April 22, 2025 • 22 mins
In this episode, Dr. David Hanscom talks with Sachit Ega, an avid outdoorsman, runner, and weightlifter. He discusses his back pain and the various treatments he had undergone. He had been experiencing back pain for many years, with the pain becoming more severe in 2013. He had seen multiple doctors, including surgeons, who all recommended immediate spinal fusion. However, Sachit decided to wait and read David's book, Back in Control, which led him to seek David's help. After seeing David, Sachit made the decision to forgo spine surgery and take control of his own healing. 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
(00:44):
severe 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. Welcome, Thank you, Tom.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I'd like to welcome such Egan to the show. And
I know such extremely well. We've been through a lot
together and his stories one of the remarkable stories of
healing that we intimately present and since I started this
process really two thousand and six, we watched hundreds and
hundreds of patients go to pain free with minimal resources
(01:34):
and literally no risk. So such represents a classical reason
why I quit my practice.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
What year do we meet?
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Such would have been twenty thirteen?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Okay, So such as an avid outdoorsman, runner, weightlifter. He
was diagnosed at the spondal of a thesis in his
early twenties in a bulging disk you a back pants
aatica that we'll talk about a little bit later. There
was a half a dozen doctors in the beer arier
that had recommended that such get surgery relatively urgently, and
somehow we'll talk about this later. He found me in Seattle,
(02:09):
came up and met me in Seattle. I still remember
that first visit really well. I think he flipped one
or two more times over about six months he went
to pain free. And now we are, I guess twelve
years later, still doing extremely well. So he still listen
to Seattle, Washington where he and his partner joy backpacking,
rock climbing, clif jumping, and we're going to be going
(02:30):
to his wedding in August.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Is that right? Such, that's right, And we've been trying
to get.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
This interview together for a very long time, and I
think it's such as busier than I am, which is
hard to believe.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
So says welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
And I just want to let people know that we're
sort of here to not get nigtive in the medical profession,
but there's enough data out there that we actually know
the right thing to do.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
And I've been learning as I go. And so were you.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
And when I first met you in twenty thirteen, I'm
just curious what your experience was. How long had you
been in back pain by the way you were hold
at the time.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
When you would have been twenty three, twenty three.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
And how long did you had back pain before that?
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Oh, let's see that the acute injury that led me to,
you know, come find you. I was probably six to
eight months into the healing journey at that point.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
And you were clearly in enough pain to consider Sure
it sounds like a pretty profounder deal.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Sure, yeah, And.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
What were you doing on we were what work were
you doing at the time, were you through school in school?
Speaker 3 (03:36):
What phase of your life were you and at the.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Time, Yeah, So I graduated from university in twenty twelve,
and I'm sorry. I wish University Santa Clara University in
the victory of South Bay. And let's see, I know
the college student. I was lifting weights, playing basketball, running, hiking,
all that sort of stuff. But shortly after graduating, I
took a very temporary job at ARII while I was
(03:57):
interviewing for other positions in tech. And while working at ARII,
I had the acute injury where I was leaning forward,
bending forward to pick up a heavy crate of something
and I felt a snap in my back and you know,
had a couple of days of spasms, intense pain. This
was not uncommon for me. This would happen about twice
maybe three times a year throughout university weightlifting, accidents, injuries,
(04:19):
things like that. But this time the pain didn't go away,
and it got worse, and it didn't respond to pt,
didn't respond to courtizone shots right, it didn't respond to anything,
and eventually sciatica developed where I have a member in
my twenty third birthday, meeting my family at a Mexican
restaurant in the Bay Area and parking two blocks from
(04:39):
the restaurant and not being able to walk those two blocks,
needing to stop every few seconds because of the sciatica,
And so does that maybe ground you where I was
when we met.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
So you had seen.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Multiple physicians before you got to me. I know you
saw a surgeon. I'm assuming you also saw non surgeons.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
I want to say that the the first few months,
you know, after PT didn't work, after a courtizon didn't work,
the first few visits were to nonsurgeons. But you know,
we've talked about this so much. Where what's the standard
medical process, the procedure after the non surgical interventions fail
or seem to fail, then it's all surgeons. And so
(05:19):
I think I saw about a half a dozen, as
you mentioned that all recommended immediate fusion.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
So I'm just gonna rant for a second. I'm going
to try not to get too negative here. But the
same called spondalolysis or spondal the thesis. It's a little
bony defect in the spine that actually is president in
about five percent of the population. And unless it's grossund stables,
which grossly unstable, which makes it moves too much back
and forth when you've been forwards and backwards, it is
(05:44):
simply not a source of pain. So the elephant in
the room is the Spondalo had been there from at
least age five. Nobody knows the exact cause of it.
