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These past few weeks I’ve been writing another patient book. Why? What is it about? What have I written for patients to date? Let’s dig in.

Writing a New Book

Writing a patient book is tough to do when you’re busy. First, you have to carve out pieces of time when you can write. Second, it all needs to be written and organized in such a way that patients can easily understand the content. Then you actually have to get it done.

This new book I’ve been working on is hyperspecific and focused on Craniocervical Instability or CCI which is damage to the ligaments in the upper neck that literally hold the head on. I’m writing it because the quality of information on the Internet for CCI patients is very poor. In addition, because there is no one place that puts all of that information together. Meaning, as a CCI patient, you would literally need to try to piece together information from a dozen or more sites just to figure out which end is up.

I’m in that phase right now that I call “brute force”. That’s where you’re pulling together many pieces and just pushing through the obstacles that come up to get an initial structure for the book. This stage should be done in the next 1-2 weeks and then I’ll ship it out to some CCI patient advocates to get their take on what’s missing.

I’ve also decided that I would do most of the illustrations in this book (which I also did for the shoulder and spine book), so that takes some additional time. However, that’s also one of the more fun parts of it all for me, as I love drawing and trying to take complex things and making them simple. Hopefully, if all goes well, this book should be ready and online by spring.

My Other Books

You may or may not know it, but I got into writing patient books many years ago. While I write most every day for this blog, I needed a place where all of that information could get pulled together into something coherent. Hence, Orthopedics 2.0 was born (now in its 4th edition):

This is an overview book of Interventional Orthopedics and Orthobiologics. Just click on any book cover to read that book.

Then came ProActive, a book about staying fit and active as you age by using Orthobiologic injections when your problems are small:

Then came the Knee Owners Manual which focused on how patients could avoid knee surgery:

Then the Spine Owners Manual, a book focused on people with neck and back pain:

Then finally a book for shoulder pain patients in Shoulder 2.0:

I’ve also written other small books and Dr. Pitts from our Colorado HQ also wrote a book on nutrition, which can all be accessed here. 

The upshot? I’m writing a new book. After that’s done, not sure what’s next. However, these patient books are a great way for patients to get lots of information about their condition that’s all in one spot!

Chris Centeno, MD is a specialist in regenerative medicine and the new field of Interventional Orthopedics. Centeno pioneered orthopedic stem cell procedures in 2005 and is responsible for a large amount of the published research on stem cell use for orthopedic applications. View Profile