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MRosenthal
USA
30 Posts |
 Posted - 12/02/2004 : 11:40:20
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| Here is my main issue. I have read Dr. Sarno's books and all his tapes and cds. I realize that I fit many of the TMS personality traits and have many TMS stresses and pressures. My problem is that no matter how much I try, I still can't believe that this pain comes from just emotions. I have had pain in my low back (diagnosed with herniated disc) of all types. It radiates, it burns, it throbs, it tickles and I understand that these are TMS pains. I just can't accept that my body is expressing the pain in the exact area of the disc. I know that the mind is smart, but yesterday when I bent over and felt an intense sharp pain followed by extreme muscle tightness, it felt truly like an injury. My muscles felt inflammed and I felt tight with a sharp pain where the disc is. As the pain diminished by use of "Aleve" pills, I am not left with a mild but bad pain only in the disc area. It just feels like a healing process of a broken bone. Plus, the other thing that bothers me is that when I did not even know about Dr. Sarno, the pain would diminish on its own without any knowledge of TMS. I guess I would benefit from more proof that people with herniated discs get better from this. Dr. Sarno always brings up that one experiment where many herniated disc patients were cured, but that is all I ever hear. Is he really saying that all doctors in this world and physical therapists are phonies? How could that be. I guess it scares me to trust one man's perspective on something that could be dangerous. How do you convince yourself that this is truly the only thing that is causing the pain? |
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iyusaf
USA
57 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2004 : 12:31:01
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Everything we know is not wrong, but history has shown us that group beliefs like the world is flat, medical theory of humors and numerous others have been overturned. Are we perfect in our knowledge today. I don't think so.
The many doctors I saw ten years ago gave me the same diagnosis as you, yet the back pain dissolved within 45 mins of reading Sarno's book. That was enough to convince me.
You've had glimpses of this truth because the pain has diminished inexplicably. It's a chicken or the egg problem. Do you believe first or do you need to be pain free before you believe. I was lucky, but I've always been willing to believe that the world is not necessarily as we know it.
You may need to exhaust the conventional paths and by all means do, but please be cautious about radical treatments like surgery. |
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holly
USA
243 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2004 : 13:40:21
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Matt I can tell you from experience (and that is the only reason I hang in there now with my relaspe) that this guy knows his stuff. There was a time I couldn't lift a can of beans at the supermarket checkout counter. Let alone the cortizone shots into my back(STUPID on my part but what did I know at the time),neck collar, car support seat I needed to sit in a car, endless physical therapy and so on & so on! Even after all that and having a true understanding now regarding my new "relaspe" I find it HARD TO RID MYSELF OF MY LATEST PROBLEM.
I do know that recovery can be a quick or a lenthly process. Being that I have "been there" before(long before there was this message board)gives me the hope I need now even when a little doubt starts creeping in. One day it will just all come together for you and you can do away with your pains. I used to think I couldn't have a second child because of my arm, neck& back. Well My 2nd daughter is almost 8 years old now. I lifted her & twirled her in the air till she just got too heavy for me! Once I excepted TMS completly I never had a real back , neck or arm issue again. Only new "trick" equilivents like my toes that I am dealing with now. |
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Texasrunner
USA
60 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2004 : 13:57:02
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We've known for decades (since Freud's time) that psychosomatic (mindbody) illnesses are real. It's just that they were never fashionable. And it was always difficult to prove. But new research may change all of that. In fact, I think it's only a matter of time before you see a headline "Sarno Was Right Afterall."
Read this:
Research is first to show link between distress and biological age
By Benedict Carey
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Some stressful events seem to turn a person's hair gray overnight.
Now a team of researchers has found that severe emotional distress -- like that caused by divorce, the loss of a job or caring for an ill child or parent -- may speed up the aging of the body's cells at the genetic level. The findings, being reported today, are the first to link psychological stress so directly to biological age.
The researchers found that blood cells from women who had spent many years caring for a child with disabilities were, genetically, about a decade older than those from their peers. The study, which appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also suggests that a person's perception of being under stress can add years to that person's biological age.
