The Way Out

Description

A groundbreaking mind-body protocol to heal chronic pain, backed by new research.

Chronic pain is an epidemic. Fifty million Americans struggle with back pain, headaches, or some other pain that resists all treatment. Desperate pain sufferers are told again and again that there is no cure for chronic pain.

Alan Gordon, a psychotherapist and the founder of the Pain Psychology Center in Los Angeles, was in grad school when he started experiencing chronic pain and it completely derailed his life. He saw multiple doctors and received many diagnoses, but none of the medical treatments helped. Frustrated with conventional pain management, he developed Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), a mind-body protocol that eliminated his own chronic pain and has transformed the lives of thousands of his patients.

PRT is rooted in neuroscience, which has shown that while chronic pain feels like it’s coming from the body, in most cases it’s generated by misfiring pain circuits in the brain. PRT is a system of psychological techniques that rewires the brain to break out of the cycle of chronic pain.

The University of Colorado-Boulder recently conducted a large randomized controlled study on PRT, and the results are remarkable. By the end of the study, the majority of patients were pain-free or nearly pain-free. What’s more, these dramatic changes held up over time.

The Way Out brings PRT to readers. It combines accessible science with a concrete, step-by-step plan to teach sufferers how to heal their own chronic pain.”The Way Out is a groundbreaking approach to the treatment of chronic pain that gives hope to those who were thought to be incurable. All chronic pain patients owe it to themselves to read this book.”
–Andrew Weil, MD, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Spontaneous Healing
 
“With straightforward and practical wisdom, The Way Out presents a sophisticated yet simple approach to understanding and healing chronic pain—an approach grounded in advanced science and proven clinical experience.”
–Gabor Maté MD, author of When the Body Says No
 
“At long last, a successful treatment for chronic, disabling pain. The Way Out provides valuable information about the ailment of pain, and many helpful suggestions on how to heal.”
–Aaron Beck, MD, founder of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), emeritus professor of psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
 
“In The Way Out, Alan Gordon and Alon Ziv have written a marvelously useful book. Frankly, I wish I had written this book! The Way Out provides a scientifically valid approach for treating (and often curing) chronic pain. In addition to being a useful book, it is an easy and enjoyable read. Alan and Alon effectively use patient examples to explain and illustrate the techniques. Every person who suffers with chronic pain will find comfort and healing in the pages of The Way Out. Every clinician who treats chronic pain should read The Way Out, they will become a wiser and better guide for their patients.”
–Steven Richeimer, MD, Chief of Pain Medicine, USC Keck School of Medicine
 
“The Way Out offers a wonderfully clear and compelling combination of personal experience and the latest breakthroughs in brain science to show how to reduce chronic pain. Beautifully written, with gentle humor and genuine compassion, the authors start from acknowledging the reality of chronic pain and invite you to try techniques that promise a new freedom that might have seemed impossible – a transformation that will affect both you and those with whom you share your life.”
–Mark Williams, emeritus professor of clinical psychology, University of Oxford, coauthor of Mindfulness
 
“If you suffer from chronic pain (or know someone who does), The Way Out is an optimistic, science-based book about managing the mind-body connection to healing. Alan Gordon writes with compassion, empathy, and a deep understanding of living with pain. Finding relief from his own suffering prompted him to find freedom for others.”
–Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Change
 
“Quite possibly the most important pain book ever written. The Way Out will be the answer for millions who live in constant agony. There is healing without drugs or dangerous surgeries, and The Way Out is the book to help you finally find healing. As a former chronic pain sufferer, I know firsthand how every area of your life will improve when you are finally out of constant pain. Read this book, you deserve it.”
–Annie Grace, author of This Naked Mind
 
“The Way Out highlights the role of neuroplasticity in chronic pain and explores how to tackle it. This is a great positive step forward in chronic pain treatment.”
–Clifford Woolf, MD, professor of neurology and neurobiology, Harvard Medical School
 
“A compelling journey and fascinating read. In The Way Out, Gordon and Ziv bring together serendipity and science, demonstrating the power of the mind, and how we all can harness our own brains for healing.”
–Judson Brewer, MD, PhD, New York Times bestselling author of Unwinding Anxiety and The Craving Mind
 
“The strain in pain lies mainly in the brain.  This accessible, warm book is a re-minder of how you can learn to better control pain by learning to think differently about it.”
–David Spiegel, MD, Willson Professor and Associate Chair of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Director of the Center for Integrative Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, coauthor of Trance and Treatment

“It’s long been assumed that chronic pain is irreversible, but The Way Out introduces an approach that proves otherwise. I have seen the power of this treatment firsthand. Patients who suffered for years or even decades have made remarkable recoveries. The Way Out is quite simply the most effective treatment for chronic pain.”
–Howard Schubiner, MD, founder and director of the Mind-Body Medicine Program, Ascension Providence HospitalAlan Gordon, LCSW, is the founder and executive director of the Pain Psychology Center, where he oversees a team of twenty-five therapists. Gordon developed Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), a cutting-edge protocol for treating chronic pain, and just completed a groundbreaking neuroimaging study on the efficacy of PRT in conjunction with the University of Colorado-Boulder. He was featured on CBS’s The Doctors, where he conducted the first fMRI case study of a patient eliminating chronic pain. He is an adjunct assistant professor at USC and has presented on the topic of pain treatment at conferences and trainings throughout the country.

