The Gift of Purposeful Pain

Just as you overhear people saying that “the doctor prescribed such-and-such for him” (like riding, or cold baths, or walking barefoot…) say this: “Nature prescribed illness for him.” Or blindness. Or the loss of a limb. Or whatever. There “prescribed” means something like “ordered, so as to further his recovery.” And so too here. What happens to each of us is ordered. It furthers our destiny. Marcus Aurelius - Meditations, Book 5 - 8

The above quote really struck me. This can be a difficult concept to accept, especially in extreme circumstances such as catastrophic injuries or conditions. But I do believe there is deep wisdom in this quote and just because I may not understand the cause or reason behind such circumstances doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Nature is harsh yet balanced and everything has it’s place and purpose. There is far more that’s not understood in nature than there is that is understood.

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, serious injuries and pain were some of the greatest blessings in my life. They steered me toward a path to become a natural doctor and help others who suffer to avoid drugs and unnecessary surgery. These experiences were not pleasant. In fact they were pretty awful at times, even devastating and emotionally depressing.

When I was a senior in high school I suffered a herniated disc injury in my lower back from weight lifting. The pain was terrible. The memory is so clear it’s like it was yesterday. It happened while doing a deadlift. My posture broke and a sharp intense pain came on immediately sending lightning bolt sensations shooting down both legs.

Being young and foolish, I wanted to prove to myself (and of course others in the room) that I could take the pain and finished the set. But deep down it was clear that something was wrong. Martial arts training and lifting weights were my favorite activities at the time. They were my happy place, my outlet, and significant part of my identity. So this situation that could potentially stop me started to become worrisome.

After a few more days of continuing to lift weights, the pain worsened to the point where it was necessary to seek help. I went to the athletic trainer at my school who after examining me, told me I needed to see a neurologist and possibly a surgeon and that this was more of a problem than I thought. The trainer was a funny guy with a great sense of humor who always seemed to keep things light, so I became concerned when the joking stopped and his face became dead serious.

My plan at that time was to serve in the military and then to college. According to the trainer though, because of this injury, the military was probably not going to happen. Not being able to weight train or go to martial arts class was devastating for me at that time. Imagine what you’re most passionate about coming to a screeching halt.

After seeing a neurologist and a neurosurgeon, the diagnosis was herniated L4/L5 disc with stenosis and radiculopathy (nerve root involvement). Spinal surgery was the recommended course of action and I agreed. What I didn’t realize at the time was that this was completely unnecessary and I could have fully recovered with conservative treatment. But as the saying goes, hindsight is 20/20 and I wanted the fastest solution possible so I could get back to doing what I loved.

The surgery was successful, thankfully, but the recovery was painful and difficult. The procedure was a microdiscectomy and partial laminectomy. Basically, the surgeon removed the herniated disc material and removed some bone to create more space in the spinal canal. Thankfully, fusion was not necessary according to the surgeon due to my young age and good health.

The recovery was slow and painful, but steady. The surgeon and physical therapist I worked with told me not to lift heavy weights again. The martial arts training I was doing before the injury was pretty intense and I couldn’t imagine going back to that anytime soon. The wind was taken out of my sails and I felt lost.

I attended SUNY Albany for undergraduate college and majored in English with a minor in communication. Writing was enjoyable and I was somewhat decent at it, so that was my focus. Math and science classes were avoided at all cost. I really had no direction nor any clue as to a career or sense of purpose. Although I did love learning and had many interests, there didn’t seem to be any path.

The back pain had resolved but I didn’t start training again out of fear of re-injury. The instructions of the surgeon had infected my mindset. Laziness and partying had also kicked in, so fear and a history of back surgery became good excuses for not getting off my butt and getting back on track with training and physical health. That old edge was gone, and while I was a decent student, there was no real drive. I was drifting.

After graduating, I worked for my family’s cookie business in the Bronx which I was very fortunate and grateful for, but knew deep down this was not my path. I was playing music with some friends in a rock/metal band, writing and considering moving to a different part of the world and starting over completely. Not sure what was next, I continued to coast along.

In the meantime, I began martial arts training again and slowly started to feel like my old self. This hard physical activity reignited my passion. It had been four years since the surgery and it felt great to start being in control of my body again. That old feeling of passion was returning.

Things were going well but then, BAM, another injury occurred. This time it was the neck. Again, intense sharp pain, restricted movement, etc. "Here we go again," I thought. A doctor I consulted with told me based on what he saw, I may need another surgery.

I refused to go down that road again. There had to be a better way than surgery and simply following the standard modern medical model.. And so the search for a different route began.

Someone had recommended seeing a chiropractor, and being up for anything other than drugs or surgery, I thought why not? It’s pretty funny looking back because I didn’t think it would help and actually thought it was a ridiculous idea. How could "cracking my neck" help to resolve what seemed like a serious injury? But I was open to anything other than surgery and painkillers that could help at that point.

After only a few sessions I was back training and felt great. It was truly amazing and seemed literally seemed like a miracle. It was difficult to wrap my head around the fact that with some manual adjustments and very basic exercises and therapy, I could go from feeling agony and hardly moving to feeling better than I had even before the injury!

I continued to go for treatments and continued to feel even better. All the while the chiropractor was teaching me about improving health and how to take care of my body. These were basic concepts but I felt like i stumbled upon some great secret formula because none of my other doctors ever talked about any of this.

This experience was so profound that it inspired me to start researching chiropractic and natural healing even more. It didn’t take long to realize this was my path. I needed to be able to give other people this gift of natural healing the same way it was given to me. How many people can avoid unnecessary surgeries and harmful drugs if they only knew about chiropractic and the power of the human body to heal itself? For the first time in my life I felt a calling, a drive, a purpose.

