Keith’s pain recovery journey

So, here it goes…

If you would have told me a decade ago that my chronic symptoms were simply a response to my nervous system being overwhelmed and dysregulated due to a combination of having a perfectionist personality, childhood trauma, and lifestyle stress I would have thought you had lost your mind. But as it so often goes, I realized as we make our way through life that hindsight truly is 20/20.

I grew up the sibling of three brothers to one fantastic mother. She unfortunately did not have the best of luck with marriages but finally found a good one in my stepfather in my later teen years. Looking back, I see a woman who had to carry the load of father and mother, working two and three jobs to make a living to provide for her three sons. I saw early on in my childhood what it took to take care of a family, and that often money was scarce. I worked hard to try to help her at times, knowing just how hard she worked to make ends meet. I really wanted to make her proud seeing how she sacrificed for us through the years.

When I was 18, I joined the US Air Force and was blessed to find a career in the field of physical therapy. I went to school and completed my associate's degree and received my license to practice as a Physical Therapist Assistant. I also had the privilege to be chosen to work as a physical therapy instructor for my last few years in the military. It was during these years that I developed an eczema primarily affecting my legs and hands.

After leaving the military, I decided to pursue the Christian ministry. I worked in various ministry roles until my wife and I, along with our children, started a church where I pastored for the next 20 years. The amount of stress I experienced at times manifested as gastrointestinal issues that would knock me down for several days at a time. There were also times when I would suffer from back and neck pain that would come seemingly out of nowhere. I hadn’t performed any type of activity or labor that should have triggered the kind of pain I was experiencing.

While I was working in Christian ministry I continued practicing physical therapy. And after several decades working with thousands of people suffering from various chronic pain health issues, I myself had my own chronic health problems that seemed to keep coming back again and again when I least expected it.

It was just a few years ago after playing a rather lousy game of golf that I felt I needed to fix the problem. So, there I was emotionally hitting one ball after another out into the field, until I felt my back begin to guard up. Over the next 72 hours I experienced the worst pain I had ever felt, extending from my back down my left leg, all the way to my foot. Having decades of experience in physical therapy I thought I knew for sure what I had done. In my mind, due to my training, I had most likely traumatized my back either causing a disc herniation or some condition that was compressing a spinal nerve, which is commonly called sciatica. Knowing what the doctor would do if I went to him, I decided I would do my own rehab. After nine months with only marginal improvement, with days of flare ups that would once again cause me to be debilitated and depressed, I knew I had to look for an answer. That’s when I found a physical therapist online who promised they could fix back pain and sciatica. I took the course, which was rather expensive ($1,500 out of pocket), and began the six-week course. But in the second week of the course, I was tasked to read a $15 book titled “The Way Out of Chronic Pain” by Alan Gordon. And within the next 48-72 hours, for the first time in months, my pain almost went away completely. Then it happened! The light bulb came on, and my healing journey began.

The amazing thing (here’s where the 20/20 vision comes in) is that I never really understood just how much stress I was under throughout much of my childhood and adult life. And I especially did not understand that my mind and nervous system felt a constant threat due to this stress and was simply attempting to send a message to my body. You may ask, how can this be? I can assure you that I have personally worked with thousands of people suffering from Chronic pain and symptoms who most likely were simply suffering from an overwhelmed and dysregulated nervous system. And the saddest part is that our health system in much of the western hemisphere gives no validity to this now-proven scientific understanding. And too often, even if they did receive temporary relief, within a few months they would be right back in the clinic to see us once again. Or worse, they would fall further into the healthcare system, being bombarded with multiple tests, procedures, and often surgery. Then, after all of these things were done, they would be back in the clinic once again, suffering from the same — or worse — pain.

Not only did I realize that the root of my chronic symptoms could be traced back to a type of mind-body syndrome, but I also realized from decades of experience that there exists a multitude of people who are still suffering and without hope, searching for an answer to gain their lives back.

As so many other clinicians who have experienced this epiphany and dedicated themselves to this great work, I chose to go back to school and become certified as a health and wellness coach, and to pursue further education with the specific purpose of dedicating the remainder of my career to helping those suffering from chronic pain find their way to living their best life now. To shift from a life of despair to one of hope and vision for what life can be and should be.