Dr. Bonacci started the practice in 1998. In 2015 he was introduced to Physical Therapist Jeanne Hills by headache specialist Dr. Christine Harter. Jeanne Hills is the only fully guild-certified Feldenkrais Method® practitioner and licensed physical therapist in the state of Arizona. Jeanne has 30 years of experience helping pain patients.
Dr. Harter had been referring patients to Jeanne on the west side of town, and to Dr. Bonacci on the east side. She told Dr. Bonacci one day, “The two of you need to meet, you are both getting amazing results with patients.” We met and realized that our therapies strongly complement one another. Having a comfortable meeting of the minds, both on the same mission, Jeanne came to work at Arizona Pain & Posture.
Dr. Bonacci’s personal mission started at Regis University in the Honors Program, majoring in philosophy and religious studies, with extracurricular classes in the sciences to qualify him for chiropractic school. He graduated from Life Chiropractic College in 1997 where he had been taught by Bruce Lipton, whose scientific perspective changed his life and eventually aided in the development of the Bonacci Method℠.
As a newly licensed chiropractor, Dr. Bonacci went to work for an established local clinic in Phoenix performing classic adjustments, walking from one room to the next while the staff filed patients in and out. Dr. Bonacci was adjusting 75 to 120 spines per day. He quickly became an excellent adjuster, but realized none of the patients were getting better, as he would see the same people week after week.
This created more questions than answers, and feeling driven by purpose, he branched out on his own to see if he could provide the kind of care that would actually help to heal patients rather than being dependent on the chiropractor for pain relief.
He found himself faced with complex pain patients who needed various modalities to heal, and Dr. Bonacci learned to orchestrate treatment among all his hired hands: top-notch physical therapists, massage practitioners, Rolfers and exercise trainers. Each had valuable yet differing skills to offer pain patients. He began to see patterns. Some patients would get better, but some would get worse. It became clear to him, that, even though a therapist may have had the intention of working solely on a muscle or joint, the improvement — or lack of improvement — was due to the response of the nervous system, whether central, peripheral, or brain and brain stem.
It was complicated, and Dr. Bonacci realized that he couldn’t risk potentially making patients’ conditions worse. He needed to figure out exactly why the nervous system responded erratically at times under certain circumstances. Dr Bonacci re-evaluated his clinic and made some changes. He let several therapists go, and spent time perfecting his own techniques. Slowly he began to create a system that would gauge the response of the nervous system throughout the session, moving forward delicately, manipulating the body to free up nerves as he aligned joints, muscles and fascia. He found that complex pain patients liked his techniques. He was getting his first taste of helping people no one else had been able to help — some in pain for many years.
Dr. Bonacci had plenty of motivation to find success with pain patients. While he felt pressure to put food on his own table, he also wanted medical doctor referrals. Confident in his results combining various disciplines, he began going to doctors in the area, asking for their most complicated pain, injury or trauma patient, the one that was giving them and their staff the biggest challenge. He wanted to prove to them that he could help when nothing else had worked. It seemed that most doctors were hesitant to refer to a chiropractor, but he was relentless and began to win them over. Dr. Bonacci knew they were trusting him with their patients. If any bad results were reported back, they would not refer more. He worked hard to make sure every patient found improvement at his clinic.
Around this time was the height of the opioid epidemic, and a few of his referring doctors were physiatrists prescribing opioids to their longtime pain patients. In order to justify the scripts, these doctors had to show they had previously tried various treatments like manual therapy or surgical treatments.
Dr. Bonacci was able to see in these patients’ notes that they had endured dozens of previous chiropractors, physical therapists and medical doctors. He noted what had helped and what had hurt. The system was failing these people, they were all suffering tremendously, and nothing seemed to be truly helping. They were all losing hope, and had all their docs telling them they were never going to get better and were destined for a life on pain meds.
Initially, Dr. Bonacci thought perhaps these people did not want to get better; they just wanted their opioids. And he thought perhaps the doctors were assuming there was no way a chiropractor would be able to help them; they expected business as usual and the patient would return to them looking for their script.
However, what happened was actually quite to the contrary. The patients did indeed begin to get better after several sessions with Dr. Bonacci. The patients were stunned and gradually embracing a new mindset. The doctors were skeptical it would last. Dr. Bonacci was inspired.
Encouraged by the results he was getting, he dove into the formal creation of his own technique. Dr. Bonacci quietly began to do his own research. He began taking detailed notes on what worked and how. He wrote down every manual maneuver he did, whether it was on the nerve, muscle or joint. He paid close attention to the response it had on the patient’s condition. Did it help or hurt? Did it have a lasting effect?
He also began to investigate more thoroughly other aspects of his patients lives; getting into their habits at home or work, finding influences from their atmosphere worsening their condition, or discovering behaviors or diets that would help their progress. He looked closely at what exercises would help or hurt and why, trying to figure out what was the right exercise they should be doing and at what stage of healing. All of this culminated into the reverse-engineering of the Bonacci Method℠.
Once the clinic gained momentum, Dr. Bonacci brought on Physical Therapist Jeanne Hills and the Feldenkrais Method®, and they were able to use both methods in a symbiotic manner to move the clinic forward. All therapists who work in the clinic are trained internally to the highest standards. Every patient is carefully evaluated and provided the treatment deemed to be best suited for their diagnosis. The clinic has developed a solid reputation for high-quality therapy and ethical standards.
Although the overwhelming percentage of pain patients find success with the Bonacci Method℠ and the Feldenkrais Method® at the clinic, there are always about 5-10% of patients who remain stagnant in their healing. Dr. Bonacci has researched the science of regenerative medicines, such as prolotherapy and platelet-rich plasma injections (PRP), determining when they are appropriate. His mission is to help people get better and stay better, and Dr. Bonacci knows that sometimes referring out is needed.
Dr. Bonacci now successfully co-manages pain cases with many doctors in the Valley, both medical and holistic, finding that there is optimal and proper use of both medical intervention and regenerative therapies in an ethical effort to help the patient heal. This has resulted ultimately in the success of the clinic as a whole; Arizona Pain & Posture has become the place to go for physical therapy, chiropractic and manual therapy techniques.