Your back pain has started, if you know, six or
eight months ahead of the time that she started seeing doctors,
so she had this only never cause pain. You have
a hute injury, which doesn't change that lesion. By the way,
(06:05):
and we also know that degenerated disc do not cause
back pain. That's been well documented. So you have seen
a couple of physical therapists, You've had pain for pretty
bad pain to point you're being disabled. And also can
I forget many years ago why some of the most
successful people have so much disability from pain. Well, my
conclusion was, and me if you're wrong in this that
(06:27):
when you have injury, an injury that limits your activity
and you're used to be an active there's incredibly frustrating.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Absolutely and scary too. At that young age, right, you're
entering the prime of your life, you know, looking for
a partner, looking to start those next chapters, and worrying
are you going to be able to walk at your
you know, at your wedding ceremony, you're going to be
able to pick up your kids one day? I know
it sounds ridiculous, But these are some of the you know,
frightened thoughts that you get at that at that age.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, it's not ridiculous, by the way, it's universal. Everybody.
Back pain hurts. Yeah, you know, I may have had
two back you myself. I was a heavy construction working
back pain hurt. So there's a lot of anxiety around
back pain. Was this time of life before you hurt
you back, particularly stressful time or just the usual stresses
or anything unusual going on during that period of time I'm.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Trying to remember. I mean, certainly the transition from you know,
being a student into the working world carries its stressors.
But I will say that I mentioned that a couple
of times a year I would quote unquote throw the
back out and be out of commission for a week
or two weeks. I do think there was just a
process of a recurring cycle, if you will, of this
pain erupting during stressful times and things like that.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
And would you rate your overall anxiety levels back then
as low, medium or pretty high strung?
Speaker 4 (07:44):
I don't think I would have answered well back then,
and I think I would have probably frankly felt that
I didn't have any anxiety I was then and still
am somewhat Type A and so probably medium to high
strung on the scale.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Okay, we'll talk about that in a second.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
She had five surgeons, most of them were at university centers,
major surgeons. Also diffusion again, that lesion had been there
for over twenty years, because it usually starts around age
five and generally been shown not to be cause of pain.
But you had five surgions said you needed surgery, yeah,
and the rehabit of build physical therapy. And how did
(08:22):
you happen to find me in Seattle?
Speaker 4 (08:24):
You know, it's a part of the story that I
reflect on frequently because you know, so many people are
in back pain, and at some point I'll share some
of my background with them. And I can't remember exactly
who gave me your book how I found your book,
But I don't want to interrupt your flow. I just
want to, maybe for the listeners, I want to say
one thing, five or six surgeons all recommending immediate spinal fusion.
(08:45):
I just want to leave viewers or listeners with two
quick anecdotes, one being I won't even name names or hospitals,
but one surgeon felt that surgery was so needed, so
vital that they were going to do it same week,
and they were going to delay their family vacation to
Hawaii at the end of that week to do surgery
on me two or three days later. Okay, And another
(09:07):
surgeon who came very highly recommended, was rather aggressive and
gruff and told me if I passed on surgery, now
he knew for a fact, a medical fact, that I
would come back to him in a few months begging
for surgery. And so I think that maybe to answer
your question as best I can, I think maybe the
sales pitch was pretty pretty hard, pretty rough, you know,
(09:31):
pretty aggressive, and if I remember correctly, I think my
parents sort of gave me the wisdom I needed and said, look,
such as you've been in pain for X number of months. Now,
you could do surgery in two days, or you could
wait two weeks, and you know what's the harm in
waiting two weeks? And it's during those two weeks that
I found your book, read your book, poured through it,
and then made the choice to come see you.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
So I remember the first meeting we had Seattle. You
were the last patron of the day, and we actually
spent I think they did like an hour, hour and
a half talking about all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Oh yeah, and you weren't particularly a believer when it
all started. Yep, yep. In fact, you weren't at all.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
Not at all. And I can tell you if you
don't mind, I can tell you why. And you've kind
of been addressing this. You talk about this spondalilis thesis. Right,
For an a rational analytical person, you you face a
problem in life, you want to try to solve that problem.
So here, the problem is pain. It the brain wants
to find an escapegoat of culprit. And you have five
six surgeons saying it's this Spondalola thesis. It's the degener
(10:28):
of disk disease, it's the herniated disks, all of these things.
I remember coming to you fully expecting that you would
tell me that the level of slippage of that spondee
was significant, right, And so when you told me, hey,
you can see it on the X ray, right, the
you know, bending forward X ray, it's not moving at all. Dude,
that was That's what I didn't believe. Does that makes sense?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Well, that's one of the things you didn't believe. What
else didn't you believe that.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Oh yes, that's the things that that I remember. That
change kind of changed everything. You told me you're never
going to be a candidate for surgery. As long as
your injury looks like this, you're not going to hurt
yourself further if you try to be active, if you
try to move past this that I really was shocked by.
