In 1992, I noticed some tightness and a lessening of mobility in my right hip. Two years of both standard and somewhat esoteric chiropractic treatments failed to improve the range of motion. I then obtained a medical X-ray which resulted in a diagnosis of “acute, chronic arthritis, right hip”. With this sobering news, I began a desperate search for a healing program which would, at a minimum, enable me to avoid a hip replacement, and as a maximum, preserve my active lifestyle of hands-on builder, backpacker, surfer, and sports player.
After moving through nearly ten practitioners over the next couple years, with no improvement–or worsening-–I wanted a second medical opinion. This was realized at the SOAR Clinic, a reputable group of physiatrist-MD’s who specialize in non-surgical solutions. After a thorough examination and X-rays, their stated conclusion was: “Mr. Sun, you’re an unlucky man. At age 49, this should not have happened. There’s really nothing to be done. These kinds of cases never go into remission. If you don’t have the hip replaced within three years, you will no longer be walking. You will be crawling in here for a referral. Save your self some trouble and a lot of pain. Have it done now. Here’s my colleague’s card..”
More than panicked at the thought of essentially letting the top of my right leg be sawed off, trusting the remaining part would be properly drilled out, then subjected to a metal ball on a shaft glued into the bone–not to mention having the socket replaced, I re-invaded the alternative healing community with a vengeance. It was and is my belief that the body is a miraculous instrument, fully capable of correcting itself given the proper substances and stimuli. I had no idea the degree to which this great-sounding axiom would be tested in me over the next many years. I stumbled on to a newly-arrived chiropractor to Santa Cruz who employed up to fifteen different modalities in his very short-duration treatments. He did two things for me. One, he helped verify that my condition stemmed from a flag football injury sustained in college, and two, he stabilized—even temporarily improved—my level of pain, range of motion, and overall strength in the hip region.
I began tracking my progress with chiropractic X-rays during this time (circa 1997-2000). I shifted my career path from hands-on to purely supervisory and design capacities. The X-rays indicated a barely perceptible re-ordering of the chaos in the joint. During these treatments, an ongoing (sometimes sharp) pain developed in my right knee, which was manageable, though annoying.
By the time I made the fortuitous acquaintance of Dr. Bernd Friedlander in the fist trimester of 2000, my hip had taken a major turn for the worse. There were days when I had to plan walking from the bed to the door, the door to the stairway railing, the railing to the couch. The limp I had acquired was extremely pronounced. Exiting my truck became a major ordeal. I often had to stand next to it for one to three minutes before being able to take a step. My wife had had it with watching me unsuccessfully manage the considerable and constant pain. At her urging, I was interviewing hip replacement specialists as well as patients who had gone through the process. There were both heartening success stories and a few too many disasters. I knew this was an absolutely irreversible step, and I resisted it with every fiber of my being.
So on my 25th or so tryout of a practitioner, much to my wife’s dismay, I went to see Dr. Friedlander. After a comprehensive examination/evaluation, he reported that I was basically doing all the right things. However, most of the energy from the stretching, the supplements, the body work, et cetera, was being directed to fighting a blood parasite which was taxing my immune system. He treated me with various modalities as well as recommended eliminating certain of my supplements while adding a few others, a process which continues to this day. The treatments also included a 20-minute body work session specifically targeted to my problem area. The sessions typically ended with a personal set of adjustments by Dr. Friedlander. His treatments covered all bases, often exceeding two hours. Whenever I walked out of his office, I felt a sense of complete well being.
In September of 2000, my wife and I went on a five-week trip to Italy. She’d been dreading the trip, thinking she’d have to tow me around the country on a roller skate.
When my treatments with Dr. Friedlander first started, I would often have three or four hours of no pain. Then as my treatments progressed, there would be a whole day, sometimes two when I was free of pain. At about five months in, just before leaving for Italy, on average, I was pain free at least 50% of the time. As we moved through the country, my condition improved dramatically. By the beginning of the second week, I was averaging walks of 4 miles per day. These were often over rugged terrain on the west coast, though I found spending hours pacing around museums to be the most stressful activity. By the third week, we were walking six miles per day sometimes eight. The more I walked, the more the pain subsided. By the time we hit New York, I was literally skipping down the sidewalks, to the wonderment and outright shock of my wife and mother-in-law.
