As a specialist in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, I have seen thousands of patients suffering from back pain over the years.  During the first several years of my practice, I followed the current update from medical journals and seminars in addition to the previous textbooks and teachings of my professors for diagnosis and treatment.  Even with my best effort, I was unable to cure back pain, leaving me and my patients very frustrated.  This bothered me quite a bit.  I just could not accept the notion that back pain is incurable in this high-tech modern era.  So I took a step back, trying to figure out why back pain is such a tough problem.  I soon suspected that back pain must have come from muscles instead of spine or nerves.  I then redirected my focus and started treating muscle injury, consistently obtaining satisfactory results, even cure in some cases. 

Having many questions, yet little knowledge and no books or teachers for guidance regarding muscle injury, I had to search alone in the dark for answers without knowing where to go and what to look for.  Relying on common sense and keen observation, I learned a great deal from carefully examining and treating my patients.  I analyzed many medical writings with skepticism as well as verification.  I also experimented with nearly all the available treatments.  I began to see some light through the inner working of pain.  I was able to break the myths, one after another, and eventually come out of the maze.  After considerable experience, I was finally convinced that back pain is actually derived from soft tissue injury, not bone spur, disc herniation, pinched nerve, sciatica, arthritis or other spinal conditions as written in the medical books.  Therefore, I determined: Soft tissue injury is the culprit of back pain.  A diagnosis with no regard to soft tissue injury is deemed to be a misdiagnosis; a treatment with no regard to soft tissue injury is deemed to be ineffective. 

I unknowingly stumbled into a new field of “soft tissue injury”.  I was surprised and shocked to find how primitive and uncultivated the field is in modern medicine.  No wonder there are numerous errors in the diagnosis and treatment of back pain as well as other pain-related conditions.  In diagnosis, the cause of pain is often misleading, non-specific or unknown, not pointing to the real source.  In treatment, based on a misleading diagnosis, it is understandably out of focus, ineffective, and largely symptomatic relief at best, but no cure.  Thus, so many pain-related conditions remain unresolved for years despite all medical resources.  Patients have suffered so much for so long, still longing for a cure.  How unfortunate it is, but how wonderful it will be to have a cure!

 So I set out to search for a cure, charging forward with determination and diligence.

 In my early efforts, I treated only the injured muscle and managed to soften its tight nodule.  Before long, I realized that its attachments must also be treated and tried a slightly lighter technique to treat them.

 Later, I understood the relationship between injury and muscle strength and that muscle strength is a key element in the diagnosis of pain.  Pain interferes with muscle exertion and limits the output of strength; thereby most of muscle weakness is actually muscle strength limited by pain.  Once pain is removed, strength returns to normal immediately.  Thus, muscle strength can be utilized as a reliable factor in the diagnosis as well as in the measurement of the efficacy of treatment. 

Then, I also learned that exercising an injured muscle often irritates and worsens its injury causing further weakness.  To restore muscle strength, injury must first be resolved but not with exercises.  I always treated the injury without any strengthening exercise.  Furthermore, most soft tissue injury actually comes from exercises; I realized that there is too much risk and little benefit in exercise.  I hereby advocate suitable activity instead by downplaying the importance of exercise while alerting the risk of its harm so as to reduce or even prevent the occurrence of soft tissue injury.           

In addition, I found that fascia plays an essential and utmost important role in pain.  This new concept was monumental!  It helps clarify various pain-related conditions.  I devised an effective way to treat fascia injury.

It has taken me quite some time, through trial and error, to find ways of identifying the precise source of pain and the optimal method of curing pain.  All these years, I have been sharpening my skills to master the simplest, most effective and efficient techniques to cure pain.  Initially, I applied vigorous massage trying to break down tight muscles, based on physics.  Although still somewhat effective, it hurt my patients and my hands.  There is also the limitation that massage cannot be done to certain small parts of the body.  I attempted various existing and creative methods searching for a better solution for years in vain.  My “eureka!” aha moment came one day (Easter Day 2005) when I tried light touch on a patient (my niece, Alice) who was horrified of pain and could not tolerate massage on the injured site.  I was surprised to feel the injured tissue immediately softening under my fingertips until no more pain or tightness.  By accident, I discovered a previously unknown and unutilized physiological phenomenon that light touch elicits body response for self-healing reversing the injured tissue to its normal state, and thus pain disappears.  Light touch works very well on the muscle and especially the fascia.  It can be applied to soft tissue injury of any site and size.  I have since replaced physics with physiology so that painful injury can be quickly resolved and there is little pain hurting my patients or my hands during treatment.  This simple, low-tech, highly efficient and truly effective method has become a terminator of pain and the very tool to cure injury. 

The same principles of diagnosis and treatment can be successfully applied to pain anywhere in the body, even extending to other pain-related conditions. 

Little by little, over a forty-year span, I have cumulatively established the theory and application of The Precision Method using Touch-and-Hold & Stretch-and-Hold techniques for soft tissue release.  With this method, injured sites are precisely identified and effectively treated toward a cure.  Any pain-related condition can definitely recover in a very short time without recurrence, regardless of new or old, mild or severe, tiny or large, body part or location.  There is no risk or side effect.  Costly tests, medications, injections, surgeries as well as tools, devices, machines are not needed, thus medical expenses can be greatly reduced.  I am excited about this breakthrough and eagerly reaching out to bring good tidings to those in need.  

This book is written entirely based on my personal understanding and clinical experience and for the first time to introduce “The Precision Method”.