| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| hottm8oh |
Posted - 05/11/2009 : 15:25:08
My back pain started in 2001 after a personal crisis that put me into a deep depression. I went to chiropractors, physical therapists, massage therapists, and orthos. I used heating pads, Ben Gay, special chairs and pillows, but I just seemed to be getting worse. The pain got unbearable in 2008, and after having a major freak-out when I was told I had bulging lumbar discs, I went to the library and took out every book they had about back pain. In the middle of the stack, and the smallest book out of the bunch, was Dr. John Sarno's "Healing Back Pain". I wondered why the book was so small compared to the others, so I looked up the reviews on Amazon.com and found that most of them were glowing saying Sarno had changed the readers' lives.
I read it and my personality and experiences were all written out in front of me on that page. I was so relieved. I thought, "THIS is what I have. I finally know what this is!"
Thanks to reprogramming my thinking, reading all of Sarno's books, and this website--especially WebDan's thread on what to say when you talk to yourself--my pain is 90% gone. It took me about 9 months to see consistent pain reduction. I occasionally have minor pain flare-ups here and there, but I just remind myself that it's nothing and it will go away, and it always does. I'm now working out regularly and no longer fearing all the things I had convinced myself would hurt my back. I've stopped going to the chiropractor, even though he calls me every two months to come back.  My medical bills are gone and I'm not miserable and hopeless anymore.
By far my biggest obstacle was the fear of the pain. The fear of how bad it would get, the fear of it not going away even though I knew it was TMS. I slowly trained myself to stop fearing it and anticipating it non-stop, and that's when I really saw results.
Thank you to all of you on this message board. I don't think I would have found this level of success without all of your spot-on advice. |
| 16 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Tippy |
Posted - 02/21/2012 : 11:31:24
I would like to add get this book by SteveO
The Great Pain Deception....Sarno endorses it and this guy has done MUCH research! He posts here and you can get it from Amazon. A lot to read but well worth it.
Stephanie |
| Tippy |
Posted - 02/07/2012 : 10:19:03
Sarno and Schubiner are the best in my opinion. I have to give Sarno credit he has led some of us to other practioners as well as Monte Hueftle (who I truly like) and Ms Conley who is a member of this board. If Sarno is helping you and there is a next stop to go to I would say to go to any of these people. Sarno gets the ball rolling though.
Stephanie |
| Mayita |
Posted - 09/04/2011 : 12:14:41
Hello!
Thank you all for all your inputs.
I just ordered Dr. Schubiner's program too.
Confronting with family members is not an easy thing to do.
I would like you to share your experiences to see how it went..
BR
quote:
Originally posted by avik
quote:
Originally posted by tom
Ronald Siegel in his book Back Sense talks about studies on fear being more powerful than an acute injury. I will never forget the first time I stumbled across Sarno's book Healing Back Pain & the feeling I had when I experienced that this is it moment. However, Dr. Sarno really doesn't offer a recovery program. For people like myself with fibromyalgia(or severe TMS symptoms) along with repetitive stress disorder( I refuse to call it repetitive stress injury)more is needed. I have read everything I could get my hands on for 4 years. The most advanced program I have seen by far is Unlearn Your Pain by Howard Schubiner. He offers a great structured program & he also stresses something I've not really seen before. He says in many cases it will be necessary to confront a person involving a past traumatic or present event in which you feel you have been wronged. In some cases it must be done. I am about to confront a difficult sister. I have known all along how much she has contributed to my disorder but I listened to the previous books that emphasized only journaling because it could even more of a stressful situation. I doubt I would have ever came to this decision had I not started Dr. Schubiner's program. For me I now know it's the only way , regardless of where the chips fall. Wish me luck.
tom
Im very glad to hear this as i just ordered Shubiners book/cd.
Further, I need to confront some people as well (including various family members).
Good luck.
|
| avik |
Posted - 09/19/2010 : 00:54:20
quote:
Originally posted by tom
Ronald Siegel in his book Back Sense talks about studies on fear being more powerful than an acute injury. I will never forget the first time I stumbled across Sarno's book Healing Back Pain & the feeling I had when I experienced that this is it moment. However, Dr. Sarno really doesn't offer a recovery program. For people like myself with fibromyalgia(or severe TMS symptoms) along with repetitive stress disorder( I refuse to call it repetitive stress injury)more is needed. I have read everything I could get my hands on for 4 years. The most advanced program I have seen by far is Unlearn Your Pain by Howard Schubiner. He offers a great structured program & he also stresses something I've not really seen before. He says in many cases it will be necessary to confront a person involving a past traumatic or present event in which you feel you have been wronged. In some cases it must be done. I am about to confront a difficult sister. I have known all along how much she has contributed to my disorder but I listened to the previous books that emphasized only journaling because it could even more of a stressful situation. I doubt I would have ever came to this decision had I not started Dr. Schubiner's program. For me I now know it's the only way , regardless of where the chips fall. Wish me luck.
tom
Im very glad to hear this as i just ordered Shubiners book/cd.
