ten years since
you've been paying for you really no limitations. I'm sure
you get other stresses in life, but back pain is
not one of them. By the way, you are getting
married this summer.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Correct, that's right?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
And so what are the things that pulled like three
or four you already mentioned several key points, and he'll
pull you out of this hole, which I call the
abyss by the way, which you're a really dark hole
without a bottom, without any hope of escape. It's a
very very dark place in the sort of the norm.
So when you come so the only value in the abyss,
(12:02):
and when people look at you and me, they go, well,
what are these guys? Know? They're doing perfectly fine. But
people never saw me when I was in that hole.
They don't see you in that hole, and so it
doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
So that's one way I've given up talking to people
about pay Let's they ask me because they can't really
believe the story. And you touch in between podcasts that
the healing is so profound and deep that words don't
really do justice to it.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Hearing you reflect this and thinking about the abyss, i'll
I'll maybe offer this up. I think that part of
why we clicked as well, or I trusted you, even
though it might have been skeptical of some of the
things at first, is there was a innate kind of
sense of alignment on a few things, and one of
them I think you're kind of getting at, which is
being a results oriented individual. And you mentioned that many
(12:56):
people who end up in great pain are results oriented,
achieving people. We are used to. It doesn't need to
be immediate feedback, but we are very we crave a
consistent sort of feedback. Okay, it doesn't need to be success,
but if we're going to take on a big challenge endeavor,
we need to know on a daily, weekly, monthly basis
that progress is being made or at least you know
(13:17):
something of value is being produced. I think I have
a bit of a hunch innately that the journeys that
we need to take in life that are the most impactful,
the most meaningful, they are the types of journey where
you need to walk into the abyss, walk into the pit,
and you're not going to get immediate feedback. You're not
going to have somebody cheering you on, pattigo on the back.
(13:38):
You're not going to be pain free tomorrow. You know,
there's a personal metamorphosis that needs to happen, and it'll
happen on its own darn time. Does that make sense?
And so I think that that's part of what led
me to believing in what you were sharing.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Well, I did have a conversation with the German earlier today
who is about. He's he's the age you world I
first met you, and he's actually doing better. But he
wants to be consistent, and so get rid of that
word consistent. Just use the word persistent. You know, you
just keep plugging forward. Some days a good days, some
(14:12):
days are bad days. Sometimes the pain is worse. For
I mean, you're lucky because you haven't had the massive episodes.
But almost everybody goes in and out of this darkness.
But I don't use the word abyss anymore. I use
the word tunnel because the tunnel has an end and
there's light at the end. Abyss managers absolutely no hope
and people have a heart. Well, maybe not such a
hard time explain how dark and deep that hole really is.
(14:35):
So he started, So I know what you were sending
country about six to eight months to come out of
the thing. What were the some of things while you're
in that hole that's seemed to help you move forward?
Speaker 3 (14:46):
While I was still in the hole, Yeah, I mean
flying up the seattle to just chat with you, rereading
parts of the book. But I think, to be more specific,
now that I think about it, what actually probably helped?
And I don't know that I realized it until this
conversation we're having now. Is the gentle reminders from people
in my life, one of whom was you, one of
which was my father, My parents, and other friends who
(15:07):
reminded me that there would be a light at the
end of the tunnel. People that just refused to believe
that I would be in this much pain in my sixties,
in my seventies, in my eighties, right when I would
have those momentary lapses of faith. Right. I remember the
young woman I was dating at the time, Right. We
were getting very serious and I in tears one day.
(15:28):
I told her, you know, if we have children, am
I going to be able to pick up our child? Right?
And I remember the look that she gave me of
just sheer empathy, and she probably felt closer to me
hearing me described that. Right, But then to be reminded
from her and others it will not be permanent, right.
I think those people who weren't catastrophizing, people who weren't
making the problem worse. I think that helped more than
(15:49):
I realized. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah? I mean there's also data out of textures that
shows that there's several things. Actually, Laura inflammatory started kinds
and again to remind the audience, threat sustained threat physiology,
sustained threat chemistry is the essence of chronic mental and
physical disease. And so we know that hope and optimism
is actually intiplammatory. Human connection and community is anti inflammatory.
(16:15):
Positive vision not positive thinking, but a positive vision is antiflammatory.
But also a sense of control. So knowing the problem
and how you and solving is a big sense of control.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
And that's actually not psychological, it's actually anti inflammatory. And
the laboratory anti inflammatory is starting to kind of drop
lower in the presence of those four things.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Absolutely, And if I may, I'm forgetting the name of
the book, but we talked about it a few weeks
ago related to this. I read a book to Australian
guys I remember correctly, and they define described pain physiology,
the neuropathways and the things that are remembered from there.
This is me needing to have hope be rooted in rationality,
hopefully in science. Right. And they explained you know in
(17:06):
so many words that you can you know, the physical
stimulus that caused the initial pain may be gone. It
may have disappeared ten months ago, ten years ago, but
a person can still be in debili hitting pain. Hey,
that's crazy. The physical stimulus that cause pain is gone,
but a person still experiencing pain. Right, what does that
(17:26):
tell us that the pain pathways its own entity, separate
related to, but separate from the physical injury. That was
a source of hope for me because it told me
that the pain pathway could be worked on, it could
be dissipated, it could miraculously lit up even one day.
