Random House USA Inc Pain Free: A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain

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 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

I have no affiliation with the author, and my approval can't be bought. That said, this book is seriously life changing. Pete essentially figured out some critical connections in the body that resulted in a huge aha moment that where you're actually hurting isn't where the pain is originating from. Like say your upper back is killing you-- turns out that's caused by misalignment of your shoulders and hips. Or your hands/wrists are burning when you game too long... that's a shoulder issue, so you can chuck the wrists braces (which apparently make things even worse), do the recommended exercises in this book and WOW, noticeable improvement within DAYS (not weeks or months). He also has YouTube exercise videos which are great. He believes repetitive motion injury is a crock, and that the body can do endless repetitive motions if it is correctly aligned. As for the exercises, they feel practical, not ridiculous. Plus the RAPID improvement totally keeps you going.Huge pros for me are as follows: he addresses UPPER back pain (find it via the index in the back). That's what hubby needed help with, and everyone just wants to focus on lower back, so this was a total score. I always run internally cold, which indicates low metabolism. Hubby was putting on some padding due to being immobilized so long from back pain. We have been doing his "total mobility" YT video maybe a month now, only every other day, and my metabolism is revving. I'm wearing shorts in winter, hubby is starting to lose weight again-- it's just a winner all around.Of course no one's perfect. While Pete marvels at the body's ingenious design, he fails to see a DESIGNER behind it, and instead credits the whole thing too dumb luck (aka evolution). Another minor beef is his promotion of Yoga's "cats and dogs" pose, which is a horrific exercise that will give you severe lower back pain after a short while. But every field has its politics, and you can't be pro-God or anti-yoga if you want to get popular, so there it is. Yoga wasn't designed to help the body, its designed to move magical fluids around your body so a specific supernatural entity will slowly slither from the base of your spine into your brain (sounds creepy, I know, but some people feel this is a great goal). Yoga is a religion that puts spiritual goals over physical health. So I'd recommend skipping the few yoga poses that he throws in (easy to do, bc they are rare). But the majority of his stuff is bang on and you'll be shocked at how much it can ease your misery. I highly recommend this book before you go see another doctor or buy another brace. Definitely a rare gem.

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'.

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.