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Donee Patterson, MD: Let's welcome into the show, Mr. Steve Ozanich.
Steve Ozanich: Hi there, how are you doing?
Patterson: Thank you for holding; thank you so much. Am I saying your last name correctly?
Ozanich: Ozanich.
Patterson: Ozanich, OK, I think we got it. Correct me if I'm wrong; you suffered from tremendous pain for many, many years, but you found a unique way, a holistic way, to correct your pain. Why don't you share your story a little with us?
Ozanich: I was in pain for 30 years; I had tried everything from chiropractic to acupuncture, to many type of therapies…
Patterson: We're talking low back pain?
Ozanich: Yeah, well it was everywhere. Usually people have it everywhere, not just in one spot, but there is usually a main central spot and mine was low back and it would go to hip and knee and I was not far from surgery because in the year 2000, I hit rock bottom I could not walk anymore, my pain was off the meter. I just happened upon the work of a doctor named John Sarno from the NYU Medical Center and he worked at the Howard Rusk Center and he had proven decades earlier that the structure of the body rarely caused the pain. When I first read it I thought it was just crazy. I remember throwing his book across my family room and I thought this is insane, but as I got closer to surgery I went back and I reread it and I began to say ahh, this is me; this is how people react to life. I am 12 years pain free now thanks to his work.
Patterson: Awesome, that's really awesome. Just for full disclosure, I'mall about full disclosure, this is Sara's guest and as she told you she had to step away so I have not read his book so I don't know everything that is in Mr. Ozanich's book, but we are always open to hearing about how people have had improvements in their health so we are being open-minded. Mr. Ozanich, it's a great reminder about the healing powers of the body and how we should take care of it. What do you say about that?
Ozanich: That's a good point. The body heals itself by nature's design, within weeks or months. If somebody has ongoing pain that's chronic for years, there is a psychological process driving that. It is usually through the autonomic nervous system like this doctor proved. He came up with this brilliant observation that all of his patients, almost all of his chronic pain patients, had the same type of personality; they were worriers; they had anxiety; they were perfectionists; they wanted to keep everybody happy. These internal forces are so enraging that the mind gets redirected to the body. In other words, your back hurts for years, there is a psychological process going on there and it's to keep you focused on your body,so all these other things we were doing, like I was doing, wearing braces and going to the doctor and the acupuncturist, that is what the brain wanted, to focus on the body so you don't have to think about all this anxiety and the pressures you have on your life. I was amazed it went away and I ran into 10s of 1000s of people over the last ten years who have gone to this doctor and have healed. He healed athletes, secretaries of state, actors and a senator, Tom Harkin from Iowa, he was in pain for 27 years;he went to him and healed. The structure of the body is not really causing the problem. We are not talking about injury here; an injury is a different thing, but it can piggy back on to an injury. I ran into people who had skiing accidents and their knees hurt for ten years; I say that knee healed ten years ago and when they start getting into this information about TMS, which the doctor discovered, they heal.
Patterson: So are you talking about ways to decrease your stress so to refocus your pain?
Ozanich: Well that's good to do too but this doctor discovered that just becoming aware that your brain was doing this to you that it was a diversion to keep you riveted constantly worried about your body was the thing that was perpetuating the pain. A lot of the people just by knowing that, their pain jut automatically disappeared. A lot of people, I would say 80% of them have to do what you just said; you have to go deal with it. Why do people put so much pressure on themselves? Why do they feel they have to be such good people and that gets more complex because when the brain is involved, anything can happen. I have never seen two people heal in the same way. The first thing you do is get a medical exam to make sure it is something not serious there, like a tumor or an aneurysm you have to be a responsible person, but when it comes back with just some type of bony arthritis or herniated disks or crooked spine and that, those things do not cause pain and the proof is in the healing; these people heal virtually every single time.
Patterson: Interesting. I know that I have written papers myself on how people tend to do better when their positive. That their medical outcomes tend to be better when they have lots of family support or even a religious support and that there are statistics over and over that's proven that their pain or their medical condition tends to have a better course. I know that you have an MBA, a Masters in Business and that you are a body and mind health consultant and a certified personal trainer, but did you collaborate with other medical personnel or physicians to write this book?