And that's the kind of solutions to healing wide within
(11:14):
that I had to do my own self work. So
those are some of the things I remember.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Well, there's a factor I want to mention really quickly.
It's called that you've all heard of the Pacebo effect,
where the body does heal itself. And by the way,
the pacebo is a real deal. Your body really does heal.
It's not imaginary. Your body actually regenerates, puts you feel
back into the cells. But the no Seebo effect works
the other way around that if you're told that things
are bad, then your body started respond.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
In kind because you're afraid.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
And what we now know that anxiety slash fear is
actually a inflammatory state, so you actually feel the pain more.
And I wanted to segue just for saying that the
instance of all chronic disease mental, physical, back pain. Chronic
disease is a chronic plammatory metabolic process. This chronic we
(12:03):
call threat physiology or fight or flight. When you get
your body into safety, the opposite effect occurs is that
heally occurs in a state of safety. And it doesn't
matter what doctors jewer don't do is And that's why
it's so self directed, because you're the one that has
to induced that stay accues of safety. And so just
(12:23):
a lot of the time I have lots of patients
over the years just say, look, degenerative disease is normal.
You don't have the real limitations. Just that reassurance actually
causes the pain to go away. But it's not psychological,
it's physiological.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
So you're the.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Classic no cebo effect, which actually helps talk you into surgery. Okay,
so we talked about and I know we went back
and forth and we had a few phone calls in between.
I think I saw you maybe six weeks later, and
you did not get better right.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Away, if I remember, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
So what were some and we'll talk about this more
in the second podcast, But over what period of time
did you start to feel better? Was it a week
or two a month or two six months you just
started to feel better? Or what what started to happen?
Speaker 4 (13:18):
It's another I'd say the two parts of the story
that I wish I remembered better were a how I
found your book and then eventually you and then also
the exact period of time that passed. What I do
remember is, uh, you know, reading the book, starting to
do some of the exercises, and you know, thinking about
how how is writing about my feelings and then throwing
them into the into the waste bind right? How is
(13:39):
that going to help? Feeling kind of concerned about whether
whether this was going to be valuable or just hocus poke?
Is the turning point for me. It was probably the
last medical visit we had, probably the third one, so
let's we could probably look at the records that it
was probably a good six months later, as you said,
and that's when you I remember you were still so
steadfast and telling me that there is no surgical intervention
(14:01):
that's going to help you, and you need to get
past that idea. And my last question for you that
day was, Okay, in that case, can I just go
back to normal physical activity? Can I get back in
the gym? Can I deadlift right, and you told me
just just flat you know, very flatly. Of course you
are not gonna make this injury worse by being active,
And so I think I shared with you when we
(14:22):
spoke recently. I went home and I remember it was
about midnight one night, and I said, let me just
pick up the you know, the bar bell, let me
put some weight on it. And what's the worst that
can happen. I'm in pain right now, It's not going
to get any worse. Let me just try to resume
the things that used to make me feel alive and happy.
And once I started doing that, I can't tell you
(14:42):
what day I woke up and I was pain free,
but it eventually came.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
It's amazing, isn't it. Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
I mean, so it wasn't any See, the thing about
the whole healing journey is not formulated. It's not a
self help process. I actually urge people to not try
to believe David Hanscom, to try to believe my book,
engage with what's real. And wh's real is that you
ad five starts to tell you that you needed surgery,
You tried a bunch of things, you still hurt. So
(15:12):
what's real is a skepticism. And so when you connect
with everything positive and negative, is that connection to who
you are, including a skepticism. You just start digging, working
through the tools, just one step at a time.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
And so.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I'm gonna say it's two things that once it's not magic,
but it's literally miraculous because life is a miracle. Healing's
a miracle. And if we didn't heal it. As an
arthetic surgeon, I realized that if wounds didn't heal, or
bonesdent heal, we wouldn't survive. So the body's capacity hell
is way beyond me or any inventions I can do
(15:53):
or not do. And so I'm just every time somebody
gets better, I just my jaw drops because I'm always amazed.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
I never can predicted exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
What I will say with you. I wasn't that optimistic. Really, well,
you were very very cynical, which is good. I mean,
you still have a question mine. I you know we've
known each other for years now, but you know we'd
have different times when we meet in the restaurants in
the b area and different stuff, and you're always challenging things,
(16:21):
which I think is incredibly healthy. Has helped me hone
my communication about what was really going on or not.
So let's jump ahead because in the second pockets want
to jump into some of the things that actually made
the difference as far as the details and sort of
a bigger picture concept.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
But again, what do you like now?
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Pain free? Absolutely pain free?
Speaker 3 (16:43):
And how long have you been that way since?
