mindful-medicine
Articulate, passionate and humorous, Dr. Holly Lucille breaks down the myths and misconceptions about health and health related topics.

Why Anxiety Is a Symptom, Not a Diagnosis

From the Show: Mindful Medicine
Summary: Anxiety is not a diagnosis, but rather a measure of your body’s stress chemicals.
Air Date: 8/27/19
Duration: 25:02
Host: Holly Lucille, RN, ND
Guest Bio: David Hanscom, MD
Screen Shot 2019-06-10 at 3.05.11 PMDr. David Hanscom is a retired board-certified orthopedic surgeon specializing in the surgical correction complex spine problems in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine. He has expertise in adult and pediatric spinal deformities such as scoliosis and kyphosis. A significant part of his practice was devoted to performing surgery on patients who had undergone multiple prior spine surgeries.

He is the focusing his efforts on bringing effective medical treatments for chronic mental and physical pain back into mainstream medicine. He is creating a business structure, Vertus, Inc. that also will present these concepts to the public.

Around 2001 he began to share his own stress management tools with his patients that were in pain but had no indications for surgery. He had spent much of his career with rehabilitation physicians learning non-operative care. By 2006 a structured spine treatment protocol evolved from his own experience escaping from chronic pain He published a book, Back in Control: A Surgeon’s Roadmap Out of Chronic Pain that is the basis of the program.

His website, www.backincontrol.com, is the action plan for DOC project (Direct your Own Care). Even patients with surgical problems often experience resolution of their pain without an operation.
Why Anxiety Is a Symptom, Not a Diagnosis
Chronic pain and anxiety are not diagnoses, but rather symptoms of stress.

When you feel physically or mentally threatened, your body produces stress chemicals to increase your chances of survival. When your stress levels remain elevated for extended periods of time, the result is anxiety. 

Long periods of stress and anxiety can result in chronic pain and discomfort that can include chronic ringing in your ears, back pain, insomnia, migraines, and foot pain. However, using pharmaceuticals to treat the pain will be ineffective; you need to fix the anxiety that’s causing it.

Dr. David Hanscom shares his story of working through his anxiety to relieve chronic pain. He offers up tools that reduce stress chemicals and rid the body of the physical symptoms of stress. By using mindfulness and meditation, you can work through the three steps of overcoming anxiety: awareness, separation, and redirection.

Listen as Dr. David Hanscom joins Dr. Holly Lucille to discuss anxiety.