The fact that I knew that that was possible, I
think also helped, If that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Yeah, No, I mean, hope is actually anti inflammatory, so
you know that feeds on itselves, so unlike we talk
about the no Cemo effect where you perceive that catastrophizing
and were exactly the other dre So you know that
also feeds out cell. So we already describe the first podcast.
You just plenty of challenges in life, but your back
(18:09):
is not one of them, that's right. And it did
not require a lot of resources, so it wasn't expensive
to get better and there is no risk. And again,
as many of my patients talk about, the whole process
once they heal is sort of disturbingly simple. So let
me make a suggestion and see if you agree with this.
So there's a tipping point with everybody where it's around anger,
(18:38):
where if you're angry, by definitioning your whole nursystems fired up.
Anger is non psychological. It's a physiological state. Remember, thoughts
are input into your brain, and your emotions are your
physiology or what you feel. And anger is very heightened
through physiology. We are trapped by anything, particularly when you're
getting multiple diverse sort of opinions. You could have been
(19:01):
very great state of mind during that period of time.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah, that's right, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
And we I don't know if I was using this
book forgive for good at that point in time. Did
you read that book?
Speaker 3 (19:14):
I didn't read it. We talked about it a lot, though.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Okay, does that resonate with you, the whole frustration anger factor?
Speaker 3 (19:21):
It does? I mean, logically, when I reflect on that time,
of course, I was in a heightened state of every
negative emotion, certainly anger and anxiety. And you and I've
talked about that, you know, at length. But like having
a logical recollection of that is different from kind of
remembering into the feelings. And I think although I likely
presented to most people as still relatively balanced. I think
(19:43):
that the amount of fear, the obsession that I had
around will this be permanent? Will I be like this forever?
It caused tremendous anxiety and anger, which only served, as
we've discussed, to heighten the sense of pain and hopelessness.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
So I'm curious personally, So I know it probably can't
describe this, but something happened. I know I told you
you could go and lift weights, which seemed to be
a big tipping point. And of course, not being afraid
of your pain anymore it makes a huge difference. Fact,
that's what it's called pain. We've processing therapy. We just
(20:17):
learned not to be afraid of your pain. Then we
talked about diet, exercises, sleep and all things suits you
already had taken care of. But can you encapsulate what
shifted or maybe how it shifted during that period of time.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Absolutely, so we've said it a bunch, but we cannot
let go of the fact that for me, the tipping
point was the last medical visit in Seattle, coming to
see you with Swedish and my last desperate question for you,
if nothing else, can I deadlift? And you said yes,
you're not gonna make injury worse. And that blew my
mind because in my mind, the spondololos thesis that slippage.
(20:50):
To me, it made rational sense that bending over with
weights loaded on the spine would make that worse. And
so I keep beating this point with you, doctor Hanskin,
because I want you to know, like literally, in my
mind's eye, your statement didn't make sense to me. Of
course it's going to make it work, but I thought,
you're the doctor you're insisting. I'm going to blame you
(21:11):
if it doesn't work. I go home, right, I start,
you know, I start exercising and start lifting, and what
I remember now is one thing led to another. Right.
I have a friend who calls these things non confirming experiences.
We have schema, we have beliefs. In my case, the
schema belief is I am a damaged commodity. I'm an
(21:32):
injured person. I'm going to have chronic pain. I'm not
going to be able to function okay. But now I'm
lifting a little bit in the gym. I'm doing okay.
I'm not having spasms, I'm not getting worse. I remembered
a few friends that I decided to go for a hike.
You've alluded to the fact that since college, you know,
the outdoors have been the arena that I really most
kind of enjoy physical exploits. So we go on a
(21:54):
few hikes, a couple of trips, and I remember the
first hike we came back. My friend was living in
aar They had a pool, and we're all playing in
the pool and my two friends noticed, such, your your
your back seems out of whack. You're kind of bent
over to one side. And I didn't even I hadn't
even realized that I wasn't in pain, but I had
(22:14):
a spasm on one side of my back and I
was physically visibly, you know, bent one way. So this
was my first hike since the injury, you know, and
it wasn't perfect, okay, but it wasn't so bad that
I was, you know, out of commission for a few weeks.
And then I went on a few backpacking trips to
Yosemite with a heavy pack on multiple nights, not sleeping
on a nice bed, and I had some very kind
(22:36):
friends who would help me lift the pack up off
the ground until it was on my back, and you know,
I could I could carry it stably. But my point
is like it wasn't perfect, Like I was still compromised,
but I was not having horrific experiences where I was
out of commission for a week or for a month,
and over time having more and more of these non
confirming experiences, having these magical moments in Yosemite, in the outdoors,
(22:59):
playing a little bit of basketball, you know, hanging out
by the pool and not being in terrible pain. At
some point I woke up and I was paining free.
Does that Does that make any sense?
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah? Because one of the gain the concept that's in
my new book, my new course, the doctriney compared to
my compared to the original book, we call it the
sequence of healing. And the metaphors that are a tree
and the soil is your past, every second of your past.