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Probably six to twelve months after we first met, so
a dozen or more years.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
And what are your limitations trying to think?
Speaker 4 (16:55):
I mean, I I don't perceive that I have any
I'm sure that I'm a little more focused on body
mechanics when I am lifting, a little more cautious just
to avoid further re injury or anything like that, but
basically not.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
So this is such.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
As a pretty classic reason why I quit my practice
because with the data edshow, and I did not know
this data when I was in practice, but the data
shows if you do survey in the presence of untreated
chronic pain, and you had chronic pain more than three months,
by definition, you had it that the nurse and we
now know that chronic pain is an inflammatory metabolic disorder.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
It's really structural.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Even if it starts out as structural, the brain memorizes
the pain in about three to six months anyway. So
your whole body's on fire, your brain's help is inflamed,
your metabolism's up, your body's breaking down, and as you
induce queues of safety, your body heals at a level
that's way beyond what anybody can do. So once you
hit the tipping point, then what happens you start processing
(17:58):
your entire life differently. So what I'm excited about the
project is on how do people heal they continue to
improve sort of indefinitely. Now I would have put myself
in that equation. Is that a fair statements?
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Such?
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Absolutely? Absolutely? And you know, I was just going to
add that it it trying to prepare for for this conversation.
I did remember that it obviously doesn't happen overnight. It's
unpredictable when you're gonna wake up and realize, Oh, I
haven't taught thought about my pain in a while. But
I remember in the early stages, once I started lifting again,
started being active again, I remember checking in with myself
(18:33):
regularly and I would notice. I would notice little things
like the first observation I made is that my back
pain is still present, but it's not omnipresent. It's their positionally,
it's there in certain you know ways that I'm sitting, moving, standing, right,
And I thought, okay, you know, I think that once
I noticed that after you and I admit, I stopped
treating that as a problem and more just an observation.
(18:53):
I have positional pain. Hey, you know what, that's better
than constant pain. A few months later, h sitting in
this position no longer hurts, and then again eventually the
pain was just gone. And it's it's you talk about
the miraculousness of healing. You could probably sense this, and
just the emotion of how I'm going to describe this,
like it almost feels like a bad dream. You know,
(19:15):
it was there, it was omnipresence, it was it became me,
It became a part of me, and now it's just
it was a bad dream and that's the miracle of it.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Interesting, well, I guess segued for a second here, But
with the data shows that if you do surgery, any surgery,
even a simple spinal injection, in the presence of untreated
chronic pain, you'll make the pain worse twenty to sixty
percent of the time. So, for instance, if you or
induce it in there are. In other words, if you
(19:45):
had chronic back pain and if you'd had a simple
hernia repair in the presence of untreated chronic pain, you
will induce pain at a hernia site, which is a
very simple operation. Forty to sixty percent of the time
we're having a gall buttter or just whatever procedure there is.
Because you have a fired up nervous system, you start
plugging in body parts and then about ten percent in
(20:08):
time that pain becomes permanent. So if I had a
neurological complication rate of ten percent, I would not be
in business. But a complication of chronic pain is a
devastating injury.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
Absolutely. I wanted to comment on this. It's another thing
I don't think I've shared with you before. But when
I think about those early conversations that you and I had,
you described the skepticism that I would approach those chats.
I think there was two things at play. One thing
is you know you were reminding me, are encouraging me
to understand that the healing would come from within, that
there was not an intervention out there that would make
me better, And you're right, I was skeptical of that.
(20:43):
The other piece which I was not skeptical of. This
is the piece that I think really convinced me not
to do. It is the fact that you some of
the facts like the ones you just shared. I remember
reading in the book. It was I think towards the
end of the book that first edition, you explained in
black and white, what does surgical success mean? How is
it defined for back surgery for back pain? And if
(21:04):
I remember it's been a dozen years since I've read
the book, it was not going from you know, ten
out of ten pain to two out of ten pain.
It was more like going from you know, like a
twenty percent improvement in pain. And I thought to myself
that success is getting twenty percent you know, potentially better
in pain, but it comes with such an increased risk
of more pain or complication. I think that that's I
(21:26):
just wanted to comment. This is another real value to
the The way that you teach about this is helping
people get away from this idea that surgery is the
magic pill. There's so many it's fraught with complications and problems.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Right, well, such, thank you.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Well, I'm gonna talk a lot more about some of
the details of what's keeping moving forward now what life
is like now. But such as a classic example of
why E quit my practice, because I mean I was
one of those surgery. If you see me in my
first seven years in practice, I would have said the
same thing this to diffusion because I didn't know any better.
