HEALTH & FITNESS
wellness
Pain, Pain,
Go Away
Innovative physician helps patients
reduce chronic back and neck pain
without surgery, shots or drugs.
Carolyn Krieger-Cohen
Special to the Jewish News
D
etroit Lions team chap-
lain Dave Wilson "practi-
cally crawled" into Dr. Sol
Cogan's office in Farmington
earlier this year, unable to function
because of excruciating leg pain.
"My sciatica was so bad, it literally
felt like there was a knife stuck in my
left hamstring," said Wilson, 51.
Hoping to avoid his scheduled sur-
gery, Wilson set up a consultation
after observing Cogan, the official
chiropractor for the Detroit Lions since
2002, providing medical care to the
football players on the sidelines. After
performing an exam and reviewing
Wilson's MRI, Cogan determined he
was an excellent candidate for spinal
decompression therapy, a safe, non-
surgical treatment for certain adult
patients suffering from severe, chronic
back and neck pain caused by bulg-
ing, herniated and protruding discs,
pinched nerves, sciatica, spinal steno-
sis, degenerative discs, posterior facet
syndrome and related conditions.
Today, Wilson feels like a new man.
"After the first session, I knew it was
going to work," said Wilson. "Now I
can walk, run, even play basketball,
pain-free. My pain level went from
unbearable to nonexistent."
he was skeptical. When Cogan men-
tioned that he had some nagging pain
due to a high school wrestling injury,
his colleague convinced him to have a
treatment.
"Within 10 minutes, the nagging dis-
comfort I'd been living with for years
significantly decreased," said Cogan.
He purchased a state-of-the-art
spinal decompression machine for his
office the next day. Today, HealthQuest
is the only company in Michigan with
four of the leading spinal decom-
pression technology systems, the
DRX9000C, DRX9000, Accu-SPINA
and VAX-D G2.
Groundbreaking Technology
The data from a patient's MRI is pro-
grammed into a spinal decompression
machine. Patients recline as gentle,
safe, nonsurgical decompression is
applied to the spine during relaxing,
half-hour treatment sessions. Patients
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Dr. Sol Cogan reviews his patient's non-surgical spinal decompression treatment plan.
often fall asleep during treatment. By
reducing the pressure on damaged
discs, pressure on the spinal column is
relieved as well. Painful symptoms are
greatly reduced and often eliminated.
Several medical studies support that,
"in the properly selected patient, this
treatment type may help individuals suf-
fering from low back pain," said Marc
Wittenberg, M.D., a board certified pain
management specialist with Pain Care
Associates in Bloomfield Hills.
Dr. Wittenberg trained at the
University of Michigan's School of
Medicine and was recently named one
of HOUR Detroit magazine's 2009 Top
Docs in pain medicine.
"Dr. Cogan is well known in the field
of chiropractic care and has a strong
involvement in spinal decompression
therapy," said Wittenberg.
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Skeptic To Believer
Cogan, 41, a spinal specialist, has
served as chairman of the Michigan
Board of Chiropractic since 2005.
Since founding his company,
HealthQuest, in 1992, he has treated
thousands of people with back and
neck pain, including Olympic and pro-
fessional athletes.
He admits that when a Chicago
colleague talked to him about spinal
decompression technology in 2004,
66
November 26 • 2009
Ai
Dr. Sol Cogan is on the sidelines at every Detroit Lions home and away game. He is
shown treating wide receiver Calvin Johnson.
Healing Mission
On any given day in the U.S., 6.5 mil-
lion people are in bed because of back
pain and 5.4 million individuals are dis-
abled for a full year or more.
Cogan and his team of specially
trained physicians understand that
pain affects much more than people's
backs and necks. Every day, they see
how pain severely impacts patients'
moods and can devastate lives.
They are dedicated to helping
patients find a permanent solution
instead of a temporary fix. Cogan
recently converted five of the 11
Michigan locations he's built to
HealthQuest's Back & Neck Solution
Centers of America.
Helping patients avoid drastic sur-
gery, invasive procedures, injections
and drugs that can be inefficient and
addicting while creating a renewed
quality of life is Cogan's passion and
professional mission.
"Spinal decompression therapy
helps the body heal itself naturally,"
he said. "While spinal decompression
is not for everybody, watching those
patients who are candidates gain free-
dom from their excruciating pain after
these truly groundbreaking treatments,
which many people actually describe
as enjoyable, has been remarkable."
Another benefit to spinal decompres-
sion therapy is that there is no recov-
ery time or work loss.
Cogan has also developed an
exclusive SatisBACKtion Guarantee
for patients undergoing this treatment
protocol. He is presenting two reserva-
tion-only, Live Pain Free workshops
Dec. 7 and 9 at Ginopolis on the Grill
in Farmington Hills for individuals inter-
ested in learning more about spinal
decompression.