And the roots are your connection to the past, and
you connect to it with awareness, connecting to everything skepticism,
(23:31):
good things, bad things, instead of trying to fix it,
whitewashed it, or deal with it, which takes energy and
gets frustrating. The drug of the carey is the confidence
to have the tools to be with the pain, not
to fight it, not to be okay with it. Not
to accept it, just being with it, because remember, is
that reaction or reactivity or fighting the pain that keeps
the nervous system fired up. So pain is one thing,
(23:54):
but it is when you get angry about being in
pain and frustrated that fire things up even more. Then
that the real healing it occurs at the top of
the tree, which is the creativity. Is that I have
a little saying that you have a good life, you
have to live good life because as you create a
new brain in the manner that you wish to live
your life, this new brain doesn't necessually have the old
(24:16):
circuits in play. They're still there, but we now know
from neuroplasticity your brain changes shape and structure every second,
every second, So even after this podcast, maybe a couple
of thoughts popped in your brain. So when your brain
changes physical structure, it's like putting a virtual desktop on
your computer. So fighting the pain actually reinforces it, and
(24:39):
creating the new life is you move away from it.
And what you just described is really the classic killing
journey is that you say, and I think I've told
you this several times in my journey, I get so
tired of fighting it, I give up, whatever happens going forward,
pain or no pain, I'm going to live by life.
(25:00):
And about two or three weeks two or three weeks later,
my pain started the left a little bit like your
weightlifting story, where okay, I'm a left wage. What's the
worst it can happen? Because it couldn't get worse than
it was, I could tell you that. So so let's
take so you're getting married in August. Yeah, and great spot.
Thank you for doing in California.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And what what are some of the We'll get about
five minutes there, just where's some of your overall advice
or words of wisdoms of people that are still in
pain trying to get out of it? What's your general
advice to them? And also, you know, what do you
do to maintain it? Or maybe don't, maybe you don't
have to for sure.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
It's a big question, but an important one, and I
do think that some of the things we've covered today
lead me to the answer that I'll give. I remember
in college, I started running like half marathons and marathons,
and I was I was lucky to have a mentor,
a big brother type of friend who would run many
and something that he told me is no matter how
you're feeling at any point during the marathon. During the race,
(26:07):
it will change whether you're feeling great, you know, you're
feeling confident in cocky, at some point you'll be in despair,
and vice versa, you'll be in despair, and that too
will pass. Right. And so what I would say one is,
my heart goes out to anybody. My father right now,
as we've discussed, is in the pits the throes of
his chronic back pain experience. But it will pass. With
(26:30):
any luck, it will pass. It will change. Related to that, then,
is you know you mentioned the concept of neuroplasticity is
I don't want to make it sound like just positive thinking,
which I know is a bit of a bad word.
We've talked about that. But to allow yourself to believe
that there is another experience of yourself that you might have,
(26:52):
there's a new relationship with yourself that's possible, that's out there,
there's a new you, a new relationship with pain, in
a non existent relation with pain. Just to sort of
allow for that possibility to exist. And if you know,
I'm sure you might this might be doctor Hanson improved.
If that feels really hard right now, because you're in
terrible pain. Okay, do it for thirty seconds, close your eyes,
(27:15):
go outside, just close your eyes and just imagine what
would be like to be pain free or close to it. Right.
I think just starting to open that door a crack
that I will not always be the way I am today.
I actually think for a lot of people who are
really stuck, they just need to open the door a
crack and believe it. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Yeah? Absolutely? Yeah. And again it's not about generating belief,
it's about connecting to what is. And so positive thinking
is a disaster, but positive vision is critical.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
So because it's like the metaphor you like to use
that of a you know, running back in football with
two or three tacklers on his back. He just keeps
pushing forward, pushing forward, and it just you just have
to be determed across the goal line and you just
keep So that's why I keep you using the word
persistence is the key issue in this whole thing. Absolutely,
and so.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
There's really persistence, like you know, the like it's it's
it's not an uncommon thought, but you know, life will
throw you off the horse. But really, what what does success.
Look like it's just being able to get back up
one more time. Yeah, then you were knocked one doesn't
matter how many times you get knocked on, just get
back up one more time, right. I think that's that
was also helpful for me in those years.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, I like that one more than one more time. Idea. Well,
we could talk for hours and so you know it's yeah,
it's just again, was the sayings for me? Why this is
why I quit my sturgical practice. I launch of patients
like your yours is one of the more clear cut stories,
but this is not an unusual story. When people heal,
(28:52):
they heal the level they can even comprehend. So if
you and to me, it's worth it. Even if it's
only you, they I better would be worth it. But
the fact that dozens and dozens, now a hundreds of
patients have a similar experience with their own version of it,
you know, that's what keeps me going on this whole process.