(22:00):
I'm not trying to tell my pollies under the bus
because they weren't trained that way.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I went through horrible.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Pay myself to learn all this stuff, and I'm excited
I can share it. So anyways, such, thank you very
much and we'll talk to you in a few minutes.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
Sounds good.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
I'd like to thank Sachtigan for being on the show
today and for sharing his healing journey through 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 Hanscombe, and in the meantime, be sure
to visit the website at www dot back incontrol dot com.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
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
(00:44):
severe 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. Welcome, Thank you, Tom.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I'd like to welcome such Egan to the show. And
I know such extremely well. We've been through a lot
together and his stories one of the remarkable stories of
healing that we intimately present and since I started this
process really two thousand and six, we watched hundreds and
hundreds of patients go to pain free with minimal resources
(01:34):
and literally no risk. So such represents a classical reason
why I quit my practice.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
What year do we meet?
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Such would have been twenty thirteen?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Okay, So such as an avid outdoorsman, runner, weightlifter. He
was diagnosed at the spondal of a thesis in his
early twenties in a bulging disk you a back pants
aatica that we'll talk about a little bit later. There
was a half a dozen doctors in the beer arier
that had recommended that such get surgery relatively urgently, and
somehow we'll talk about this later. He found me in Seattle,
(02:09):
came up and met me in Seattle. I still remember
that first visit really well. I think he flipped one
or two more times over about six months he went
to pain free. And now we are, I guess twelve
years later, still doing extremely well. So he still listen
to Seattle, Washington where he and his partner joy backpacking,
rock climbing, clif jumping, and we're going to be going
(02:30):
to his wedding in August.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Is that right? Such, that's right, And we've been trying
to get.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
This interview together for a very long time, and I
think it's such as busier than I am, which is
hard to believe.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
So says welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
And I just want to let people know that we're
sort of here to not get nigtive in the medical profession,
but there's enough data out there that we actually know
the right thing to do.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
And I've been learning as I go. And so were you.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
And when I first met you in twenty thirteen, I'm
just curious what your experience was. How long had you
been in back pain by the way you were hold
at the time.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
When you would have been twenty three, twenty three.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
And how long did you had back pain before that?
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Oh, let's see that the acute injury that led me to,
you know, come find you. I was probably six to
eight months into the healing journey at that point.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
And you were clearly in enough pain to consider Sure
it sounds like a pretty profounder deal.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
Sure, yeah, And.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
What were you doing on we were what work were
you doing at the time, were you through school in school?
Speaker 3 (03:36):
What phase of your life were you and at the.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
Time, Yeah, So I graduated from university in twenty twelve,
and I'm sorry. I wish University Santa Clara University in
the victory of South Bay. And let's see, I know
the college student. I was lifting weights, playing basketball, running, hiking,
all that sort of stuff. But shortly after graduating, I
took a very temporary job at ARII while I was
(03:57):
interviewing for other positions in tech. And while working at ARII,
I had the acute injury where I was leaning forward,
bending forward to pick up a heavy crate of something
and I felt a snap in my back and you know,
had a couple of days of spasms, intense pain. This
was not uncommon for me. This would happen about twice
maybe three times a year throughout university weightlifting, accidents, injuries,
(04:19):
things like that. But this time the pain didn't go away,
and it got worse, and it didn't respond to pt,
didn't respond to courtizone shots right, it didn't respond to anything,
and eventually sciatica developed where I have a member in
my twenty third birthday, meeting my family at a Mexican
restaurant in the Bay Area and parking two blocks from
(04:39):
the restaurant and not being able to walk those two blocks,
needing to stop every few seconds because of the sciatica,
And so does that maybe ground you where I was
when we met.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
So you had seen.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Multiple physicians before you got to me. I know you
saw a surgeon. I'm assuming you also saw non surgeons.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
I want to say that the the first few months,
you know, after PT didn't work, after a courtizon didn't work,
the first few visits were to nonsurgeons. But you know,
we've talked about this so much. Where what's the standard
medical process, the procedure after the non surgical interventions fail
or seem to fail, then it's all surgeons. And so
(05:19):
I think I saw about a half a dozen, as
you mentioned that all recommended immediate fusion.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
So I'm just gonna rant for a second. I'm going
to try not to get too negative here. But the
same called spondalolysis or spondal the thesis. It's a little
bony defect in the spine that actually is president in
about five percent of the population. And unless it's grossund stables,
which grossly unstable, which makes it moves too much back
and forth when you've been forwards and backwards, it is
(05:44):
simply not a source of pain. So the elephant in
the room is the Spondalo had been there from at
least age five. Nobody knows the exact cause of it.
