David Hanscom
MD
Free
Chronic Back Pain Expert
David Hanscom Quick Facts
- Career Focus
- Author, Speaker, Spine Surgeon
David A. Hanscom, M.D., is an orthopedic spine surgeon. His focus is on the surgical treatment of complex spinal deformities such as scoliosis and kyphosis. Other conditions he treats include degenerative disorders, fractures, tumors, and infections of all areas of the spine. He has expertise with those who have had multiple failed surgeries. As many revision procedures are complicated he works with a team to optimize nutrition, mental approach, medications, physical conditioning, and overall health as part of the process. Surgery at our deformity center is always performed the context of a sustained pre and postoperative rehabilitation program. http://www.drdavidhanscom.com
Articles by this expert
SelfGrowth articles and saved writing connected to this expert.
Article
Anger and Anxiety–Highway to Hell
There is an intense relationship between anxiety and anger. Understanding this interaction is perhaps one of the most important concepts that will have a major impact in calming down your nervous system. Anxiety and Anger are universal. Few human beings have seemed to rise above them. They are both survival emotions. Anxiety represents a feeling of vulnerability and helplessness. At the deepest level of our existence we are hard-wired to avoid this emotion at all costs.
Recently added
Article
The DOCC Program
Pain is a multi-faceted experience. For a given pain problem ALL of the factors that affect the perception of pain must be successfully addressed. In regards to low back pain there are three categories of issues: 1) potential structural problems 2) the soft tissues supporting the spine 3) the central nervous where the pain impulses are received and interpreted.
Recently added
Article
DOCC-A Framework of Care
The DOCC program is a framework that breaks down the pain experience into its various component parts. This framework enables the providers and patients to communicate much more clearly, and effectively so as to develop a partnership to solve the problem. With musculoskeletal pain, there are three components to the problem: - Possible anatomic structural problems that need definition - The soft tissues such as ligaments, discs, fascia, etc. - The central nervous system
Recently added
Article
My Early Evolution of the DOCC Project
In 1999 I moved to Sun Valley, Idaho to be close to my son who was seriously competing as a mogul skier. I went from a large group and a huge hospital in Seattle to a small practice and a community hospital.
Recently added
Article
My Early Surgical Philosophy
I had started my practice in Seattle in 1986. I was for the first time feeling pretty beat up from my spine training and overwhelmed. I felt well trained and still had a rather high opinion of myself, but I was tired. It also quickly became clear that low back pain was much more complicated tha I had thought. Patients with low back pain made up the majority of my practice. I also had no insight into the nature of chronic pain with its devastating effects.
Recently added
Article
Humans vs Machines
It is an almost universally held concept among surgeons and patients that a specific structural lesion is usually the source of pain. If that lesion can be identified and repaired, the pain will resolve. This seems plausible. It seems likely in light of the intensity of back pain that a diagnostic test ought to be able to identify the source ofrnintense pain and point to a solution. During my first seven years of practice it was my assumption that if a patient had experienced low back pain for six months then it was my role to simply find the anatomicr
Recently added
Article
My Low Back Surgery and Infection
I had started out my working life as a carpenter at age fifteen. I worked every summer and vacation doing residential construction. I did everything from heavy concrete slab work to finish interior work. The summer before medical school I built a 5,000 square foot house for my parents. I was energetic and a hard worker. I was also young and tough. I could lift and carry anything. I had a strong back and loved to show it off. I heard endless admonitions from my fellow workers and supervisors to be careful of my back. What did they know?
Recently added
Article
My Journey Into Darkness
It has been my personal observation that most of us don’t have a clear idea regarding how to manage our stress. My tools from early high school were positive thinking and just being tough. I felt do whatever I set out to do and could get through any difficult circumstance. I would not allow myself to get angry. I did not even know what the emotion of anxiety was. No one could hurt me.
Recently added
Article
Birth of the DOCC Project
In 1998 I moved to Sun Valley, Idaho for personal reasons. I became the sole proprietor of a one-physician spine surgery practice in 2001. I did not have the rehab physicians to rely on. I made a commitment that I would take care of all the patients that walked through my door. It did not matter whether the problem was acute or chronic, surgical or non-surgical. I began to utilize the concepts I had learned from the rehab physicians. I was very pro-active and aggressive in implementing and following up on treatment plans.
Recently added
Article
Degenerated Discs and Back Pain
Why “discogenic pain” is a Non-structural Diagnosis The problem with calling this a structural diagnosis is that it is not humanly possible to tell which disc is the painful disc at a specific point in time. It is a reasonable supposition that if a person ruptures and L4-5 disc, that the preceding episodes of axial low back pain were probably from that disc. However, during that period of episodic low back pain, we don’t have the tools to accurately figure it out.
Recently added
Article
The Pain Generator
The Source of the Pain—“Pain Generator” It is an almost universally held concept among surgeons and patients that a specific structural lesion is usually the source of pain. If that lesion can be identified and repaired, the pain will resolve. This seems plausible. It seems likely in light of the intensity of back pain that a diagnostic test ought to be able to identify the source of intense pain and point to a solution.
Recently added
Article
Sensitization to Pain
When your brain is hammered week after week, month after month, and sometimes year after year with the same pain impulses, it becomes very efficient in processing them. It takes less of an impulse from your back to elicit the same response in the brain. Or looked at differently the same impulse causes more neurons in the brain to fire. It is this process that causes patients to complain that their pain is getting much worse in spite of no additional trauma.
Recently added
Contacting David Hanscom
Please connect with me on Facebook http://facebook.com/DrDavidHanscom, Twitter http://twitter.com/DrDavidHanscom and via my website http://drdavidhanscom.com.
How to get started
The best way to learn about me to view my website, http://www.drdavidhanscom.com. My passion is to help those with chronic back pain become pain free using research from the DOCC Project.