So thank you for talking to us. I'm super excited
(29:12):
to be a part of your journey, and I'm really
excited about coming to your wedding in August.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
It means the world to us too. We're looking forward
to it. And thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Okay, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
I'd like to thank our guests Suched Egan for being
on the show today and sharing how he learned to
heal from intense chronic pain. I'm your host, Tom Masters,
reminding you to be back next week for another episode
of Back in Control Radio with Doctor David Hanscomb, and
in the meantime, be sure to visit the website at
www dot back in control dot com.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Thanks for listening today and join us next week for
Back in Control Readium
The following podcast is part of the Mind, Body, Spirit
dot fm podcast network.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello and welcome to Back in Control Radio with Doctor
David Hanscombe.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Back in
Control Radio with Doctor David Hanscomb. I'm your host, Tom Masters,
and our guest today is suched Egan. He's an avid outdoorsman, runner,
and weightlifter, and in his early twenties, he was diagnosed
with spondyli thesis and bulging discs that caused him severe
(00:44):
low back and psiatic pain. Multiple doctors recommended he get
immediate multi level spinal fusion surgery, but a visit with
doctor David Hanscomb convinced him to reconsider the surgical route. Today,
he enjoys a pain free life, and he and his
partner enjoy backpacking, rock climbing, and cliff jumping in the
(01:08):
beautiful Pacific Northwest outdoors.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Welcome, Thanks, Tom. I like to welcome such Egan back
to the podcast. I've known him since twenty thirteen. He
lives in the Bay Area. I'm sorry you live in Seattle.
I'm sorry, get that backwards. And I met him while
he lived in the b Area and he was about
twenty three years old at the time that I met him.
He's extremely active, physical, active person, hiking, you name it,
(01:34):
he does it. Wein no physical limitations at all. On
the first podcast, we talked about a about an eight
month or deal with back pain. He had five shirts
in the area you know, recommend surgery. And we finished
up that first podcast with the fact, which I've known
for long time, he simply pain free. Back pain is
simply not an issue. He has no restriction and he's
(01:55):
living his life. So such welcome back, and I just
want to spore this time now about some things you
actually did back then to heal. We talked about something
impression that you had in paradigm shifts that you had,
and what are some things that you do now to
maintain this level of activity, which is quite intense, by
the way, and so this guy does not sit around.
(02:16):
And I will mention that one thing I've observed right
from the beginning of my practice that a lot of
times the most capable people would become incredibly disabled. And
I never could figure that out until I understood the
inflammatory nature of pain. Whereas when you're frustrated, your body's
inflammatory goes up and you're as active as such, and
(02:36):
Alson can't do what you want to do. It's incredibly frustrating,
which makes the pain worse. So anyway, such we talked
about some of the paradisess you had the start of
the process, but I'm curious to get into the weeds
a little bit more where you read the book. You
worked with a little bit here here and here, but
I'm curious about some of the word detailed paradigm shifts
(02:56):
that occurred in your mind. Move forward, because this isn't
mind trickery, it's not mine ever matter And there's a
point where where I gave you permission just to lift weight.
It's something shifted that you can't really put into words.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Absolutely, I'm gonna try, and you can. You can redirect me,
you know, as you'd like. I'm gonna I'm gonna actually
share just a bit of context around this that I
haven't shared with you before. So you in the last podcast,
you described life as a miracle and healing as a miracle,
and that's a great word. I agree with it completely.
I think that sometimes life and healing and pain can
also feel like a mystery. And so when you're in
(03:35):
a state of chronic pain or you know, like like
any any struggle in life, you're in the dark. You
don't have a flashlight, you don't have a you know,
an angel or whatever guiding you, and so you're trying
to find things in the dark that you can hold onto.
And these things are often beliefs. There are beliefs about
who you are, who you are, what you're capable of,
what you're not, and what's gonna help and what's not
(03:57):
gonna help. So the parts that I kind of having
share with you are when I met you early twenties,
I had some clues about who I thought I was
coming into our encounter. Clue number one. We had an
elementary school. We had the presidential fitness tests that we
would do twice a year, I think, and for a
week we would do push ups, pull ups, sit ups,
(04:18):
things like that, and you had to meet certain standards
in order to, you know, earn the presidential award. As
I started to round out into feeling like a bit
of an athlete, I would be able to hit the
presidential level for all of the different tests except one,
and the one that I would always just fail miserably
at was we called it the V sit and reach.
You sit on your rear on the ground with your
(04:39):
legs extended outward like a V, and your feet are
about a foot apart, and you need to lean forward
and stretch and get as far as you could. And
I was woefully bad at this. I was tight. I
could never make it very far. And what are you
told as a young person, what does your teacher tell you?
It's because you're not stretching enough, right, And you hear
stories about other kids who were bad at it and
(05:00):
stretched every day, every night, and then they achieved the
presidential level. But I knew I was the worst in
the class at the v set. Okay, that's clue number one.
The second clue that I had, and I mentioned this
in the last podcast, is once I became high school
college age, and I'm lifting weights, I'm running every quarter,
I'm having a setback, I'm throwing my back out, I'm
(05:20):
losing two weeks in the gym. I'm on the floor,
my back is spasmed, I'm needing cortizone shots, I'm meeting
physical therapy. I have this very recurring. It's not once
a year, it's every quarter. Okay, So my point is,
what is this plant? And what seed is being planted.
I'm starting to suspect there's something wrong with me, right,
I can't do the v sit. I'm always injured at
(05:41):
the gym. There's something wrong with me. Then I have
the incident where my back, you know, I feel a
snap in my back at twenty two to twenty three,
and the chronic pain does not go away, It gets worse,
it doesn't respond to anything. I get the MRI, I
get the X ray, and what do they tell me?
