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Pain Free (Revised and Updated Second Edition): A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain
Live pain free! Now fully updated and revised throughout, this million-copy bestseller will help you feel and move better.
"This book is extraordinary, and I am thrilled to recommend it to anyone who's interested in dramatically increasing the quality of their physical health."-Tony Robbins
With a new foreword by John Lynch, Hall of Fame NFL safety and general manager of the San Francisco 49ers
Starting today, you don't have to live in pain. That is the revolutionary message of the Egoscue Method, a breakthrough system for eliminating musculoskeletal pain without drugs, surgery, or expensive physical therapy. Developed by Pete Egoscue, an internationally renowned physiologist and injury consultant to some of the most successful performers in all walks of life, the Egoscue Method has helped millions of people with an astounding success rate of over 90 percent. The Method uses a series of gentle exercises and carefully constructed stretches called "E-cises" to teach the body to return to its natural, pain-free state. Inside, you'll find detailed photographs and step-by-step instructions for dozens of E-cises specifically designed to provide quick and lasting relief of
• joint discomfort, including back and neck pain; achy knees, hips, and shoulders; arthritis; and injured ankles.
• muscle and soft-tissue problems, including rotator cuff injuries, tendinitis, and common foot ailments.
• shooting pains, including sciatica and carpal tunnel syndrome.
• and much more, including headaches, vertigo, and fatigue.
With this book, you're on your way to regaining the greatest gift of all: a pain-free body!
"This book is extraordinary, and I am thrilled to recommend it to anyone who's interested in dramatically increasing the quality of their physical health."-Tony Robbins
With a new foreword by John Lynch, Hall of Fame NFL safety and general manager of the San Francisco 49ers
Starting today, you don't have to live in pain. That is the revolutionary message of the Egoscue Method, a breakthrough system for eliminating musculoskeletal pain without drugs, surgery, or expensive physical therapy. Developed by Pete Egoscue, an internationally renowned physiologist and injury consultant to some of the most successful performers in all walks of life, the Egoscue Method has helped millions of people with an astounding success rate of over 90 percent. The Method uses a series of gentle exercises and carefully constructed stretches called "E-cises" to teach the body to return to its natural, pain-free state. Inside, you'll find detailed photographs and step-by-step instructions for dozens of E-cises specifically designed to provide quick and lasting relief of
• joint discomfort, including back and neck pain; achy knees, hips, and shoulders; arthritis; and injured ankles.
• muscle and soft-tissue problems, including rotator cuff injuries, tendinitis, and common foot ailments.
• shooting pains, including sciatica and carpal tunnel syndrome.
• and much more, including headaches, vertigo, and fatigue.
With this book, you're on your way to regaining the greatest gift of all: a pain-free body!
Editorial Reviews
"Pete Egoscue has totally changed my life. Never have I experienced such complete pain relief as I have following the Egoscue Method."-Jack Nicklaus
"Pain Free is based on a very sound understanding of human physiology. It shows how we can break the circuit of pain and naturally heal one of the most significant disabilities of our time."-Deepak Chopra
"The ideas that Pete Egoscue brings to the world of nonoperative orthopedics are thoughtful, insightful, a bit controversial but undeniably USEFUL! I've used many of Pete's E-cises in caring for my patients over the years. Buy this book-sooner or later you're going to need it!"-Scott V. Haig, M.D., assistant clinical professor of orthopedic surgery, Columbia University
"Pain Free is based on a very sound understanding of human physiology. It shows how we can break the circuit of pain and naturally heal one of the most significant disabilities of our time."-Deepak Chopra
"The ideas that Pete Egoscue brings to the world of nonoperative orthopedics are thoughtful, insightful, a bit controversial but undeniably USEFUL! I've used many of Pete's E-cises in caring for my patients over the years. Buy this book-sooner or later you're going to need it!"-Scott V. Haig, M.D., assistant clinical professor of orthopedic surgery, Columbia University
Readers Top Reviews
Greca
With no advice whatsoever from my GP, and an appointment in 3 months at the hospital, I felt utterly despondent about the results of my MRI. This book gave me hope. It makes a lot of sense, it's what I've suspected all along -that pain in one part of my body was causing part in another part and that this rippled further to other parts. But my GP just stared at me as if I was crazy suggesting a link. This is positive book, very clearly written, divided into different sections according to where the pain is. I recommend reading all the sections even if you don't have pain in that part of the body. The exercises are mostly online on youtube but it's a good idea to find an Egoscue practitioner and go at least once. This system is definitely working for me.