Ozanich: The doctors in the back of my book all read it and endorsed it and they guided me through it. Psychiatrists, psychologists, they checked it over, they read it to make sure it was medically accurate. From that view point, the mind body syndrome, TMS, and it is the cause of virtually everything we get, from ulcers,irritable bowel, irritable bladder, these people heal, virtually every single time, unless you can't get to the psychological conflict. If they have been beaten as children or abused, it is very difficult to get through to them. All in all, the success rate is just out of this world but people just do not want to see that. They reject it outright just like I did. It is a cultural mindset, part of it; that we look to engineer the body from the outside by doctors. As soon as our knee hurts,what do you do? You run to the doctor; they want to scope it out or they want to send you to therapy. The thing they should do is think about what is happening in your life and you can almost always trace it back to an event. You just mentioned about a good mindset, the key word really is belief. What we belief our body will adapt to match that belief and you can go look at the studies in England where they told these guys with cancer that they could lose their hair with the chemotherapy and they gave them saline water and a third of the people in the state, their hair fell out or Kaptchuk studies just recently where they did acupuncture for pain and the people's pain went through the roof and they told them later, you know we didn't even put the needle in, they just mimicked it. Actually red bumps came up on them. The body will react what it deeply believes so when we are told herniated disks cause pain, it will keep that person in pain for every. They don't, they don't cause pain. They could, you could have some weird anomaly where it broke, but I did use an example in my book where a guy had a fragmented disk and went to Dr. Andrew Weil and he sent him to Dr. Sarno and he stilled heal. John Stossel, he had two broken vertebra in his back and it hurt him for 20 years and he went to this Dr. Sarno and he healed after one lecture with the guy. It is not any type of voodoo, it is actual medical science. It is just becoming psychologically aware of what's really happening with this but we are inclined in our culture to look at the body as failing and it needs outside help when we are far, far stronger than we are led to believe.
Patterson: I absolutely agree that thinking positive and refocusing our mind and taking our mind away from stress, I really do believe in that and I believe there is a mind, body spiritual very important side of medicine that is not always tapped into, but I just want to be a little careful because I am a family doctor; this interview might have been a little bit different with Sara Lomax-Reese, but I am a family doctor and medically trained and I just want to emphasize to people that you can work with your primary care doctor, especially a doctor who is open to holistic medicine and not to totally go astray from that because there are certain things such as diabetes and high blood pressure and other medical conditions that need to be addressed. I would like to hear other people's opinions, this is not just about me and Dr. Steve; let's hear other people's opinions. If you have a question or comment for Mr. Steve Ozanich, the number to the station is 215-634-8065. I'm going to stay that again, 215-634-8065. We would love to hear your comments. So Mr. Ozanich, does your book discuss dietary ways to help improve health or is it more a mind, body and spirit?
Ozanich: It's more the mind, body spirit. I wasn't an authority on diet. I know Dr. Andrew Weil is one of the gurus on that but the book was already long enough and you definitely have to have balance that is why the symbol on the cover is the balance symbol. Diet, spirit, happiness, peace, all these things. You mentioned two interesting things there, diabetes,yes, that is another beast. I am not talking about that either. High blood pressure, one of the doctors who coauthored Dr. Sarnos last book was a hypertension expert, Dr. Sam Mann, and he said quite a few of those people that is coming from a mind, body response. It took him quite a few years to understand that it is the same thing; if you don't express yourself and you've had a trauma and you just hold that energy in, the system will just go out of disharmony and the blood pressure can rise. As you know, the blood pressure isn't a normal thing to rise and fall. Hypertension is the problem when it is sustained. You have to take every case individually and you have to be smart and responsible with your health, but my point is I run into thousands upon thousands of people that were healed with this doctor's work and they just don't want to hear it; a lot of people just don't want to hear it, but it works.
Patterson: I love the open concept. We have a caller on the line; a caller for you. His name is Greg from East Falls. Greg,are you there
Greg: Yes I am. Thank you for taking my call. I have a question for both of you guys. I have heard for years and read where there is conflict when you have the traditional medicine, which the young lady represents, I don't know your name; please forgive me and then the holistic side. Now I happen to believe that there is some good and truth in both, but what I don't understand when I read it is, and here's my question that leads to a question for the gentleman, it appears when I read these books that the American Medical Association seems to be the culprit here. If somebody comes up with something that actually worked, what the doctor's saying and others, that they are either chastised or intimidated or in some way because they are going against the grain of what the American Medical Association has put out there. Maybe you guys can answer this totally, but here's my concern and if that is so, I'm wondering, I've read horror stories, I am wondering from the gentleman if you are sharing something or if there is something that actually works out there and it goes against the big business of the pharmaceuticals and medical, what is your concern about your safety or whatever it is that they do when they intimidate somebody from going from that? I don't mean disrespect for your profession young lady, but that is what I have read. I just wanted to see what you guys take is on that if you can answer.
Ozanich: That's a great question. There was a recent Forbes Magazine article called "America's Best Pain Doctor" and it was about Dr. Sarno. That guy had gone to every doctor there was and couldn't heal and he found Dr. Sarno and he healed. In that article, he said, why is it that Dr. Sarno is considered not mainstream when his success rate is like 98%? The other people who are failing to heal the back pain, to keep the people coming back for decades, why are they considered mainstream? He said something is wrong here. He just retired last year,but he trained all kinds of people in different fields; all kinds of surgeons, matter of fact, the spine surgeon just came out with a book on the topic of my book and he is saying basically the same thing. I'm not doing anything, it's the belief that the surgery that is healing the people; it is all about belief. This gentleman made a great point, why do they look down on people who are healing people if it is not in the way they want people to heal? Because there is a lot of money involved. There's a lot of people who have spent a lot of years in medical school, a lot of years and it's a lot of time invested. So people don't turn quickly and easily. Like I said earlier, it's a cultural mindset but this Dr. Sarno is not a holistic alternative doctor, he was a medical doctor from Columbia University. He worked for 50 years; he healed surgeons, neurosurgeons, and the neurosurgeons are saying the same thing, if you pinch a nerve, that nerve will die off and then it will stop transmitting pain signals so you cannot have a pinched nerve ongoing in perpetuity. There is something else going on but Dr. Sarno retired and he was looked down upon as a piranha. He couldn't even eat in the cafeteria at NYU; they pushed him out of teaching at NYU and yet everybody from around the world is flying in to see him. That was a great point that guy brought up; why don't they want to look at what's really happening.