Degenerate dis disease, spondalois thesis, her neated disks, slipped disks.
(06:01):
What's the solution? Multi level fusion? Okay, this fits with
my schema. This when I'm navigating around in the dark,
I'm thinking, huh, I've had some sort of anomaly. I
read that it was spina bifit a culta which likely
led to the you know, imbalance and eventually the discs
slipping on one side. Everything fits. It makes sense. It's
a logical narrative. Right, I'll pause here. Do you see
(06:25):
what I'm trying to get at is like this narrative
leading to surgery. It makes a lot of sense. It
carries a lot of water versus being told when I
met you. Hey man, hey dude, you need to just
kind of let go of that narrative that you believe
in and try something different that's more self focused. Does
this make sense what I'm trying to communicate.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, yeah, it's the norm. In other words, we are
pretty sull almost your brainwashed by our entire life. We're
programmed every second bike who everybody else thinks we should
be number two. The medical profession has actually brainwashed the
public that they that there's always something wrong. It causes pain,
a structural problem, and they can fix it. And when
(07:04):
they can't find it, there's EEno a turnout called mus
medically Unexplained symptoms, which is a terrible diagnosis because it means, Okay,
you have pain, we don't know the problem, will help
you manage it the best we can, but you really
have pain the rest of your life. That's what that
diagnosis says. If you look at the physiology of the body,
which you're not going to go into today, if you
look at the body in fight or flight, every symptom
(07:27):
is completely medically explained. So first of all, pain is
a stress. Then you have other life stresses, Then you
get pissed off about being in pain, which actually fires
the nervous system. More so when you're in fight or flight.
Your nerve conduction doubles your brain. It solf has inflammatory cells,
it's hypersensitive. Your stress chemicals are in high gear. You
have cortisol taken for you out of the cells. Your
(07:49):
neurotransmitters in their brain go from calming to see calling
to glutamate. Then you have these cells all over the
body called cytokines, or molecules around the body called cytokines
that really inflame your entire body. So you're not thinking clearly,
you don't feel good, your energy being drained. You have
everybody telling you this stuff. So you have your own
life stresses, You have the story that you already dive
(08:12):
in your head. Then it gets confirmed by people in authority.
I'm surprised you didn't do the surgery. You should give
yourself quite a bit. Honestly, that's the key issue when
people engage. Again, I said, don't believe the enhancing. It's
the principles of healing allow you to heal. So I
think the only obstacle to healing, by the way his willing,
(08:33):
is to engage. So what do you think was about you.
So this is my particular challenge that I put my
practice to do this for people exactly like you. This
is the story that caused my practice. It wasn't the
mandis chronic pain. It was watching people heal at the
level I just didn't know as possible, including myself. Every
time someone heals at your level, my job just drops
(08:56):
because I can never tell when it's going to happen.
I had a guy today, I talked to his starting
it happened. I can tell. It's a bit of a
different story and is so inspiring to watch healing occur
at this level. It's not very hard to do. And
one thing my patients day all the time is that
this was disturbingly simple. Is that Is that a fair statement?
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Absolutely? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
So let's go back to that story. Okay, he came
to Seattle. He started this pressure arriety, which you thought
was just ridiculous and as a big block, because I
one of my big blocks for expressive rieting. Well, how
can something this disabling respond to something so simple? It
makes no sense.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
I just before we get to the writing and meeting
you in person, I just want to talk about it
before I met you. In person. I read your book.
That was the first step of the miracle. Is I'm
about to get on on the surgeon's table in the
Bay Area. Any I could have had my pick five
or six surgeons would have done it that week. It
seems right. The first miracle was finding your book. And
I mentioned this briefly last time as well, that you know,
(09:58):
there's a lot in your book that I related to.
There's stories you told about being in Yosemite and you know,
struggling with a partner that was worried about bears. There
was things that you described that I related to. So
that was nice. But if we go back to that
narrative that's searching around in the dark, trying to follow
the logical train of the story, the narrative of my
of my life, what interrupted it in that book? It's
(10:20):
the data. It's the fact when you define what success
means for back pain and spine surgery, when you talk
about the risks, when you talk about how many complications
there are, what does it do It It destroys the narrative.
You've been telling yourself this story. You've been fed this story,
you've been believing the story, and all of a sudden
there is no end, there is no path anymore. Right,
(10:43):
You've been on the train and the bridge in front
of you has collapsed. So that was the first part
of the healing journey, was just realizing, you know what,
this this path that I've been led to it actually
this nirvana doesn't exist. Right? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yep? Yeah, No, life has adversity in every story. But again,
just struck me as it's talking to you. Is that
I mean you have you didn't have an undue amount
of stress compared to life in general, but having pain
is stressful. But also having your activities interfered with is
really stressful. And so people forget when you're under stress,
your body's whole threat physiology fires up, but your total
(11:18):
body responds and you don't feel very good. Yeah, yep,
So let's jump ahead a little bit, maybe work backwards
a little bit. So it's been over ten years since
you've been paying for you really no limitations. I'm sure
you get other stresses in life, but back pain is
not one of them. By the way, you are getting
married this summer.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Correct, that's right?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
And so what are the things that pulled like three
or four you already mentioned several key points, and he'll
pull you out of this hole, which I call the
abyss by the way, which you're a really dark hole
without a bottom, without any hope of escape. It's a
very very dark place in the sort of the norm.