Your back pain has started, if you know, six or
eight months ahead of the time that she started seeing doctors,
so she had this only never cause pain. You have
a hute injury, which doesn't change that lesion. By the way,
(06:05):
and we also know that degenerated disc do not cause
back pain. That's been well documented. So you have seen
a couple of physical therapists, You've had pain for pretty
bad pain to point you're being disabled. And also can
I forget many years ago why some of the most
successful people have so much disability from pain. Well, my
conclusion was, and me if you're wrong in this that
(06:27):
when you have injury, an injury that limits your activity
and you're used to be an active there's incredibly frustrating.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Absolutely and scary too. At that young age, right, you're
entering the prime of your life, you know, looking for
a partner, looking to start those next chapters, and worrying
are you going to be able to walk at your
you know, at your wedding ceremony, you're going to be
able to pick up your kids one day? I know
it sounds ridiculous, But these are some of the you know,
frightened thoughts that you get at that at that age.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, it's not ridiculous, by the way, it's universal. Everybody.
Back pain hurts. Yeah, you know, I may have had
two back you myself. I was a heavy construction working
back pain hurt. So there's a lot of anxiety around
back pain. Was this time of life before you hurt
you back, particularly stressful time or just the usual stresses
or anything unusual going on during that period of time I'm.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
Trying to remember. I mean, certainly the transition from you know,
being a student into the working world carries its stressors.
But I will say that I mentioned that a couple
of times a year I would quote unquote throw the
back out and be out of commission for a week
or two weeks. I do think there was just a
process of a recurring cycle, if you will, of this
pain erupting during stressful times and things like that.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
And would you rate your overall anxiety levels back then
as low, medium or pretty high strung?
Speaker 4 (07:44):
I don't think I would have answered well back then,
and I think I would have probably frankly felt that
I didn't have any anxiety I was then and still
am somewhat Type A and so probably medium to high
strung on the scale.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Okay, we'll talk about that in a second.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
She had five surgeons, most of them were at university centers,
major surgeons. Also diffusion again, that lesion had been there
for over twenty years, because it usually starts around age
five and generally been shown not to be cause of pain.
But you had five surgions said you needed surgery, yeah,
and the rehabit of build physical therapy. And how did
(08:22):
you happen to find me in Seattle?
Speaker 4 (08:24):
You know, it's a part of the story that I
reflect on frequently because you know, so many people are
in back pain, and at some point I'll share some
of my background with them. And I can't remember exactly
who gave me your book how I found your book,
But I don't want to interrupt your flow. I just
want to, maybe for the listeners, I want to say
one thing, five or six surgeons all recommending immediate spinal fusion.
(08:45):
I just want to leave viewers or listeners with two
quick anecdotes, one being I won't even name names or hospitals,
but one surgeon felt that surgery was so needed, so
vital that they were going to do it same week,
and they were going to delay their family vacation to
Hawaii at the end of that week to do surgery
on me two or three days later. Okay, And another
(09:07):
surgeon who came very highly recommended, was rather aggressive and
gruff and told me if I passed on surgery, now
he knew for a fact, a medical fact, that I
would come back to him in a few months begging
for surgery. And so I think that maybe to answer
your question as best I can, I think maybe the
sales pitch was pretty pretty hard, pretty rough, you know,
(09:31):
pretty aggressive, and if I remember correctly, I think my
parents sort of gave me the wisdom I needed and said, look,
such as you've been in pain for X number of months. Now,
you could do surgery in two days, or you could
wait two weeks, and you know what's the harm in
waiting two weeks? And it's during those two weeks that
I found your book, read your book, poured through it,
and then made the choice to come see you.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
So I remember the first meeting we had Seattle. You
were the last patron of the day, and we actually
spent I think they did like an hour, hour and
a half talking about all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Oh yeah, and you weren't particularly a believer when it
all started. Yep, yep. In fact, you weren't at all.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
Not at all. And I can tell you if you
don't mind, I can tell you why. And you've kind
of been addressing this. You talk about this spondalilis thesis. Right,
For an a rational analytical person, you you face a
problem in life, you want to try to solve that problem.
So here, the problem is pain. It the brain wants
to find an escapegoat of culprit. And you have five
six surgeons saying it's this Spondalola thesis. It's the degener
(10:28):
of disk disease, it's the herniated disks, all of these things.
I remember coming to you fully expecting that you would
tell me that the level of slippage of that spondee
was significant, right, And so when you told me, hey,
you can see it on the X ray, right, the
you know, bending forward X ray, it's not moving at all. Dude,
that was That's what I didn't believe. Does that makes sense?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Well, that's one of the things you didn't believe. What
else didn't you believe that.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Oh yes, that's the things that that I remember. That
change kind of changed everything. You told me you're never
going to be a candidate for surgery. As long as
your injury looks like this, you're not going to hurt
yourself further if you try to be active, if you
try to move past this that I really was shocked by.
And that's the kind of solutions to healing wide within
(11:14):
that I had to do my own self work. So
those are some of the things I remember.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Well, there's a factor I want to mention really quickly.