Further, I need to confront some people as well (including various family members).
Good luck. |
| tom |
Posted - 09/18/2010 : 16:07:53
Ronald Siegel in his book Back Sense talks about studies on fear being more powerful than an acute injury. I will never forget the first time I stumbled across Sarno's book Healing Back Pain & the feeling I had when I experienced that this is it moment. However, Dr. Sarno really doesn't offer a recovery program. For people like myself with fibromyalgia(or severe TMS symptoms) along with repetitive stress disorder( I refuse to call it repetitive stress injury)more is needed. I have read everything I could get my hands on for 4 years. The most advanced program I have seen by far is Unlearn Your Pain by Howard Schubiner. He offers a great structured program & he also stresses something I've not really seen before. He says in many cases it will be necessary to confront a person involving a past traumatic or present event in which you feel you have been wronged. In some cases it must be done. I am about to confront a difficult sister. I have known all along how much she has contributed to my disorder but I listened to the previous books that emphasized only journaling because it could even more of a stressful situation. I doubt I would have ever came to this decision had I not started Dr. Schubiner's program. For me I now know it's the only way , regardless of where the chips fall. Wish me luck.
tom |
| JulesJ |
Posted - 08/23/2010 : 11:54:35
Thanks to everyone on this thread, especially the OP hottm8ph.
I am having the sort of lingering ongoing symptoms described (just posted on the main forum in fact) and I see I've been focussing too much on "why haven't I been cured yet? is it coming back?" instead of on the positives of much pain-free-ness, etc.
Will try being more positive about it! |
| hottm8oh |
Posted - 09/28/2009 : 08:18:21
quote:
Originally posted by crk
Guej (and Hottm) - Just a couple more thoughts about this for you to consider.
First, there is a voice that says, "Here comes the pain, now I'm in for it." That is not a broken bone or a deep cut - it is A THOUGHT. That's all. And the thought leads down a road that is called The Perfect Distraction. Something to try out: when you get that first little twinge, try thinking of it as a LAST little twinge. And tell yourself with as much conviction as you can dig up, "It's going away! Completely!" Where does the conviction come from? All the days of your life that were spent without the pain. This is where confidence in the diagnosis really helps. I'd be interested to know whether this suggestion helps at all.
Second, even though we've got all this crap in our pasts that causes us to believe negative things about ourselves, I do think that something IN THE MOMENT is still triggering the pain. I understand the conditioned response theory, and I do believe it contributes, but I still see in myself that the movement that caused the trigger was founded in a negative belief or thought that is linked to that movement. So maybe poke around your brain and try to find out what negative belief or thought is linked to the movement that causes pain (or the most pain).
Again, I'd be interested to know whether this is helpful to anyone. Best wishes!!
I agree with both points. Another self-talk sentence that helped me further in the process was telling myself that the pain WOULD go away. Since my recovery process was gradual, I was experiencing a back and forth cycle of pain/little-to-no pain. I was conditioned to worrying that the pain would never go away, so when the pain would come on I would say, "It WILL go away." At first it was hard to get myself to believe it, but I would actively try to remember those good moments. I would think, "I wasn't in pain an hour ago. The pain I have now will go away. It may not go away exactly when I want it to, but it will go away." The third sentence was also a way of accepting the moment I was in rather than fighting it because actively fighting with it and getting angry/negative was keeping the pain around.
I also sometimes experience "in the moment" pain. About a month ago, I was desperately trying to leave work and the phone rang. It was a coworker who has a reputation for rambling on and on. I got a sudden pain hit in my upper back. I thought to myself, "I really don't want to talk to this person now. But I'll do my best to take care of whatever the problem is and get her off the phone so I can leave." The pain subsided. |
| guej |
Posted - 09/14/2009 : 19:48:34
The book I was referring to was "Rapid Recovery from Back Pain" by Fred Amir. Total Sarno-ite, but he puts in 9 specific steps, sort of a mental program, to overcome TMS. I've tried it. It definitely helped me to get more active, because you set goals for yourself, and as I was achieving them (swim 5 laps, run for 10 minutes, etc), I felt so great. Unfortunately, I didn't get the rapid recovery from pain! But being active again after 9 months of lying around in pain, was a huge triumph for me. I feel so much more like my old self again.