So when you come so the only value in the abyss,
(12:02):
and when people look at you and me, they go, well,
what are these guys? Know? They're doing perfectly fine. But
people never saw me when I was in that hole.
They don't see you in that hole, and so it
doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
So that's one way I've given up talking to people
about pay Let's they ask me because they can't really
believe the story. And you touch in between podcasts that
the healing is so profound and deep that words don't
really do justice to it.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Hearing you reflect this and thinking about the abyss, i'll
I'll maybe offer this up. I think that part of
why we clicked as well, or I trusted you, even
though it might have been skeptical of some of the
things at first, is there was a innate kind of
sense of alignment on a few things, and one of
them I think you're kind of getting at, which is
being a results oriented individual. And you mentioned that many
(12:56):
people who end up in great pain are results oriented,
achieving people. We are used to. It doesn't need to
be immediate feedback, but we are very we crave a
consistent sort of feedback. Okay, it doesn't need to be success,
but if we're going to take on a big challenge endeavor,
we need to know on a daily, weekly, monthly basis
that progress is being made or at least you know
(13:17):
something of value is being produced. I think I have
a bit of a hunch innately that the journeys that
we need to take in life that are the most impactful,
the most meaningful, they are the types of journey where
you need to walk into the abyss, walk into the pit,
and you're not going to get immediate feedback. You're not
going to have somebody cheering you on, pattigo on the back.
(13:38):
You're not going to be pain free tomorrow. You know,
there's a personal metamorphosis that needs to happen, and it'll
happen on its own darn time. Does that make sense?
And so I think that that's part of what led
me to believing in what you were sharing.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Well, I did have a conversation with the German earlier today
who is about. He's he's the age you world I
first met you, and he's actually doing better. But he
wants to be consistent, and so get rid of that
word consistent. Just use the word persistent. You know, you
just keep plugging forward. Some days a good days, some
(14:12):
days are bad days. Sometimes the pain is worse. For
I mean, you're lucky because you haven't had the massive episodes.
But almost everybody goes in and out of this darkness.
But I don't use the word abyss anymore. I use
the word tunnel because the tunnel has an end and
there's light at the end. Abyss managers absolutely no hope
and people have a heart. Well, maybe not such a
hard time explain how dark and deep that hole really is.
(14:35):
So he started, So I know what you were sending
country about six to eight months to come out of
the thing. What were the some of things while you're
in that hole that's seemed to help you move forward?
Speaker 3 (14:46):
While I was still in the hole, Yeah, I mean
flying up the seattle to just chat with you, rereading
parts of the book. But I think, to be more specific,
now that I think about it, what actually probably helped?
And I don't know that I realized it until this
conversation we're having now. Is the gentle reminders from people
in my life, one of whom was you, one of
which was my father, My parents, and other friends who
(15:07):
reminded me that there would be a light at the
end of the tunnel. People that just refused to believe
that I would be in this much pain in my sixties,
in my seventies, in my eighties, right when I would
have those momentary lapses of faith. Right. I remember the
young woman I was dating at the time, Right. We
were getting very serious and I in tears one day.
(15:28):
I told her, you know, if we have children, am
I going to be able to pick up our child? Right?
And I remember the look that she gave me of
just sheer empathy, and she probably felt closer to me
hearing me described that. Right, But then to be reminded
from her and others it will not be permanent, right.
I think those people who weren't catastrophizing, people who weren't
making the problem worse. I think that helped more than
(15:49):
I realized. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah? I mean there's also data out of textures that
shows that there's several things. Actually, Laura inflammatory started kinds
and again to remind the audience, threat sustained threat physiology,
sustained threat chemistry is the essence of chronic mental and
physical disease. And so we know that hope and optimism
is actually intiplammatory. Human connection and community is anti inflammatory.
(16:15):
Positive vision not positive thinking, but a positive vision is antiflammatory.
But also a sense of control. So knowing the problem
and how you and solving is a big sense of control.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
And that's actually not psychological, it's actually anti inflammatory. And
the laboratory anti inflammatory is starting to kind of drop
lower in the presence of those four things.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Absolutely, And if I may, I'm forgetting the name of
the book, but we talked about it a few weeks
ago related to this. I read a book to Australian
guys I remember correctly, and they define described pain physiology,
the neuropathways and the things that are remembered from there.
This is me needing to have hope be rooted in rationality,
hopefully in science. Right. And they explained you know in
(17:06):
so many words that you can you know, the physical
stimulus that caused the initial pain may be gone. It
may have disappeared ten months ago, ten years ago, but
a person can still be in debili hitting pain. Hey,
that's crazy. The physical stimulus that cause pain is gone,
but a person still experiencing pain. Right, what does that
(17:26):
tell us that the pain pathways its own entity, separate
related to, but separate from the physical injury. That was
a source of hope for me because it told me
that the pain pathway could be worked on, it could
be dissipated, it could miraculously lit up even one day.
