What are we doing here?
An explanation of purpose, before we get to the important stuff.
Hello, everyone.
First of all, I hope you’re managing during what we’ve all learned to call “these challenging times.” What an understatement. But for people who are afflicted with chronic back pain, Covid-19 has spawned an additional layer of misery.
It’s hard enough to work for eight or ten hours a day at an office, but to WFH?
WTF?
If you didn’t have back pain before you decided to “office” on your overstuffed couch, hunched over your laptop, chances are that you have it now.
It’s tough enough to commit to getting to the gym to see a trainer or to work out independently on a regular basis, but the gyms are closed and it’s hard to say when or if they’ll re-open. Or whether it is even possible to remain conscious while exercising with a mask. So what are you supposed to do?
A little about me.
As most of you know — because that’s how you got on my mailing list — I’m the author of Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery. HarperCollins published the book way back in 2017, but it’s rare for a day to go by without an email from a reader (or a frantic spouse, co-worker, boss, sibling or adult child), asking for personalized help.
I’ll be honest — I love helping people find information that will speed them towards recovery. I’m especially happy when I get a follow-up email — it could be days, months or even years later — that says “Thank you. I’m doing better now.” Or sometimes, “You saved my life.” (!) Or, “I’m a physical therapist and you changed the way I practice.” Or, “I’m a primary care doctor, and I’m making all my back pain patients read your book.” To get a sense of how people respond, you may want to take a look at a few of Crooked’s 208 five-star reviews on Amazon.
It’s time for everyone to get relief.
The thing is, for every individual I encourage to think differently about back pain and to adopt a well-designed exercise program, and for every person I discourage from having an invasive and often useless or harmful spine procedure, there are hundreds of others who have read Crooked from cover to cover, (sometimes repeatedly), but are reluctant to ask their questions. This new endeavor — my subscription-based newsletter called Straight Talk — is intended to get good information to people who desperately need it.
It’s a way for me to share my expertise, as a journalist and my experience as a recovered chronic back pain patient, and also for you to share your concerns and what you’ve learned.
If you’ve received this because you’re a healthcare professional, stick around. You owe it to yourself and your patients to stay abreast of important developments in back pain treatment. It makes for a weird-looking word, but I like to describe myself as a professional “de-silo-er.” By that, I mean that I get people from vastly different areas of practice to talk to each other and to develop interdisciplinary means of treating patients. Why? Because that’s what works. The science says so.
This is a community.
For back pain-afflicted readers (you’ll notice that I don’t use the term “sufferers”), I’m aiming to create a community of support and encouragement. There will be regular opportunities to ask questions of the back whisperers I know very well, and for us to learn from each other. No one is a better teacher than someone for whom back pain is viewed through the rear-view mirror.
What you won’t find here is a pity party. That’s a virtual place — usually a Facebook group — where members revel in describing the awfulness, hopelessness and extreme misery of their situations. People go on and on about their failed surgical interventions and their pharmaceutical cocktails. This pisses me off. Nobody gets better, and the organizations behind those pages — lobbyists and marketers for surgical instrumentation manufacturers and drug companies, and even some professional medical specialties — like it that way. Maybe you didn’t know that.
IMPORTANT: Please remember, as we travel the road to recovery, that I’m an investigative reporter, and not a healthcare professional or therapist, so I will never give medical advice. Instead, as I’ve done hundreds of times in the past three years, I’ll do my best to connect you to the assistance you need.
Let’s have some fun!
That might seem like a strange thing to say to a bunch of people who are struggling with back pain. But humor is essential in these dark days, and a good laugh is the best medicine, even if it’s at your own expense. Crooked’s tone is quite serious, but here, the prose will be as casual and intimate if I was chatting with a friend. There’ll be cartoons, comments (that’s your job) and the occasional stream of profanity (from me) in response to some new form of money-grubbing insanity. Sometimes, I’ll post things that have nothing whatsoever to do with back pain, just because they’re interesting.
Stand by. It’s going to be a good time.
I hope you’ll join me.
Benefits and Prices
Expect at least one post every week — usually more— unless I’m somewhere without internet. (I promise to tell you all about it when I get back.)
You can subscribe for $5/month or $50/year.
Annual subscribers get three free questions. After those are used up — should you wish more assistance — I charge $300 per hour for my research and networking services. (So you see, a year’s subscription is a real deal.)