While I'm at it, I want to highly recommend another book to anyone out there learning about the mind-body connection. It is called "They can't find anything wrong with me" by Dr. David Clarke. I looooved this book. He is very much along the Sarno lines, but calls the symptoms "stress illness" instead of TMS. Same premise: all tests come back normal, but the patient experiences physical symptoms (he must be a gastro doctor because many of the patients suffer from various stomach issues, etc, including chronic pain). I will always view Sarno as the "God" of mindbody medicine, but this guy did a great job of explaining the connection between early childhood issues and late life symptoms, even when things are going great in your life. It really resonated a lot more with me than the whole "repressing rage" theory. There were a ton of case studies, many of which I could relate to. He goes through a similar analysis about childhood issues, trauma, every day stresses, etc, and how the body manifests symptoms in response. Just another book that I thought did a good job to reiterate the connection between mind and bodily symptoms. Easy plain English too. I like Sarno's books, but they can get a little technical. Anyway, just my 2 cents. |
| crk |
Posted - 09/14/2009 : 09:24:15
Guej,
Yes, I mean thoughts that are linked to the action, such as "I am not supposed to run." But usually, I think the thoughts are much deeper. For me, I not only was small, weak, and un-athletic as a child, but I experienced a certain amount of humiliation when I did participate in sports. I have a strong negative belief about myself as an athlete in the eyes of other people. It runs very deep. If I isolate my running from my social anxiety I am usually fine, but when the two intersect, such as when I talk about an upcoming marathon with someone, or when I see another runner coming towards me on the street -- in that moment I am very susceptible to a TMS trigger. Dear brain is trying to protect me from deep pain.
To which book did your refer? Fred Amir? I am always interested in reading helpful books! |
| guej |
Posted - 09/13/2009 : 08:30:23
CRK: Thanks for your post. I really liked your first paragraph, and I will try that. It seems a lot of this is reconditioning the brain from the thought patterns it has grown accustomed to because of the unresolved pain. I need to dig for that conviction again. Fred Amir talks a lot about that in his book.
As for finding the negative thought that causes the pain trigger, I can totally see that with running. Every doctor I saw over the past year and a half since this started told me not to run. Don't they all? So when I do run, I always experience a surge of pain. I"m still running, in short spurts, maybe twice a week, in an effort to get rid of that association between running and more pain.
When you say something in the moment is causing the pain, do you mean like the thought above about running being harmful, or something like..."my job is really stressing me out"? I have pain every day whether I sit around all day or am active, so for those with chronic pain, sometimes it's hard to find the association with pain and thoughts that may be bringing it on. Thanks again. The suggestions are good. |
| crk |
Posted - 09/13/2009 : 07:29:15
Guej (and Hottm) - Just a couple more thoughts about this for you to consider.
First, there is a voice that says, "Here comes the pain, now I'm in for it." That is not a broken bone or a deep cut - it is A THOUGHT. That's all. And the thought leads down a road that is called The Perfect Distraction. Something to try out: when you get that first little twinge, try thinking of it as a LAST little twinge. And tell yourself with as much conviction as you can dig up, "It's going away! Completely!" Where does the conviction come from? All the days of your life that were spent without the pain. This is where confidence in the diagnosis really helps. I'd be interested to know whether this suggestion helps at all.
Second, even though we've got all this crap in our pasts that causes us to believe negative things about ourselves, I do think that something IN THE MOMENT is still triggering the pain. I understand the conditioned response theory, and I do believe it contributes, but I still see in myself that the movement that caused the trigger was founded in a negative belief or thought that is linked to that movement. So maybe poke around your brain and try to find out what negative belief or thought is linked to the movement that causes pain (or the most pain).
Again, I'd be interested to know whether this is helpful to anyone. Best wishes!! |
| guej |
Posted - 09/12/2009 : 09:46:28
I am so happy for you! (and envious...!). Your advice is helpful. I know that what I'm feeling is a very conditioned response. I'm not even sure it's psychological anymore. I've been able to get rid of a lot of the other ancillary symptoms just by recognizing the connection with stress, tension, etc. The major pain point (right gluet/groin) is hanging around stubbornly. It kicks in around the same exact time each day. Just like you said, I feel a twinge of pain, and think "oh sh--, here we go again. I expect it to start building in intensity..no matter how hard I try...I can't take my mind off of it...and then I pop a Tramadol (pain killer) and the sensations subside enough to go back to whatever I was doing. It is a very, very conditioned response. I know this for a fact because I just came back from a trip where I was in a time zone 3 hours off from home. I still had the pain at 11:00 am every day! Talk about a Pavlovian response upon seeing a clock. It's a bad habit I need to break.