GracieB
I read about Pete Egoscue and his 'E-cises' by accident when I was searching for 'ways to alleviate lower back pain'. I was in pain having spent two days with a hot wheat bag almost strapped to me and really at my wits end. I found a blog that recommended some moves/positions taken from 'Pain Free' and they worked after a couple of days! They didn't cure the problem but certainly alleviated the symptoms so I sent for the book. It's been two months now of doing e-cises every day; I am pain free and understand so much more about the root causes of my pain. I have found some useful sets of e-cises on You Tube too. There are no short cuts and you have to be prepared to give the time up for the sets of exercises but it is well worth it. I've also recently sent for 'The Egoscue Method of Health Through Motion'.
MAHKindle
I have suffered with chronic back pain for many years due to a injury i had in the gym in my lower back, as a result it has had a massive effect on my life, i have tried every remedy there is, seen a dozen orthopedic surgens (most of them said no to a operation as my problem was mechanical) I am always willing to try any form of self help treatment especially one recommended by a fellow sufferer, the best so far is the Mcenzie routine, but alas this does not help sometimes. I have tried the Ogoscue method on and off over the last four years, but have had very little improvement if any, so good luck and i hope it works for you, i will keep looking and trying anything i think will help
David Croucher
After getting on for two decades, this book is still the best help any sufferer from the pain of a misaligned body can get without registering at an - expensive - Egoscue-certificated physiotherapy clinic. Most people's bodies are misaligned because of bad posture or because some muscle groups are overdeveloped and pull your body out of shape. This results in pain, and it can become very serious for some: slipped discs, RSI and a host of other bodily pains are caused by this imbalance, and whether you're an athlete or a couch potato, an office worker or a manual labourer, you're almost certain to have misalignment pain at some time of not permanently. The Egoscue Method is designed to persuade those muscles which should support the skeleton to take up this task again, and as often as not, the pain simply vanishes as your body gets back into proper alignment. People with deformities, serious arthritis or other incurable misalignments and pain won't get back a perfect body, but by following the Egoscue Method they can minimize both the pain and the problem. Egoscue-approved consultation and treatment are expensive (see www.egoscue.com for a quote), but this simple book can take you most of the way towards the pain relief you want, and maybe provide the full cure. 'Pain Free' is simple to follow. It is organized by the kind of pain you have, and the instructions prescribed are graduated and simple to follow; most of them involve little more than keeping a bodily position while your muscles relax (so they're called e-cises as you don't need to exercise!) After reading the introduction, you just follow the most appropriate chapter for you, usually using a few simple props like a chair and a clear wall, then as the pain eases, add in other sections as suggested. When the pain's gone, there's a 'maintenance chapter' at the end to help you avoid a recurrence of the trouble. I'm now buying my fifth copy - I tend to lend them out and not get them back - and I still find this the simplest way to get rid of those nagging aches and pains. Many people with more serious problems have got much more help than I need. You might ask why there's no new edition out over all these years. The answer's simple: it still works as it is; there's nothing more to say. Egoscue has published other more general and more targetted books, appliances to make using the Method easier and useful videos on the website. But this is the starting point, and for many it will be all you need. It is, in summary, the one book on physical health and pain relief you really need on your bookshelf if you have no others.
