By Dr. David Hanscom

I spent the first eight years of my medical practice performing surgery for back pain. Seattle, Washington in 1986 was one of the most aggressive regions in the country regarding the indications for this operation. The reason for the surge was that we were introduced to newer technology that allowed us to attain a solid spinal fusion a higher percent of the time.

I was excited to be able to offer the option of surgery to my patients and felt badly if I could not find a reason to help someone out with an operation. I followed all my patients indefinitely and worked hard on optimizing the rehab. My results seemed okay, but were not close to what I wanted them to be.

Then the data came out in 1994 that the success rate two years after a spine fusion for low back pain in an injured worker was only about 30 percent. I immediately stopped doing the procedure, but did not know what else to offer. In the meantime, I began my own descent into severe pain.

During this period, I performed a one-level lumbar fusion for a young gentleman in his early 30’s. He had a work-related injury and was in pain and disabled for over 3 years. I worked with him for about 6 months to stabilize his medications, supervised his physical therapy, and recommended several back injections. I knew nothing about chronic pain and the implications of a sensitized nervous system.

After the operation, he was worse. I saw him every two to four weeks for over a year to do what I could to help him. He became increasingly frustrated, and his behavior became so aggressive, I had to dismiss him from care. He quickly assaulted his grandmother for money for meds. He then headed with a gun to Eastern Washington, where I was holding a satellite clinic.

“He’s coming after you with a gun,” a relative warned. We alerted the police and fortunately he never showed up. I never heard from him again.

Around this time, one of my spine partner’s patients begin to scream and yell in the middle of a full waiting room because he had a failed spine surgery and his disability had run out. He proceeded to pick up a potted plant and throw it across the room. Fortunately, no one was injured.

Spine Surgeon Killed

Dr. Preston Phillips was a spine surgeon who was shot and killed a few weeks ago in Tulsa, Oklahoma by a patient who was angry about his post-operative pain. Phillips was a colleague of mine in Seattle. I did not know him well, but interacted with him in conferences and some patient care. He was as nice a person as I have ever worked with.

It may be easy to blame Phillips for doing a surgery that apparently failed, but it is not his fault. His patient had chronic back pain and almost none of us in medicine are trained to treat it effectively, in spite of the data being right in front of us for decades. We are treating almost all symptoms and disease from a structural perspective, when most of them arise from the body’s physiological state of being in a sustained “flight or fight” response.

Phillips was doing what he was trained to do with the best of intentions. His patient was trapped in an endless cycle of pain and surgery is often viewed as the definitive answer. It requires enduring even more pain and anxiety, so the level of disappointment is even higher when surgery fails.

The Abyss

One afternoon, I was listening to a patient attempting to describe the depth of her suffering and it hit me how deep and hopeless this hole of chronic pain is for most people. I realized that words were inadequate to encapsulate their degree of misery. Since no one seemed to have any answers, there was no apparent way out. The description that seemed to fit for this dark, bottomless pit was “The Abyss.”

A 2007 research paper documented that the effect of chronic pain on one’s life is similar to the impact of having terminal cancer. With cancer, you at least know the diagnosis and that there is an endpoint, one way or the other.

Suffering from terminal cancer is horrible, but living with constant pain without a cure, treatment or endpoint is even worse. Here are just a few of the ways:

• You have been told that there is nothing wrong and you have to live with your pain the best you can. The reality is that there is a physiological explanation for all of it.

• You may have been given the diagnosis of “Medically Unexplained Symptoms.” This is simply not true based on the last 20 years of basic science research.

• You are labeled by almost everyone, including the medical profession. The labels include drug seeker, malingerer, lazy, unmotivated, making things up, and not tough enough. The list is endless.

When you are trapped by anything, especially pain, your frustration and anger is deep and powerful. This scenario creates an even more intense flight or fight response. The blood supply to your brain shifts from the thinking center to the survival midbrain, and your behaviors may become irrational. There does not seem to be way out and you lose hope.

The literature also shows that pain is often worsened when surgery is performed in the presence of untreated chronic pain. I was also not aware of that data until after I quit my surgical practice. For Phillips’ patient to act out the way he did is unacceptable, but being trapped causes people to act irrationally.

Anger is not only destructive; it can be self-destructive. Suicide is problematic in patients suffering from relentless pain. For many, it seems to be the only way out. I was also at that point towards the end of my pain ordeal.

Physical therapy, chiropractic adjustments, injections, acupuncture, vocational retraining, medications, traction, inversion tables, and finally surgery. How many times can your expectations be dashed before you lose hope?

All the parties in the Tulsa shooting were victims of the business of medicine, and I put the blame squarely on its shoulders. Physicians are inadequately trained in chronic pain and data-based effective treatments are not usually covered by insurance. Physicians are often rushed, don’t have time to talk to patients, and their patients don’t feel heard. These are just some of the variables, but the energy is all aimed in the same direction: Money.

There are real solutions for your pain. Learning to calm and redirect your nervous system out of a threat state is a learned set of well-documented interventions. These techniques are not particularly profitable, but that is not the primary reason I went into medicine.

Both the medical profession and patients are going to have to demand a change in the paradigm of treating people. The first step being that you need to be heard and that takes time. It needs to happen soon.

David Hanscom, MD, is a retired spinal surgeon who has helped hundreds of back pain sufferers by teaching them how to calm their central nervous systems without the use of drugs or surgery.

Hanscom has a website called The DOC Journey, in which he shares his own experience with chronic pain and offers patients a pathway out of mental and physical pain through mindful awareness and meditation.

He is the author of “Do You Really Need Spine Surgery?” and “Back in Control.”