Though doctors have linked chronic psychological stress to weakened immune function and an increased risk of catching colds, among other things, they are still trying to understand how tension damages or weakens tissue. The new research suggests a way that such damage may occur and opens the possibility that the process can be reversed.
"This is a new and significant finding," said Dr. Bruce McEwen, director of the neuroendocrinology laboratory at Rockefeller University in New York.
McEwen said the research provided some of the clearest evidence yet "of the price in wear and tear on the tissues that everybody pays during a stressful life."
In the experiment, Drs. Elissa Epel and Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California at San Francisco led a team of researchers who analyzed blood samples from 58 young and middle-age mothers, 39 of whom were caring for a child with a chronic disorder such as autism or cerebral palsy. The doctors examined the DNA of white blood cells, which are central to how the body's immune system responds to infection.
The scientists focused on a piece of DNA called the telomere at the very tip of each cell's chromosomes. The telomere shrinks each time a cell divides and duplicates itself. Cells may reproduce themselves many times throughout life to repair and strengthen their host organs, to grow or to fight disease.
A chemical called telomerase helps restore a portion of the telomere with each division.
But after 10 to 50 divisions -- the number varies by tissue type and health, and biologists still do not understand the system well -- the telomere gets so short that the cell is effectively retired and no longer able to replicate.
Change in telomere length over time is thought to be a rough measure of a cell's age, its vitality.
When the researchers compared the DNA of mothers caring for disabled children, they found a striking trend: After correcting for the effects of age, they calculated that the longer the women had taken care of their child, the shorter their telomere length and the lower their telomerase activity. Some of the more experienced mothers were years older than their chronological age, as measured by their white blood cells.
"When people are under stress, they look haggard -- it's like they age before your eyes -- and here's something going on at a molecular level" that reflects that impression, said Blackburn, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics.
The researchers also gave the women a questionnaire, asking them to rate on a three-point scale how overwhelmed they felt by daily life, and how often they were unable to control the important things in their lives. The women who perceived that they were under heavy stress also had significantly shortened telomeres, compared with those who felt more relaxed -- whether or not they were raising a child with disabilities.
"Some of the women who had a lot of objective, real stress also had a low perceived amount, and the next step is trying to understand what it is that promotes this kind of resilience," Epel said.
She said the group had plans to test the effect of meditation, mindfulness training and yoga on both perceived stress and telomere length. A form of counseling called cognitive therapy, in which people learn to temper their responses to stress, could also help, psychologists say.
Experts caution that the telomere study needs to be replicated and that no one has yet shown convincingly that psychological stress significantly shortens people's lives. And it is far from clear exactly how worry can cause a person's telomeres to shorten before their time.
Although researchers know that emotional strain prompts the release of stress hormones, such as cortisol, which over time can damage cells, no one knows how these hormones or other stress-related toxins affect telomeres.
"Right now, that is the black box," Blackburn said, "and that's what we're going to study next."
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Dave
USA
1864 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2004 : 15:44:24
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quote:
My problem is that no matter how much I try, I still can't believe that this pain comes from just emotions.
That is an oversimplification. The key thing to accept is that the pain is a distraction from repressed emotions that the brain has deemed too dangerous to experience. It is a primitive protective measure over which we have no direct control.
quote:
I just can't accept that my body is expressing the pain in the exact area of the disc.
For the distraction to be successful it needs to be convincing. Your brain is inducing the symptoms that you are likely to believe are due to something physical. It chooses its locations precisely.
quote:
I know that the mind is smart, but yesterday when I bent over and felt an intense sharp pain followed by extreme muscle tightness, it felt truly like an injury.
Of course. That's the idea. If you believe it is an injury, the distraction is a success.
quote:
My muscles felt inflammed and I felt tight with a sharp pain where the disc is.
Now think about this for a minute. How do you know what "inflammed" feels like? And how can you be sure the pain is exactly "where the disc is?"
There are more parts of your message I would quote, but I think the point is clear. You are intellectualizing too much. That in and of itself is a distraction -- a TMS equivalent!