Alon Ziv has a degree in neuroscience and was awarded the Certificate of Distinction in Teaching in Biology from UCLA. He is the author of Breeding Between the Lines: Why Interracial People Are Healthier and More Attractive and has appeared on the BBC London Evening News, NPR, BBC Radio, and local radio across the United States. Ziv co-founded PrepU, an adaptive learning system for the sciences that has been used by college students more than one billion times.

In my mid- twenties, life was good. I was in graduate school for psychotherapy at USC. I was an outgoing, active guy. I hung out with my friends. I went to Dodgers games. I was in a kick­ball league (my team even made it to Nationals!). But during my second year of grad school, everything changed. I devel­oped severe lower back pain, and it completely derailed my life.

Even something as simple as sitting through a movie became a two- hour- long nightmare. Dodgers games were out of the question. I couldn’t watch sports, let alone play them. The stiff classroom seats at USC caused me so much pain, I had to buy a soft, lean- back chair from Office Depot and roll it from class to class. In case you’re wondering, lugging a giant chair every­where you go is not great for your social life.

I saw three of the leading back specialists in Los Angeles. One of them told me that my pain was caused by a disc her­niation. One of them told me that my symptoms were due to disc degeneration. One of them told me that my back hurt be­cause I was just too tall.

I couldn’t make myself shorter, but I tried every other treat­ment imaginable: physical therapy, biofeedback, acupuncture, acupressure. Nothing helped. I got so many MRI scans of my back, my friends joked that my spine was turning into a magnet.

After about six months, I got an epidural injection. It didn’t cure me, but it cut my pain in half. Life was once again bearable . . . for about eight days. Until one morning, out of nowhere, I felt like a grenade went off in my head. It was the most excruciating headache I’d ever had.

And it stayed.

Chronic daily headache, the internet told me, had no known cause and no known cure. Terrific.

After seeing even more doctors, I found a headache special­ist who diagnosed me with high cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pressure. He prescribed some medication, which didn’t help.

Here’s the thing about high- CSF- pressure headaches: the pain is worse when you lie down. So I couldn’t sit up because it hurt my back, and I couldn’t lie down because it hurt my head. My father, practical man that he is, suggested that I try to find a way to live at a forty- five- degree angle. Thanks, Dad.

Over the next several years, I developed the following addi­tional symptoms:
•upper back pain
•neck pain
•shoulder pain
•knee pain
•heel pain
•tongue pain (who gets tongue pain?)
•eye pain
•tooth pain
•toe pain (three different toes!)
•hip pain
•stomach pain
•wrist pain
•foot pain
•leg pain
•TMJ
•heartburn
•vertigo
•tinnitus
•itching
•fatigue
 
In short, I was a mess. Doctors were scared of me. I had plenty of diagnoses to go along with these symptoms: bulging discs, partially torn rotator cuff, repetitive strain injury, etc. But none of the medical treatments helped me.

Pain took over my life. It was too hard to put on a happy face with my friends, so I withdrew socially. I couldn’t work. I put my life completely on hold to try to deal with my pain. I even moved back home with my parents.

One day my mom gave me a book about a mind- body ap­proach to treating pain. She told me that her friend’s son had read it, and it had helped him get rid of his back pain. She’s a loving mother, and she was trying to help me. So I did what any rational chronic pain sufferer would do. I threw the book across the room.
“A book isn’t going to help me, Mom. The pain isn’t in my head. I have a bunch of diagnoses from doctors.”

She shrugged and left the room. You don’t argue with some­one in chronic pain.
A year later I finally read the book, and I spoke with my mom’s friend’s son. The book didn’t get rid of my pain, but it opened my mind to the possibility that I could. It was an im­portant first step. I decided to learn everything there is to know about pain.
 
I studied the neuroscience of pain. I learned that pain involves both the body and the brain. Normally, the brain gets signals from throughout the body and processes them. If the body ex­periences an injury, the brain generates the feeling of pain.
But sometimes the system goes haywire. Sometimes the “pain switch” in our brains can get stuck in the on position and cause chronic pain.

We call this neuroplastic pain. Normal pain is caused by damage to the body. But pain that persists after an injury has healed, or pain that has no clear physical cause, is usually neuroplastic pain. In chapter 2, I’ll explain why neuroplastic pain develops and how to determine if you have it.

I realized that I was suffering from neuroplastic pain. I’d been focused on fixing my body, but to get rid of my pain, I needed to target my brain. The mind- body approach to chronic pain was relatively new, and the treatments were underdevel­oped. So I created new techniques to rewire my brain and re­store the natural order.

I still have bulging discs. I still have high cerebrospinal fluid pressure. I probably still have a partially torn rotator cuff. But I don’t have any pain. I eliminated all twenty- two of my symptoms.

Along the way, I realized that I wasn’t alone. In fact, we’re in the midst of a chronic pain epidemic. More than 50 million adults suffer from chronic pain in the United States alone. Globally, the number is estimated to be 1.2 billion!

Treating chronic pain became my life’s work. I founded the Pain Psychology Center and began helping other sufferers. In my experience, the majority of chronic pain is neuroplastic pain. Over the years, we’ve refined our techniques into a con­sistently effective system— Pain Reprocessing Therapy— and we’ve helped people overcome every form of pain imaginable.

US

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