After the decision was made, I needed to go back to undergraduate college to take science pre-requisites to be accepted into chiropractic school. This was terrifying as these were the classes I avoided my first time around in college. The road ahead seemed long, and not even that practical. My purpose and focus were so strong at this point, though, that I not only aced these classes but actually enjoyed them. Science, especially human physiology and clinical anatomy, became a fascination and obsession. Nothing was stopping me at this point.

I attended New York Chiropractic College in Seneca Falls, NY (now named Northeast College of Health Sciences). Chiropractic school is typically a three and a half year program (summers included) consisting of 10 trimesters, which after passing, you receive a Doctor of Chiropractic (DC) degree. Then there are board exams, state licensure etc. It’s an intense combination of basic sciences such as anatomy, physiology and biochemistry, clinical sciences such as pathology, diagnostic procedures and radiology, and manual adjusting technique and diagnosis. It is physically and mentally demanding, from dissecting human cadavers, studying cells through microscopes, countless hours reading and writing notes, and manually adjusting and treating live patients.

In the beginning of my first trimester, sharp pain began developing in my right shoulder, making physical activity difficult. Fortunately, part of the program is being a patient in the student clinic, where senior students can work on you under the supervision of an instructor. I was lucky to have a brilliant shoulder specialist as an instructor managing the case. The diagnosis was a torn labrum and unstable (loose) joint capsule. This was most likely a result of wear and tear from the years of weight lifting and old repetitive trauma from martial arts, baseball and football in years prior.

After an extensive series of treatment with no improvement, MRI, orthopedic consult and other chiropractors’ opinions, my instructor recommended surgery. He was very conservative as a practitioner, so after exhausting all other options, when he said surgery was required, I knew it had to be done.

The surgery, a fairly new procedure at the time called thermal capsulorrhaphy with labral repair, was followed by intense rehab by my instructor that consisted of aggressive soft tissue manipulation and exercise protocols. The soft tissue technique he mainly used was Active Release Techniques (A.R.T.).

The whole experience was pretty miserable. The rehab was extremely painful and I didn’t have much use of my right arm for weeks. This was a problem being in chiropractic school and learning adjusting procedures which are very physical and require a lot of arm use.

As awful and painful as the experience was though, my recovery time was fantastic and way ahead of schedule. The painful rehab paid off and I was back in my adjusting classes fast enough to stay on track and not have to repeat the trimester. The efficiency of this soft tissue rehab was mind-blowing. It’s a very basic concept. After a surgery, scar tissue will form as part of the healing process. The fascia, or connective tissues develop tension and become distorted due to this process, thereby altering the biomechanics, function, nerve communication, etc.

The purpose of this painful yet extremely effective soft tissue work is to help guide this healing process so it can happen as efficiently as possible while minimizing the distortion in the fascia and its potential negative effects. This is the missing link in many rehab protocols that only focus on exercise and strengthening. The strengthening will happen much more rapidly and effectively when this soft tissue/fascial component is properly addressed.

So after having the blessing of this painful, inconvenient yet mind-blowing experience, the soft tissue/fascial manipulation aspect of care became my focus. I pursued and completed training and certification in all the Active Release Techniques modules that were available at that time before even graduating from chiropractic school (they were taught as outside post-doctoral seminars). It was clear this would be a powerful tool in my practice and the style of chiropractic I would pursue.

There are many different styles and approaches within chiropractic. They're all great, although some may be more appropriate for certain situations or certain individuals than others. Although traditional chiropractic is what helped me originally and inspired me to pursue the path to begin with, after my shoulder surgery/rehab experience, I could not imagine practicing without addressing soft tissue/fascia. There's no better way to be convinced of something than to experience it first-hand.

This is why when people say to me, "I don't believe in chiropractic" I respond, there's nothing to believe in. It's not a religion. It's a concept, an approach that is to be measured with results. It either works or it doesn't work, so why not let the results speak for themselves? It's different if someone had a bad experience with a chiropractor, but that is not representative of the whole profession. But that's a whole different discussion.

At this point, learning how to help the body heal in the most efficient way was an obsession. I loved learning and would go to any outside seminar I could to learn new or different techniques and approaches not taught in chiropractic school. I wanted to have an extensive toolkit and be the person who could help you get better as fast as possible with as few visits as possible.

My last trimester of chiropractic school consisted on an internship with a fantastic doctor who specialized in soft tissue work like I wanted to do. He was an advanced practitioner in Active Release Techniques, Graston, chiropractic rehabilitation and other effective modalities. It was a refreshing and eye-opening experience to see these different techniques combined to create effective treatments for a wide variety of neuromusculoskeletal problems in a successful clinical practice.

One of the many things I am forever grateful for is great teachers and mentors. In addition to the great instructors who helped me in school, I contacted well known and highly respected practitioners in the field and asked if I could observe them in practice. These were the people who wrote the textbooks, did the research and had decades of experience at the forefront of the profession. The goal was to learn from the best. I was very fortunate that some of these amazing doctors agreed and generously shared their knowledge and wisdom with a curious student.

After graduating, I began working in the clinic where I did the internship and learned a tremendous amount from this mentor. It was such a great feeling to be able to start putting these tools to use and help people.

At least two weekends a month I attended classes and seminars trying to expand my knowledge base and toolkit. After all the pain, work, time, etc. of school and training, I felt I had finally accomplished something and had some direction, but there was so much more to do and learn. The more knowledge and experience I gained, the more I realized I did not know. What seemed like a long journey thus far was only the first baby step…