HE BECAME AN ORTHOPEDIC SPINE SURGEON BY ACCIDENT:  Dr. Hanscom was originally an internist, and he had interviewed for orthopedics in the state of Hawaii so that he could write off his trip. Two years later, he received a phone call, which offered him an orthopedic residency in Hawaii, and he took it. He looks back and states he didn’t have the personality to be an orthopedic spine surgeon. Orthopedic Spine Surgery is one of the most challenging fields in medicine. The spine is very delicate and requires a surgeon with precision and expertise. People who have surgery on their spines expect perfection and for the surgery to stop their suffering.  

DR. HANSCOM UNDERSTANDS CHRONIC PAIN, DUE TO SUFFERING FROM IT FOR OVER THIRTEEN YEARS:  He had suppressed his anxiety and pain for a very long time, but while traveling one day on Seattle’s Five Twenty Bridge, he had a massive panic attack. His heart started to race, he felt faint, and he thought he was having a heart attack. He thought he was going to die. It took him many years to figure out what had happened. He was suffering from Chronic Pain, and before he could resolve his issues, he suffered from seventeen different physical and mental symptoms. 

ACUTE PAIN IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THAN CHRONIC PAIN:  Acute pain is the body’s response to immediate danger. When a person walks on hot pavement and feels pain, that is the body’s signal that something is too hot, and to get off the pavement. The pain occurs to protect the person from hurting themselves. In the rare instances when a person is born without a pain symptom, they do not live very long because their body has no way of protecting itself from danger. Acute pain is the body’s gift. But when acute pain branches into chronic pain, it is not a source of protection. It is debilitating and wears the body down. Chronic pain occurs when the body has literally short-circuited. It is similar to a car alarm that won’t turn off.   

CHRONIC PAIN IS A DISEASE:  It is a disease that is similar to heart disease, depression, OCD, and obesity, due to they are all metabolic disorders. The body is under constant threat physiology or in a prolonged state of “flight or fight mode.” It is similar to a car driven in continuous second gear; it will eventually wear out and break down. When doctors state, “we tested everything and cannot find anything wrong,” this is not true because the entire body chemistry is off. When your body’s physiology is off, it is powerful because it will affect every cell and organ in your body. This is why someone with chronic pain could have seventeen different symptoms like Dr. Hanscom did because it affects all different organs. Every organ will have a different stress response when your body is under constant threat. Stress is very inflammatory, and inflammation causes more pain. 

DR. HANCOM’S JOURNEY OUT OF CHRONIC PAIN DID NOT INVOLVE SURGERY: He no longer recommends surgery to alleviate chronic pain. He used to be very aggressive about operating on back pain for Worker’s Compensation patients. After much research, he found that only twenty-two percent of the Worker’s Compensation population reported relief post-surgery after two years. Forty to Sixty percent reported a worsening of pain post-surgery at the same two-year mark. In his research, he found that you cannot operate on anxiety. The anxiety stems from having an injury and then being off work. Research has shown that being off work has devastating mental health effects. When surgery has failed, it often leaves injured workers feeling trapped. Feeling trapped makes them angry and frustrated, which is a vicious cycle. When we are angry, we do not have abstract thinking. When they speak with Dr. Hanscom, he is aware that they are angry, but he hopes they are curious. He will refer them to the DOC Journey (Direct Your Own Care), a self-guided journey out of chronic pain. If they are curious enough to start looking at it, then it’s game on from there. There are several things that they can do to help rewire their brain, so they get better and live fuller lives. When Dr. Hanscom started his journey, it took six weeks to feel a shift in his pain. It wasn’t a cure, but it put him on the path to recovery. He reports thriving at a level he never knew was possible, and so do his patients. He has quit his spine surgery practice because his patients are now going pain-free, without surgery. 

DO NOT WATCH THE NEWS, AND MAKE SURE YOU GET A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP:   When someone lacks sleep, they cannot clear out their brain. Lack of sleep is inflammatory, which will increase levels of pain. It is crucial to avoid watching the news because it can cause anxiety. It is important to surround yourself with positivity, which is why one of the rules in his coaching for patients is that they cannot talk about their pain with their family, friends or during the group coaching sessions. Talking about it causes the body to have an inflammatory response, which causes more pain. We cannot avoid stress, but we can learn to process it better. What Dr. Hanscom coaches his patients is how to move into joy. Joy tremendously affects how we heal, and it is important to connect with who we are. While “joy” is not usually the first word in a surgeon’s vocabulary, it has become a staple of Dr. Hanscom’s. For more information on The DOC Journey, please go to www.thedocjourney.com.