I cannot say enough good things about this book. Here's my story.. I've had neck pain on and off for the past 9 years or so. Stiffness, knots, periods of about 2-3 days where I couldn't move it at all, but after those 3 days it would always resolve itself. Well about 3-4 months ago, I woke up one morning and I couldn't move my neck back and felt like I had gotten hit with a baseball bat in the back of my neck. As usual I assumed after a couple days it would loosen up after using some ibuprofen, cold compresses, etc. Well, unfortunately that was not the case. For the next 6 weeks I was in pain 24 hours a day. I was getting shooting pains down my arms, tingling in my fingers, muscle spasms all over my neck, headaches, knots that felt like I was being stabbed in the back of my neck.. it was torture. I went to the chiropractor 3 times a week for about 3 weeks which only cleared up the numbness, was very pricey and made my neck worse, I went for acupuncture which only provided temporary relief.. basically I tried everything holistic I could before I could get in to see a spine specialist. Nothing was helping. All day long I used hot/cold compresses, took massive amounts of ibuprofen, I bought a couple new pillows, a neck massager, went for massages, took hot Epson salt baths every night... everything I could possibly think of and no relief came or it was very temporary. One night I went to the ER because I couldn't deal with the pain anymore. They confirmed I had a herniated disc between C4 and C5 in my spine and referred me to a specialist. I suspected they would prescribe pain killers, possible steroid injections, physical therapy and if those things didn't work, likely surgery.. I was devastated. To top this all off, I'm only 30 years old and I have an 8 month old son I stay home with full time so picking him up became impossible, I was barely sleeping because I was never comfortable so constantly exhausted and in general I could barely take care of my baby. I truly started to become incredibly depressed. It was horrendous. Flash forward 6 weeks, I googled on a whim.. "How I fixed my chronic neck pain". I began coming across articles about how our poor posture year after year really wears on our neck. With that in mind, I began keeping my shoulders back as much as possible (no more slouching) and tried to stay as straight as possible. It helped slightly but I knew I'd have to work on that for a long time to come to actually see any difference. So then I came across an article a guy wrote where he had 6 HERNIATED DISCS in his neck and fixed them all in a few months by utilizing the exercise's in this book. My first though, "Yeah freakin right". Of course, I was skeptical but I was beyond desperate so I figured why not, and I ordered the book. I followed the instructions for the neck "e-cises" to a T. Did them in the exact order, for the time...
Short Excerpt Teaser
INTRODUCTION
This is a book about our bodies-yours and mine. We are different in height, weight, and possibly gender. But our common possession is the body's inner power to heal itself and to be pain free. By choosing those two words as my title, I am celebrating our mutual good fortune. I am also making a promise that I know you can keep.
Being pain free takes personal effort and commitment. It doesn't come from a pill bottle, a surgeon's knife, a brace, or in specially designed mattresses, chairs, and tools. The thousands of men and women who in the course of a typical year visit my Egoscue Method Clinic in San Diego, California, know it, or they soon find out, and I watch them transform their lives as they rediscover the joy and health that had seemed lost forever. While each client is dedicated to stopping chronic pain in one form or another, they are all taking the easy way out. The easiest, really.
The following pages show you the way. It does not involve high-tech medicine or elaborate physical therapy routines. You won't need to buy special equipment or consult cadres of experts. In the first three chapters, I review how the human body is designed to maintain its own health throughout a long lifetime. Episodes of pain are aberrations that can be easily treated if the body is permitted to do its work. Unfortunately, many of us don't understand even the most basic features of this magnificent "machine."
Following this overview are eight chapters, each dealing with a specific chronic pain condition. You have probably already looked at the table of contents. I reverse the usual order and go from foot to head: sore feet, ankles, knees, hips, back, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hands, neck, and head. The chronic pain chapters are set up to give you a quick and thorough briefing on what's happening in that part of the body when it hurts. After each briefing, I offer a series of exercises designed to alleviate the causes of pain in that body part. My friends at the clinic have nicknamed them E-cises, for "Egoscuecises," to tease me for my near obsession with fine-tuning them as therapeutic tools. What started as an inside joke has taken root, and that's what I call them in this book. The E-cises are arranged in menus, and are easy to do and extremely effective. To guide you along, I provide detailed instructions and many photos.
Next comes a chapter on common chronic pain problems relating to popular sports and recreational activities, and finally a concluding chapter that, among other things, offers an overall conditioning menu of E-cises for your use once your chronic pain symptoms abate.
A Quick Guide to Using Pain Free
An author probably should not presume to tell a reader how to read a book, but I will risk it anyway in the interest of making this information as accessible as possible. My guess is that you are in pain or have been in pain recently. Take the time to read the first three chapters, which give you valuable background knowledge. I'll explain how a serious deficiency of "design motion" is causing your chronic pain symptoms and how easy it is for you to remedy the situation. Then quickly flip through the rest of the chapters to get a look at the boxes and breakouts that present key concepts in capsule form. Finally, turn to the chapter that focuses on your specific condition. My hope is that you'll eventually read the book straight through, but I realize that stopping the pain may be paramount in your mind. If I had to choose one additional must-read chapter, it would be chapter 7, which deals with hips. The condition of our hips plays a central role in combating chronic pain throughout the body.
