Painopolis

Welcome to Painopolis! It’s a new podcast for people with chronic pain. And also for everybody else.

That’s because we’ll be bringing you stories about people who confronted the worst hell imaginable, surmounted it, and are now ready to tell the rest of us how they did it. You’ve never come across stories like these. Stories straight from the trenches. For example:

•  You’ll hear from a med-school graduate in so much pain that she intentionally put herself into a coma and came out of it pain-free.

•  We’ll tell you about a guy who needed $90,000 for cancer treatment—and his family and friends who figured out how to raise the money through GoFundMe in just two weeks.

•  You’ll meet a Florida stockbroker with chronic pain who talked the federal government into giving him a lifetime supply of free marijuana. (The government even rolls it for him!)

•  You’ll learn about a famous politician who secretly battled intractable pain while simultaneously shouldering the world’s most high-profile job.

•  You’ll hear about a journalist who dialed down his chronic pain by delving into the dark corners of his past. Oh, yeah, that journalist is me.

And by the way, if you’re still using Google to answer your medical questions, we’ll tell you about a wealth of research tools so powerful that they make Google look as flimsy as an old newspaper. And many of these tools won't even cost of you a dime. Cases in point:

•  Care to know how much money your doctor is getting from drug companies?

•  Want to tap into the minds of leading medical researchers and top physicians for free?

•  Want to know how to get access legally to medications so new that you can’t even buy them at a pharmacy?

You’ll find out how to do all that and much, much more.

Prepare to be riveted.

Painopolis. Relentlessly in search of what works, one defiant story at a time.

Coming soon on iTunes and at painopolis.com.

—David Sharp, editor