I am a 63 year old physician. Short story–
-I was an ENT surgeon- In 1982 (age 29) began my own practice.
-By 1994 I had so much neck, back and shoulder pain that I had to stop operating.
-I went into business (non-medical)-opened 40 franchises in 2 years and hated every day of it. (Made a lot of money)
-In 1996 I began a 3 year dermatology residency program. It was broken up by 3 surgeries, addiction to prescription pain
medication, PT, acupuncture, chiropractic, osteopathic therapies. It took me 6 years to complete the dermatology
residency and I began to practice as a dermatologist in 2002. The neck, shoulder and back pain continued at a 4-5 level
daily with flares at times.
I was introduced to your books and philosophy by an MD colleague in 1994. My head was not in the right place to even consider anything new.
Howard Stern mentioned your name on radio about 3 weeks ago. I pulled out your books. I have stopped my Celebrex 200mg BID that I started when Vioxx when off the market. I have tried unsuccessfully to titrate to lower levels.
I stopped my 45 minute 4 times a week back and neck exercises and began riding an upright bike again (I’ve only been able to ride a recumbent since 1994). Today I bowled 2 games. I tried that 10 years ago and suffered for weeks.
My pain is about 70-80% better at the 3 weeks mark! Having been trained in osteopathic medicine, I have never been able to prove what we did actually helped patients, but it did.
Thank you for your continued observations and beautiful documentation and writings.