The fact that I knew that that was possible, I
think also helped, If that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Yeah, No, I mean, hope is actually anti inflammatory, so
you know that feeds on itselves, so unlike we talk
about the no Cemo effect where you perceive that catastrophizing
and were exactly the other dre So you know that
also feeds out cell. So we already describe the first podcast.
You just plenty of challenges in life, but your back
(18:09):
is not one of them, that's right. And it did
not require a lot of resources, so it wasn't expensive
to get better and there is no risk. And again,
as many of my patients talk about, the whole process
once they heal is sort of disturbingly simple. So let
me make a suggestion and see if you agree with this.
So there's a tipping point with everybody where it's around anger,
(18:38):
where if you're angry, by definitioning your whole nursystems fired up.
Anger is non psychological. It's a physiological state. Remember, thoughts
are input into your brain, and your emotions are your
physiology or what you feel. And anger is very heightened
through physiology. We are trapped by anything, particularly when you're
getting multiple diverse sort of opinions. You could have been
(19:01):
very great state of mind during that period of time.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah, that's right, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
And we I don't know if I was using this
book forgive for good at that point in time. Did
you read that book?
Speaker 3 (19:14):
I didn't read it. We talked about it a lot, though.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Okay, does that resonate with you, the whole frustration anger factor?
Speaker 3 (19:21):
It does? I mean, logically, when I reflect on that time,
of course, I was in a heightened state of every
negative emotion, certainly anger and anxiety. And you and I've
talked about that, you know, at length. But like having
a logical recollection of that is different from kind of
remembering into the feelings. And I think although I likely
presented to most people as still relatively balanced. I think
(19:43):
that the amount of fear, the obsession that I had
around will this be permanent? Will I be like this forever?
It caused tremendous anxiety and anger, which only served, as
we've discussed, to heighten the sense of pain and hopelessness.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
So I'm curious personally, So I know it probably can't
describe this, but something happened. I know I told you
you could go and lift weights, which seemed to be
a big tipping point. And of course, not being afraid
of your pain anymore it makes a huge difference. Fact,
that's what it's called pain. We've processing therapy. We just
(20:17):
learned not to be afraid of your pain. Then we
talked about diet, exercises, sleep and all things suits you
already had taken care of. But can you encapsulate what
shifted or maybe how it shifted during that period of time.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Absolutely, so we've said it a bunch, but we cannot
let go of the fact that for me, the tipping
point was the last medical visit in Seattle, coming to
see you with Swedish and my last desperate question for you,
if nothing else, can I deadlift? And you said yes,
you're not gonna make injury worse. And that blew my
mind because in my mind, the spondololos thesis that slippage.
(20:50):
To me, it made rational sense that bending over with
weights loaded on the spine would make that worse. And
so I keep beating this point with you, doctor Hanskin,
because I want you to know, like literally, in my
mind's eye, your statement didn't make sense to me. Of
course it's going to make it work, but I thought,
you're the doctor you're insisting. I'm going to blame you
(21:11):
if it doesn't work. I go home, right, I start,
you know, I start exercising and start lifting, and what
I remember now is one thing led to another. Right.
I have a friend who calls these things non confirming experiences.
We have schema, we have beliefs. In my case, the
schema belief is I am a damaged commodity. I'm an
(21:32):
injured person. I'm going to have chronic pain. I'm not
going to be able to function okay. But now I'm
lifting a little bit in the gym. I'm doing okay.
I'm not having spasms, I'm not getting worse. I remembered
a few friends that I decided to go for a hike.
You've alluded to the fact that since college, you know,
the outdoors have been the arena that I really most
kind of enjoy physical exploits. So we go on a
(21:54):
few hikes, a couple of trips, and I remember the
first hike we came back. My friend was living in
aar They had a pool, and we're all playing in
the pool and my two friends noticed, such, your your
your back seems out of whack. You're kind of bent
over to one side. And I didn't even I hadn't
even realized that I wasn't in pain, but I had
(22:14):
a spasm on one side of my back and I
was physically visibly, you know, bent one way. So this
was my first hike since the injury, you know, and
it wasn't perfect, okay, but it wasn't so bad that
I was, you know, out of commission for a few weeks.
And then I went on a few backpacking trips to
Yosemite with a heavy pack on multiple nights, not sleeping
on a nice bed, and I had some very kind
(22:36):
friends who would help me lift the pack up off
the ground until it was on my back, and you know,
I could I could carry it stably. But my point
is like it wasn't perfect, Like I was still compromised,
but I was not having horrific experiences where I was
out of commission for a week or for a month,
and over time having more and more of these non
confirming experiences, having these magical moments in Yosemite, in the outdoors,
(22:59):
playing a little bit of basketball, you know, hanging out
by the pool and not being in terrible pain. At
some point I woke up and I was paining free.
Does that Does that make any sense?
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah? Because one of the gain the concept that's in
my new book, my new course, the doctriney compared to
my compared to the original book, we call it the
sequence of healing. And the metaphors that are a tree
and the soil is your past, every second of your past.