It's called that you've all heard of the Pacebo effect,
where the body does heal itself. And by the way,
the pacebo is a real deal. Your body really does heal.
It's not imaginary. Your body actually regenerates, puts you feel
back into the cells. But the no Seebo effect works
the other way around that if you're told that things
are bad, then your body started respond.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
In kind because you're afraid.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
And what we now know that anxiety slash fear is
actually a inflammatory state, so you actually feel the pain more.
And I wanted to segue just for saying that the
instance of all chronic disease mental, physical, back pain. Chronic
disease is a chronic plammatory metabolic process. This chronic we
(12:03):
call threat physiology or fight or flight. When you get
your body into safety, the opposite effect occurs is that
heally occurs in a state of safety. And it doesn't
matter what doctors jewer don't do is And that's why
it's so self directed, because you're the one that has
to induced that stay accues of safety. And so just
(12:23):
a lot of the time I have lots of patients
over the years just say, look, degenerative disease is normal.
You don't have the real limitations. Just that reassurance actually
causes the pain to go away. But it's not psychological,
it's physiological.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
So you're the.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Classic no cebo effect, which actually helps talk you into surgery. Okay,
so we talked about and I know we went back
and forth and we had a few phone calls in between.
I think I saw you maybe six weeks later, and
you did not get better right.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
Away, if I remember, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
So what were some and we'll talk about this more
in the second podcast, But over what period of time
did you start to feel better? Was it a week
or two a month or two six months you just
started to feel better? Or what what started to happen?
Speaker 4 (13:18):
It's another I'd say the two parts of the story
that I wish I remembered better were a how I
found your book and then eventually you and then also
the exact period of time that passed. What I do
remember is, uh, you know, reading the book, starting to
do some of the exercises, and you know, thinking about
how how is writing about my feelings and then throwing
them into the into the waste bind right? How is
(13:39):
that going to help? Feeling kind of concerned about whether
whether this was going to be valuable or just hocus poke?
Is the turning point for me. It was probably the
last medical visit we had, probably the third one, so
let's we could probably look at the records that it
was probably a good six months later, as you said,
and that's when you I remember you were still so
steadfast and telling me that there is no surgical intervention
(14:01):
that's going to help you, and you need to get
past that idea. And my last question for you that
day was, Okay, in that case, can I just go
back to normal physical activity? Can I get back in
the gym? Can I deadlift right, and you told me
just just flat you know, very flatly. Of course you
are not gonna make this injury worse by being active,
And so I think I shared with you when we
(14:22):
spoke recently. I went home and I remember it was
about midnight one night, and I said, let me just
pick up the you know, the bar bell, let me
put some weight on it. And what's the worst that
can happen. I'm in pain right now, It's not going
to get any worse. Let me just try to resume
the things that used to make me feel alive and happy.
And once I started doing that, I can't tell you
(14:42):
what day I woke up and I was pain free,
but it eventually came.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
It's amazing, isn't it. Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:49):
I mean, so it wasn't any See, the thing about
the whole healing journey is not formulated. It's not a
self help process. I actually urge people to not try
to believe David Hanscom, to try to believe my book,
engage with what's real. And wh's real is that you
ad five starts to tell you that you needed surgery,
You tried a bunch of things, you still hurt. So
(15:12):
what's real is a skepticism. And so when you connect
with everything positive and negative, is that connection to who
you are, including a skepticism. You just start digging, working
through the tools, just one step at a time.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
And so.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
I'm gonna say it's two things that once it's not magic,
but it's literally miraculous because life is a miracle. Healing's
a miracle. And if we didn't heal it. As an
arthetic surgeon, I realized that if wounds didn't heal, or
bonesdent heal, we wouldn't survive. So the body's capacity hell
is way beyond me or any inventions I can do
(15:53):
or not do. And so I'm just every time somebody
gets better, I just my jaw drops because I'm always amazed.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
I never can predicted exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
What I will say with you. I wasn't that optimistic. Really, well,
you were very very cynical, which is good. I mean,
you still have a question mine. I you know we've
known each other for years now, but you know we'd
have different times when we meet in the restaurants in
the b area and different stuff, and you're always challenging things,
(16:21):
which I think is incredibly healthy. Has helped me hone
my communication about what was really going on or not.
So let's jump ahead because in the second pockets want
to jump into some of the things that actually made
the difference as far as the details and sort of
a bigger picture concept.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
But again, what do you like now?
Speaker 4 (16:41):
Pain free? Absolutely pain free?
Speaker 3 (16:43):
And how long have you been that way since?
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Probably six to twelve months after we first met, so
a dozen or more years.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
And what are your limitations trying to think?
