In this book you will find the things that I teach my patients every day in order to help them achieve the best possible level of success in treating their pain in our clinic.My hope is to give you the tools you need in order to need the doctor less often. I finished my training in physical medicine and rehabilitation in 1996. I was 31 years old at my graduation, and I'd been experiencing back and sciatic nerve pain for 19 years.I saw an orthopedic surgeon for my first episode of back pain when I was 12 — a visit which led to a diagnosis of sciatica and nothing else. He had no advice and nothing to offer. For most of the following years, I experienced frequent and at times disabling flare-ups.At the age of 20, I went on a two-week vacation to the Caribbean and had such intense back pain that I spent 10 days nearly immobile in the hotel room. I went to see a physical therapist on the island, who gave me some ideas regarding how to resolve my pain. These ideas involved primarily McKenzie-type extension exercises, which did in fact help but didn't solve the problem.At times, the pain was so intense I thought I might never again live a normal life. Despite that, I enjoyed periods of relative ease during which I exercised consistently.Since 1996, I've been practicing in the field of interventional physical medicine and rehabilitation. During residency and for years thereafter, I trained extensively to become an interventional pain management doctor, focusing primarily on interventional procedures.As I dealt with my own pain and that of my patients, I began to develop a better understanding of the role of physical therapy and behavior modification, which enabled me to see more success over time in the treatment of both my patients and myself. At first, I became enamored with the special skills of manual physiotherapists — but I later came to view those manual skills as no more valuable than injection techniques, as they're passive tools that can't really change the underlying issues.As time went by, I started to notice patterns in my own pain flare-ups. That, combined with my understanding of the underlying anatomy and injuries involved, helped me develop the process presented in this book.