I"ll try some of the self-talk. I did read a few books to that effect, but with the thinking psychological, journaling, etc., I feel like I'm trying to do too much all day long. I think repeating a simple phrase over and over again, like you did, would be easy enough and wouldn't require a lot of concentration. Thanks hottm8oh. I hope you continue to enjoy your much improved life! |
| hottm8oh |
Posted - 09/11/2009 : 20:21:04
quote:
Originally posted by guej
hottm8oh: I just read your success story, and parts of it really sounded like my experience. Since seeing Dr. Sarno about a month ago, pain in other parts of my body is down about 50% and all other weird symptoms are gone. I seem to be "stuck" with the original pain I started out with in my lower right back and leg. I finally realized that I fear the pain, and I really think my pain is a very conditioned response. I have had chronic pain (24/7)for about a year now. I totally accept the TMS diagnosis, and I'm journaling, etc. My biggest hurdle is overcoming the conditioned pain response every day.
When you said you "slowly trained myself to stop fearing it and anticipating it non-stop", can you elaborate a bit? These are definitely the things that are holding me back from greater recovery. I know we are all different, but I could use any specifics if you wouldn't mind sharing. I know what I have to accomplish. I'm just having trouble figuring out how to stop fearing pain and anticipating it. Thanks, and I"m glad you're finally out of this. I'd like to think and hope that I'll be there too someday.
Sorry it took me so long to reply to your post. I've been off the boards living life. 
After I discovered the concept of TMS, I was expecting the pain to go away shortly and it didn't. It took me awhile to figure out that I was in a cycle. I would start to feel the first twinges of pain, and my brain would immediately focus on it. I would have this internal dialogue in my head "Oh my god. The pain is here. How bad is it going to get? How long is it going to last? Please don't get worse!!" and so on. I would panic when I felt even minor pain because I was so conditioned to think that something much worse was coming next. I intellectually knew where the pain was coming from, but my bad habit of anticipating it kept it around.
I mentioned WebDan's self-talk thread in the original post. That concept pushed me over the edge. I read that thread and knew I had to talk my brain down from the bad panic cycles. At first I tried to self talk in a meditation-like setting. I'd sit for 20-30 minutes and go through a dialogue of positive statements, but it didn't work because I was still in panic cycles for the rest of the day. So I decided to just say the phrase, "I am not broken," over and over in my head all day long. I started the minute I woke up in the morning. I would put "I am not broken" on a constant loop in my head. I'd think it while brushing my teeth, getting dressed, driving to work, etc. If I felt the pain come on and the subsequent panic, I would just stop what I was doing, take some deep breaths, focus on lowering my heart rate, and concentrate harder on that statement saying it louder to myself in my own head. As time went by, the pain got less severe and less frequent. At some point I realized that I would have blocks of time where I wasn't thinking about the pain at all. It's true when Sarno says to "forget" the pain. My best recovery moments were when I wasn't thinking about pain, worrying about it, or anticipating it.
Incidentally, I came back on the boards to report a follow up. I am still feeling great! I had a minor setback involving numbness in my right leg and arm. I got myself into another panic cycle thinking I had a neurological disorder. Then I remembered a doctor telling me a long time ago, "If you had MS, then I could stab your foot and you would not feel it." I could still feel my leg just fine. I just had this tingly feeling in it, so I decided I didn't have MS, and the tingling went away immediately.
Otherwise I have occasional hits of pain here and there, but it's NOTHING like what it was, and now I know how to deal with it. I'm not restricted physically at all, and the doctor's appointments have STOPPED! |
| guej |
Posted - 07/15/2009 : 07:36:08
hottm8oh: I just read your success story, and parts of it really sounded like my experience. Since seeing Dr. Sarno about a month ago, pain in other parts of my body is down about 50% and all other weird symptoms are gone. I seem to be "stuck" with the original pain I started out with in my lower right back and leg. I finally realized that I fear the pain, and I really think my pain is a very conditioned response. I have had chronic pain (24/7)for about a year now. I totally accept the TMS diagnosis, and I'm journaling, etc. My biggest hurdle is overcoming the conditioned pain response every day.
When you said you "slowly trained myself to stop fearing it and anticipating it non-stop", can you elaborate a bit? These are definitely the things that are holding me back from greater recovery. I know we are all different, but I could use any specifics if you wouldn't mind sharing. I know what I have to accomplish. I'm just having trouble figuring out how to stop fearing pain and anticipating it. Thanks, and I"m glad you're finally out of this. I'd like to think and hope that I'll be there too someday. |
| HilaryN |
Posted - 05/15/2009 : 06:16:38
Well done, hottm8oh, and thanks for posting your story.
Good points, too, crk.
Hilary N |
| crk |
Posted - 05/14/2009 : 16:32:39
I agree with your mention of "fear of the pain." For me, it was a real mind bender. Who wouldn't be afraid of pain? But wait. This is not *inevitable* pain. That is the key. I knew it would go away because it had gone away before. It's not a matter of squeezing my eyes and chanting "I believe I believe," but just saying, writing or thinking the words, "This pain is fake. This pain is a distraction. It is leaving."
Thanks for posting your story! |
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