And the roots are your connection to the past, and
you connect to it with awareness, connecting to everything skepticism,
(23:31):
good things, bad things, instead of trying to fix it,
whitewashed it, or deal with it, which takes energy and
gets frustrating. The drug of the carey is the confidence
to have the tools to be with the pain, not
to fight it, not to be okay with it. Not
to accept it, just being with it, because remember, is
that reaction or reactivity or fighting the pain that keeps
the nervous system fired up. So pain is one thing,
(23:54):
but it is when you get angry about being in
pain and frustrated that fire things up even more. Then
that the real healing it occurs at the top of
the tree, which is the creativity. Is that I have
a little saying that you have a good life, you
have to live good life because as you create a
new brain in the manner that you wish to live
your life, this new brain doesn't necessually have the old
(24:16):
circuits in play. They're still there, but we now know
from neuroplasticity your brain changes shape and structure every second,
every second, So even after this podcast, maybe a couple
of thoughts popped in your brain. So when your brain
changes physical structure, it's like putting a virtual desktop on
your computer. So fighting the pain actually reinforces it, and
(24:39):
creating the new life is you move away from it.
And what you just described is really the classic killing
journey is that you say, and I think I've told
you this several times in my journey, I get so
tired of fighting it, I give up, whatever happens going forward,
pain or no pain, I'm going to live by life.
(25:00):
And about two or three weeks two or three weeks later,
my pain started the left a little bit like your
weightlifting story, where okay, I'm a left wage. What's the
worst it can happen? Because it couldn't get worse than
it was, I could tell you that. So so let's
take so you're getting married in August. Yeah, and great spot.
Thank you for doing in California.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
And what what are some of the We'll get about
five minutes there, just where's some of your overall advice
or words of wisdoms of people that are still in
pain trying to get out of it? What's your general
advice to them? And also, you know, what do you
do to maintain it? Or maybe don't, maybe you don't
have to for sure.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
It's a big question, but an important one, and I
do think that some of the things we've covered today
lead me to the answer that I'll give. I remember
in college, I started running like half marathons and marathons,
and I was I was lucky to have a mentor,
a big brother type of friend who would run many
and something that he told me is no matter how
you're feeling at any point during the marathon. During the race,
(26:07):
it will change whether you're feeling great, you know, you're
feeling confident in cocky, at some point you'll be in despair,
and vice versa, you'll be in despair, and that too
will pass. Right. And so what I would say one is,
my heart goes out to anybody. My father right now,
as we've discussed, is in the pits the throes of
his chronic back pain experience. But it will pass. With
(26:30):
any luck, it will pass. It will change. Related to that, then,
is you know you mentioned the concept of neuroplasticity is
I don't want to make it sound like just positive thinking,
which I know is a bit of a bad word.
We've talked about that. But to allow yourself to believe
that there is another experience of yourself that you might have,
(26:52):
there's a new relationship with yourself that's possible, that's out there,
there's a new you, a new relationship with pain, in
a non existent relation with pain. Just to sort of
allow for that possibility to exist. And if you know,
I'm sure you might this might be doctor Hanson improved.
If that feels really hard right now, because you're in
terrible pain. Okay, do it for thirty seconds, close your eyes,
(27:15):
go outside, just close your eyes and just imagine what
would be like to be pain free or close to it. Right.
I think just starting to open that door a crack
that I will not always be the way I am today.
I actually think for a lot of people who are
really stuck, they just need to open the door a
crack and believe it. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
Yeah? Absolutely? Yeah. And again it's not about generating belief,
it's about connecting to what is. And so positive thinking
is a disaster, but positive vision is critical.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
So because it's like the metaphor you like to use
that of a you know, running back in football with
two or three tacklers on his back. He just keeps
pushing forward, pushing forward, and it just you just have
to be determed across the goal line and you just
keep So that's why I keep you using the word
persistence is the key issue in this whole thing. Absolutely,
and so.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
There's really persistence, like you know, the like it's it's
it's not an uncommon thought, but you know, life will
throw you off the horse. But really, what what does success.
Look like it's just being able to get back up
one more time. Yeah, then you were knocked one doesn't
matter how many times you get knocked on, just get
back up one more time, right. I think that's that
was also helpful for me in those years.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, I like that one more than one more time. Idea. Well,
we could talk for hours and so you know it's yeah,
it's just again, was the sayings for me? Why this is
why I quit my sturgical practice. I launch of patients
like your yours is one of the more clear cut stories,
but this is not an unusual story. When people heal,
(28:52):
they heal the level they can even comprehend. So if
you and to me, it's worth it. Even if it's
only you, they I better would be worth it. But
the fact that dozens and dozens, now a hundreds of
patients have a similar experience with their own version of it,
you know, that's what keeps me going on this whole process.
So thank you for talking to us. I'm super excited
(29:12):
to be a part of your journey, and I'm really
excited about coming to your wedding in August.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
It means the world to us too. We're looking forward
to it. And thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Okay, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
I'd like to thank our guests Suched Egan for being
on the show today and sharing how he learned to
heal from intense chronic pain. I'm your host, Tom Masters,
reminding you to be back next week for another episode
of Back in Control Radio with Doctor David Hanscomb, and
in the meantime, be sure to visit the website at
www dot back in control dot com.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Thanks for listening today and join us next week for
Back in Control Readium
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