Near the end of my first year of treatment, I vacationed at a beach resort in the tropics. After my first swim, I emerged from the waves and without thinking, broke into a run along the beach for a quarter mile or so. This has repeated itself many times over in the ensuing years, including this morning of December 29, 2006. Dr. Friedlander does not condone running for someone with my hip history, but there’s something spiritually freeing in an occasional run—especially when one has faced a time when continuing to walk was seriously in question.
Since those more somber and pain-laden days, I’ve done—and continue to do—a number of activities I thought I’d never do again. These include wilderness backpacking, stone masonry (a hobby), up to 8-mile day hikes, installing several foundations for large homes (a twisted hobby—not recommended), and pursuing my great and enduring loves, surfing and big-wave body surfing. I’m writing this from Hawaii where I went board surfing five days ago and have body surfed every day for two weeks, often in dangerous conditions where it was essential to have total use of all limbs. Last week, I also partook in a couple of one-hour basketball shoot-arounds, besting whippersnappers less than half my age. In 2010, I went on a private rafting trip down the Grand Canyon. Every day of this trip was a workout. Every day we hiked. One hike was 11 miles up a canyon, then a steep climb up almost a sheer cliff and on to rendezvous with our rafts downstream.
A word about my current supplements is in order. Concerning my ongoing hip improvement, I religiously adhere to the nutritional supplementation suggested by Dr. Friedlander, but most importantly, the Hydrolyzed Collagen. All of these have been tested for my specific condition by Dr Friedlander. In fact, he is the formulator and supplier of the collagen. My supplement of choice until about a year ago was a glucosamine sulfate & condroiten sulfate combination. I took this in fairly high dosages every day for about eleven years.
When Dr. Friedlander told me the collagen he had just formulated would yield much better results with positive side effects, I have to admit I was a little fearful to give up the sulfates. Not only do I never think about my hip anymore as I go through my days, my stamina and general energy level are essentially no different from when I was in my forties (pre hip problem). (I’m sixty-one as of this writing—now sixty-six.)
Yesterday (January 4th, 2007) I went body-surfing (about an hour of continuous exertion), followed that with a two-mile brisk walk, then rented a surfboard and did that for almost two hours (of continuous paddling), came back to the condo and worked on a book for a couple hours, then drove out to another beach where I walked a half mile over deep sand and lava rocks to a big-wave bodysurfing beach and did that for forty-five minutes until sunset. Then I stayed up until well after midnight working some more on my novel. Today I repeated the process, substituting more writing for the board surfing. Even two years ago—pre-collagen—this level of output would have been unachievable. Pre-collagen, I was taking naps—or wanted to take naps—every afternoon. Now, perhaps I take a nap once or twice a month, and those only because I’ve stayed up past 1AM on some work-related deadline. To top it all off, I even look younger.
Three years into Dr Friedlander’s care--I had another X-ray. When compared with earlier ones, the joint is dramatically more organized, there is more space between the ball and socket, and a very thin line of new cartilage is evident on the femur. The earlier X-rays show a bone-on-bone condition with no space between them. I look forward to another one soon—especially in light of the rebuilding that has obviously occurred with the addition of the collagen.
To say I owe my life to Dr. Friedlander’s genius, intuitiveness, and positive attitude would not be an overstatement. That being said, everyone’s healing is ultimately up to them. In that spirit, I strongly recommend against labeling one’s condition. In my case, when asked, I never said, “I have arthritis. Rather, I’d reply, “I have a cartilage loss on the top of my femur. I’m working on reversing that.” Along with Dr. Friedlander’s treatments, I designed and adhered to a regimen which includes—in varying degrees at various times—yoga, stretching, targeted gym exercise, swimming, walking, and, of ultimate importance, living in the present moment as much and as consciously as possible. And I can say with certainty, it has worked for me, and continues to do so.
Climbing Sun
Santa Cruz & Aptos, California