I'll take one more unusual liberty as an author by making this statement: Pain Free won't do you much good if you just read it. Information is fine, but action is far better. When practiced both in the clinic and at home, the E-cises in this book yield a ninety-five percent success rate. Yet the Egoscue Method conquers chronic pain only because those who are suffering are empowered with the means to heal themselves-and they use that power. Those among the five percent who are unable to find relief using the Method often do not have the time or the inclination to take action; they do the E-cises sporadically or not at all.
I urge you to use the E-cises. They look simple, but they are calibrated to pinpoint specific musculoskeletal functions that have been compromised by a variety of factors. The E-cise menus are arranged sequentially to address each component of a particular chronic pain symptom. Therefore, you should do the menu in the order it is presented; by picking and choosing E-cises at random, you risk interrupting the sequence. Likew...
This is a book about our bodies-yours and mine. We are different in height, weight, and possibly gender. But our common possession is the body's inner power to heal itself and to be pain free. By choosing those two words as my title, I am celebrating our mutual good fortune. I am also making a promise that I know you can keep.
Being pain free takes personal effort and commitment. It doesn't come from a pill bottle, a surgeon's knife, a brace, or in specially designed mattresses, chairs, and tools. The thousands of men and women who in the course of a typical year visit my Egoscue Method Clinic in San Diego, California, know it, or they soon find out, and I watch them transform their lives as they rediscover the joy and health that had seemed lost forever. While each client is dedicated to stopping chronic pain in one form or another, they are all taking the easy way out. The easiest, really.
The following pages show you the way. It does not involve high-tech medicine or elaborate physical therapy routines. You won't need to buy special equipment or consult cadres of experts. In the first three chapters, I review how the human body is designed to maintain its own health throughout a long lifetime. Episodes of pain are aberrations that can be easily treated if the body is permitted to do its work. Unfortunately, many of us don't understand even the most basic features of this magnificent "machine."
Following this overview are eight chapters, each dealing with a specific chronic pain condition. You have probably already looked at the table of contents. I reverse the usual order and go from foot to head: sore feet, ankles, knees, hips, back, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hands, neck, and head. The chronic pain chapters are set up to give you a quick and thorough briefing on what's happening in that part of the body when it hurts. After each briefing, I offer a series of exercises designed to alleviate the causes of pain in that body part. My friends at the clinic have nicknamed them E-cises, for "Egoscuecises," to tease me for my near obsession with fine-tuning them as therapeutic tools. What started as an inside joke has taken root, and that's what I call them in this book. The E-cises are arranged in menus, and are easy to do and extremely effective. To guide you along, I provide detailed instructions and many photos.
Next comes a chapter on common chronic pain problems relating to popular sports and recreational activities, and finally a concluding chapter that, among other things, offers an overall conditioning menu of E-cises for your use once your chronic pain symptoms abate.
A Quick Guide to Using Pain Free
An author probably should not presume to tell a reader how to read a book, but I will risk it anyway in the interest of making this information as accessible as possible. My guess is that you are in pain or have been in pain recently. Take the time to read the first three chapters, which give you valuable background knowledge. I'll explain how a serious deficiency of "design motion" is causing your chronic pain symptoms and how easy it is for you to remedy the situation. Then quickly flip through the rest of the chapters to get a look at the boxes and breakouts that present key concepts in capsule form. Finally, turn to the chapter that focuses on your specific condition. My hope is that you'll eventually read the book straight through, but I realize that stopping the pain may be paramount in your mind. If I had to choose one additional must-read chapter, it would be chapter 7, which deals with hips. The condition of our hips plays a central role in combating chronic pain throughout the body.
I'll take one more unusual liberty as an author by making this statement: Pain Free won't do you much good if you just read it. Information is fine, but action is far better. When practiced both in the clinic and at home, the E-cises in this book yield a ninety-five percent success rate. Yet the Egoscue Method conquers chronic pain only because those who are suffering are empowered with the means to heal themselves-and they use that power. Those among the five percent who are unable to find relief using the Method often do not have the time or the inclination to take action; they do the E-cises sporadically or not at all.
I urge you to use the E-cises. They look simple, but they are calibrated to pinpoint specific musculoskeletal functions that have been compromised by a variety of factors. The E-cise menus are arranged sequentially to address each component of a particular chronic pain symptom. Therefore, you should do the menu in the order it is presented; by picking and choosing E-cises at random, you risk interrupting the sequence. Likew...