Speaker 4 (16:55):
I mean, I I don't perceive that I have any
I'm sure that I'm a little more focused on body
mechanics when I am lifting, a little more cautious just
to avoid further re injury or anything like that, but
basically not.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
So this is such.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
As a pretty classic reason why I quit my practice
because with the data edshow, and I did not know
this data when I was in practice, but the data
shows if you do survey in the presence of untreated
chronic pain, and you had chronic pain more than three months,
by definition, you had it that the nurse and we
now know that chronic pain is an inflammatory metabolic disorder.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
It's really structural.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Even if it starts out as structural, the brain memorizes
the pain in about three to six months anyway. So
your whole body's on fire, your brain's help is inflamed,
your metabolism's up, your body's breaking down, and as you
induce queues of safety, your body heals at a level
that's way beyond what anybody can do. So once you
hit the tipping point, then what happens you start processing
(17:58):
your entire life differently. So what I'm excited about the
project is on how do people heal they continue to
improve sort of indefinitely. Now I would have put myself
in that equation. Is that a fair statements?
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Such?
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Absolutely? Absolutely? And you know, I was just going to
add that it it trying to prepare for for this conversation.
I did remember that it obviously doesn't happen overnight. It's
unpredictable when you're gonna wake up and realize, Oh, I
haven't taught thought about my pain in a while. But
I remember in the early stages, once I started lifting again,
started being active again, I remember checking in with myself
(18:33):
regularly and I would notice. I would notice little things
like the first observation I made is that my back
pain is still present, but it's not omnipresent. It's their positionally,
it's there in certain you know ways that I'm sitting, moving, standing, right,
And I thought, okay, you know, I think that once
I noticed that after you and I admit, I stopped
treating that as a problem and more just an observation.
(18:53):
I have positional pain. Hey, you know what, that's better
than constant pain. A few months later, h sitting in
this position no longer hurts, and then again eventually the
pain was just gone. And it's it's you talk about
the miraculousness of healing. You could probably sense this, and
just the emotion of how I'm going to describe this,
like it almost feels like a bad dream. You know,
(19:15):
it was there, it was omnipresence, it was it became me,
It became a part of me, and now it's just
it was a bad dream and that's the miracle of it.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Interesting, well, I guess segued for a second here, But
with the data shows that if you do surgery, any surgery,
even a simple spinal injection, in the presence of untreated
chronic pain, you'll make the pain worse twenty to sixty
percent of the time. So, for instance, if you or
induce it in there are. In other words, if you
(19:45):
had chronic back pain and if you'd had a simple
hernia repair in the presence of untreated chronic pain, you
will induce pain at a hernia site, which is a
very simple operation. Forty to sixty percent of the time
we're having a gall buttter or just whatever procedure there is.
Because you have a fired up nervous system, you start
plugging in body parts and then about ten percent in
(20:08):
time that pain becomes permanent. So if I had a
neurological complication rate of ten percent, I would not be
in business. But a complication of chronic pain is a
devastating injury.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
Absolutely. I wanted to comment on this. It's another thing
I don't think I've shared with you before. But when
I think about those early conversations that you and I had,
you described the skepticism that I would approach those chats.
I think there was two things at play. One thing
is you know you were reminding me, are encouraging me
to understand that the healing would come from within, that
there was not an intervention out there that would make
me better, And you're right, I was skeptical of that.
(20:43):
The other piece which I was not skeptical of. This
is the piece that I think really convinced me not
to do. It is the fact that you some of
the facts like the ones you just shared. I remember
reading in the book. It was I think towards the
end of the book that first edition, you explained in
black and white, what does surgical success mean? How is
it defined for back surgery for back pain? And if
(21:04):
I remember it's been a dozen years since I've read
the book, it was not going from you know, ten
out of ten pain to two out of ten pain.
It was more like going from you know, like a
twenty percent improvement in pain. And I thought to myself
that success is getting twenty percent you know, potentially better
in pain, but it comes with such an increased risk
of more pain or complication. I think that that's I
(21:26):
just wanted to comment. This is another real value to
the The way that you teach about this is helping
people get away from this idea that surgery is the
magic pill. There's so many it's fraught with complications and problems.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Right, well, such, thank you.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Well, I'm gonna talk a lot more about some of
the details of what's keeping moving forward now what life
is like now. But such as a classic example of
why E quit my practice, because I mean I was
one of those surgery. If you see me in my
first seven years in practice, I would have said the
same thing this to diffusion because I didn't know any better.
(22:00):
I'm not trying to tell my pollies under the bus
because they weren't trained that way.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I went through horrible.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Pay myself to learn all this stuff, and I'm excited
I can share it. So anyways, such, thank you very
much and we'll talk to you in a few minutes.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
Sounds good.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
I'd like to thank Sachtigan for being on the show
today and for sharing his healing journey through 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 Hanscombe, and in the meantime, be sure
to visit the website at www dot back incontrol dot com.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Thanks for listening today and join us next week for
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