Patterson: I love your question Greg, thank you so much for calling. My name is Dr. Donee Patterson. You are right, I am trained in traditional medicine; I went to medical school in the United States; I've wanted to be a doctor ever since I was six years old. I need to tell you; I have zero dollars; zero nickels zero pennies in any drug company. I don't get paid for doing this radio show; some may be surprised to know. I don't get paid, but I dedicated several years of my life to doing community outreach so that our community, I really deeply care about Philadelphia and our surrounding communities and I want our people to be healthy, particularly African American people who we head the charts of diabetes, head the charts of high blood pressure and hypertension, so there is no hidden agenda here on my part. I am all about whatever works and so that is why I agreed to do this show, because I want people to know everything that is possible out there t o help them to be healthy. There are some of my colleagues who don't believe in chronic pain; they don't find evidence in it. If you can't do a blood test or x-ray and prove it, they don't believe in it, but me and many, many of my colleagues actually have sincere hearts and we just want people to be healthier so we give people many different ways to view medicine and there is more than one way to skin a cat, there are multiple ways to success, not just this way, not just traditional medicine,there are many different ways that we haven't even got to the tip of today. These are just some suggestions on how to be healthier. I hope that you are not suspicious about every single medical physician because that is not the case. We just genuinely want you to be healthy no matter how it comes. I just want to emphasize again, there is more than one way to skin a cat; there are multiple ways to success; that western medicine or traditional medicine is not the enemy here; I am not the enemy here. I am trying to bring you information. We are all adults; we can decide for ourselves. I am not pushing any medicine; you've never heard a specific medicine come out of my mouth on any of these shows because I am not pushing medication, I am just informing people the symptoms of arthritis and helping to establish some of the treatments for it. I love that Mr. Ozanich has this really very innovative way to correct the pain,but with that said, Valerie reminded me, Mr. Ozanich, what is the name of your book?
Ozanich: The Great Pain Deception. The title is basically saying that the brain is deceiving us by making us think that the body is failing us. When we realize that we begin to heal and it still goes back to the belief, I couldn't quit hear all that the lady said because it was clicking in and out, the phone call. But it all comes down to belief again. She found something that works. We are looking for placebo effects in people. That means something that the person actually believes deeply in and it mechanizes their body to take over. The doctor is a facilitator. My book is not an anti-doctor book; I think most doctors want to do good. I think maybe you got the wrong impression there. These doctors aren't anti-doctors either, it is the system we are talking about, it is not aimed in anybody in particular but the system is set up to look for structural things. As soon as a guy goes in….a guy came up to me in a restaurant recently, hey I heard you wrote a book on back pain, my pack is killing me. I said when is your divorce? He said how could you possibly know I was in the middle of a divorce? I said it's a 50/50 shot in America at least but there is something going on in their lives. People don't look at what is going on in their lives and you can almost trace it back to an event every time an illness starts or something. The body needs to express itself. The system is set up not to look at that. Doctors? We need good healers; healers saved my life; we really need good healers and I'm not saying they are on the take or anything like that, not at all. I hope that is not misunderstood. It is just the system and when people come in to the doctor most of the time the doctor doesn't even look at what is going on in their lives; they just inject it or send them to therapy or medicate it. Dr. Sarno proved that is what is causing it to be perpetuated. That is what the brain wants; it wants you to think there is something wrong with the body when the body is pretty healthy. There are other things outside the mind body realm that don't have to do with what I am talking about. Mesothelioma and all these poisons to the system and smoking for 50 years and things like that. There is a psychological element in every pain and disease. When we are told we have a disease, the psychological element goes through the roof; the tension rises rapidly and it makes it worse.
Patterson: I love the concept for all of us to work together. We are running a little short on time. Do you have, in 20 seconds or less,some final thoughts?
Ozanich: I got a lot of them.
Patterson: We've got 20 seconds
Ozanich: If you want to heal and you haven't found the answer, take a look at that book, The Great Pain Deception and the website is paindeception.com and it's not voodoo and it's not alternative medicine, it is medical science working with psychologists and psychiatrists and I think you will astounded by what you found there.
Patterson: Mr. Ozanich, thank you so much for your time and I wish you the best. We appreciate everyone listening. My motto in life is we wish you the best of health, but if you cannot be the absolute best, you can be better. All of us can be better. Thank you so much for your time.