Pain , Pain , Go Away

Physician helps patients reduce chronic back and
neck pain without surgery, shots or drugs.

Alum To Coach

Academy gets former star
for baseball team.

Steve Stein

Special to the Jewish News

F

rankel Jewish Academy's
first and only NCAA
Division I athlete has
returned to his roots.
Sam Yashinsky, who pitched
for two seasons at the University
of Michigan after making the U-
M baseball team as a walk-on, is
now the West
Bloomfield-based
Academy's base-
ball coach.
Academy athletic
director Michael
Sandweiss is
certain he has hit
Sam
a home run by hir-
Yashinsky
ing Yashinsky to
revive the school's baseball program:
"This is our 10th year as a school.
Can you think of a better way to
celebrate than by bringing back our
most accomplished athlete and a
superb role model? Playing at the
Division I level gives Sam instant
`street cred' with our kids."
Yashinsky, 23, graduated from
U-M last year and is on his way to
medical school. He plans to take
the Medical College Admission Test
in May and start applying to medical
schools in August. While he pre-
pares to tackle the MCAT, he's vol-
unteering at the Karamanos Cancer
Institute in Detroit.
Neither Yashinsky nor Sandweiss
knows how long Yashinsky will be
able to coach at the academy.
"The baseball season is only a
couple months a year. I don't see any
reason why I can't be a coach by day
and a medical student by night dur-
ing that time," Yashinsky said.
"I understand this probably isn't a
long-term commitment," Sandweiss
said. "But this is an opportunity I
couldn't pass up."
Yashinsky doesn't think he'll have
any problems relating to his players.
"Every kid has talent. I want them
to know that," he said. "I also want
them to take on the mentality of a
walk-on, like I had to do at Michigan.
The mentality is everyone is impor-
tant to the team. As my coach at
Michigan used to say, 'Everyone
needs to pick up their brother. —

Yashinsky also is confident he
can help his students academically.
"The Academy places an empha-
sis on preparing kids for the college
experience," he said. "Coaching
baseball will give an opportunity to
show my players how to concen-
trate on their studies even while
they're playing a sport."
Yashinsky's stellar four-year
career on the academy baseball
team was capped by a Catholic
League division championship in
2005, his senior season.
It's one of two Catholic League
division crowns won by Academy
teams. The boys basketball team
was a division champ last season.
After failing to make the U-M
baseball team in 2006, Yashinsky
lived a dream by playing for the
Big Ten Conference champion
Wolverines in 2007 and 2008.
With his off-the-baseball-diamond
dream of practicing medicine loom-
ing on the horizon, Yashinsky talked
with U-M coach Rich Maloney
before his senior season. They
decided it was best for Yashinsky
to give up baseball and focus on
academics.
Yashinsky pitched in six games
for Michigan in two seasons and he
did not allow a run in seven innings.
That gave him a career ERA of 0.00.
The athletic director ran into
Yashinsky in November while
Yashinsky was shooting baskets at
the Jewish Community Center in
West Bloomfield. Sandweiss told
Yashinsky about the job opening
and made him an offer. Yashinsky
has spoken at an open house for
prospective academy students and
also met with his baseball players.

Sports Shorts

A tryout schedule for Detroit teams
that will play in the JCC Maccabi
Games this summer is posted at
maccabidetroit.org ... Players and
teams are needed for the B'nai
B'rith Great Lakes Region's 35th
basketball season. Games are
played Sundays at Walled Lake
Central High School. Call Marty
Melton, (248) 921-1539. Li

Please send sports news to

sports@thejewishnews.com .

in

etroit Lions team chaplain

Dave Wilson "practically
crawled" into Dr. Sol Cogan's
office in Farmington, unable to func-
tion because of excruciating leg pain.
"My sciatica was so bad, it felt like
there was a knife stuck in my left
hamstring," said Wilson, 51. Hoping
.,7 ' - - — to avoid his sched-
uled surgery,
I Wilson set up a
consultation with
Cogan, the official
chiropractor for
the Detroit Lions.
After performing
an exam and re-
viewing Wilson's
Dr. Sol Cogan MRI, Cogan deter-
mined he was a
good candidate for spinal decompres-
sion therapy, a safe, nonsurgical treat-
ment for certain adults suffering from
severe, chronic back and neck pain
caused by bulging, herniated, degen-
erative and protruding discs, pinched
nerves, sciatica, spinal stenosis, pos-
terior facet syndrome and related
conditions. Today, Wilson feels like a
new man. "After the first session, I
knew it was going to work," said Wil-
son. "Now I can walk, run, even play
basketball, pain free. My pain level
went from unbearable to nonexis-
tent."

Cogan, 41, a spinal specialist, has
served as chairman of the Michigan
Board of Chiropractic since 2005. He
founded his company, HealthQuest,
in 1992 and has treated thousands of
people with back and neck pain, in-
cluding Olympic and professional
athletes. When a Chicago colleague
talked to him about spinal decompres-
sion technology in 2004, he was
skeptical. Cogan mentioned that he
had some nagging pain due to a high
school wrestling injury, and his
colleague convinced him to have a
treatment. "Within 10 minutes, the
discomfort I'd been living with for
years significantly decreased," said
Cogan. Today, HealthQuest is the
only company in Michigan with four
of the leading spinal decompression
machines: DRX9000C, DRX9000,
Accu-SPINA and VAX-D G2.

By reducing the pressure on damaged
discs during half-hour decompression
sessions, pressure on the spinal col-
umn 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 suffering from

low back pain," said Marc Witten-
berg, 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 chiroprac-
tic care and has a strong involvement
in spinal decompression therapy,"
said Wittenberg.

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
disabled for a full year or more. Every
day, Cogan and his team of specially
trained doctors see how pain severely
impacts patients' moods and lives.
Cogan recently converted five of the 11
Michigan locations he's built to Health-
Quest's Back & Neck Solution Centers
of America.

Helping patients avoid work loss,
inconvenient recovery time, drastic
surgery, invasive procedures, ineffi-
cient injections and addicting drugs
while creating a renewed quality of
life is Cogan's passion and profes-
sional mission. "Spinal decompres-
sion therapy helps the body heal itself
naturally," he said. "While spinal de-
compression is not for everybody,
watching those patients who are candi-
dates gain freedom from their excruci-
ating pain after these truly ground-
breaking treatments, which many peo-
ple actually describe as enjoyable, has
been remarkable."

Last year, former Detroit Lion and
NFL Hall of Famer Charlie Sanders
felt his back tighten up and within
hours was wheelchair bound due to
damage to his L4/L5 disc. "I did not
want to have surgery," said Sanders.
"By the end of my spinal decompres-
sion therapy regimen, I was pain-free
and remain that way to this day." He
credits Cogan with permanently alle-
viating his back pain.

"Too many people sacrifice the qual-
ity of their life because of an ache or
pain that can be corrected," said
Cogan. "Our specialists correct the
cause of the problem instead of just
treating symptoms. We can often
make the pain go away for good."

Cogan is president of the Pro Football
Chiropractic Society and a founding
member of the International Chiro-
practors Association Council on Fit-
ness and Sports Health Sciences.

Call 1-800-LIONS-DN or visit
livepainfreeusa.com .

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January 28 • 2010

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