Maybe you are just one of those people that can't accept the theory. If that is the case, just move on. But I don't think it is. Your messages convey a true desire to accept TMS, so why not throw caution to the wind and give it a shot? What do you have to lose?
It's true that you need belief to get better. But as Gary once said, can you really tell yourself what to believe? No, you can't. But you can do the work. It is a process, it is very clearly spelled out in The Mindbody Prescription.
Why not forget about trying to convince yourself that Dr. Sarno is right, and just sit down and do the work. Allow yourself to believe it unconditionally. Stop the thoughts that send you down the road of doubt. Those thoughts are part of the same syndrome designed to keep you on a path of pain. |
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plainchant
41 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2004 : 16:47:42
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I think your post is funny MRosenthal. You are like an athiest trying convince a church congregation that their belief is silly. Why don't you go get a full physical - head to toe - and see what the doctors tell you? I was reading "Healing Back Pain" in waiting room of an orthopedic surgeon some time back, and when I went in to see the doctor, it stunned me that he would say that same things that Dr. Sarno said that he would tell me. Here was a guy that studied to be a specialist, and was telling me that my chest pain was caused by the two herniations in my neck and the one in my back! And if I never found out about TMS I would still be wasting $1000s on physical therapy and anti-inflammatories.
You are stuck in a paradigm right now. I strongly recommend that your read the books, "The Tao of Pooh" and "The Te of Piglet" by Benjamin Hoff. They will help condition your mind to accept simple solutions and see through paradigms.
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Louise
USA
68 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2004 : 17:49:31
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For what it's worth, I can tell you that I've been diagnosed as having 2 herniated discs in my back, as well as spinal stenosis, a pinched nerve, and other mumbo-jumbo. At my worst, I could barely walk 100 feet without having to sit down, and was in terrible pain with every step. I've had a lumbar laminectomy (which worked for about a year), a whole bunch of PT treatments, chiropractic adjustments, several epidural cortisone shots and an experimental treatment series of shots that promised a miracle cure (which I'm very embarrased that I fell for!)
After all that, I can say that the only thing that provided me with any lasting reduction in pain is TMS treatment. I can't believe how different my life is now than it was a couple of years ago. End of story. |
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Stryder
686 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2004 : 21:27:41
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HNP L5-S1 extruded disc segment confirmed with MRI in 1995. Could not walk or stand up at all for 3 weeks, bedridden. 2 ortho surgeons recommended surgery. I had no red flag syptoms, just severe pain and disability. Decided (luckily) to wait it out. No surgery or invasive treatment.
Sharp, burning, stabbing leg pain and 'knife-like' pain at the location of the L5-S1 area.
Missed 40 days of work. Returned part time 10-20 hours per week, had special table built so I could stand up at work instead of sitting at a desk. Could lift no more than 20 lbs for many years.
Last month I mixed 20 50lbs bags of cement after fetching them into my truck at the lumber yard. Poured 1000 lbs of cement.
Last week carried my 75 lbs 9 year old up the stairs on my back.
Got Sarno?
Get some.
Take care, -Stryder |
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Dr. Fatteh
USA
16 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2004 : 02:42:40
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Matt,
I must re-iterate what Dave has touched upon. The medical profession, of which I am a member, has done a good job of implanting buzz words within the patient populace, such as "inflamed," and "disc pain." But how do we truly know what this feels like. It feels like what we are told it will feel like. It feels like what your doctor has told you it feels like. You have to remember, there is significant pressure on a doctor to come up with a definitive diagnosis for each and every patient. And in this day and age there is intense pressure for patients to be served much like customers at a restaurant. "I need an answer and I need it now as to what EXACTLY is causing my back pain." Dr. McDonald replies, "It's your disk, sir. Would you like fries with that?"
How you conceptualize your pain dictates very strongly the intensity of your pain and the duration. The key with TMS is that once you have conquered the FEAR and MISINFORMATION, and realize that what you have is not life-threatening (and testing can reliably be done to establish this), then you can indeed be pain-free, because chronic pain is the transformation of a physiologic process into a psychologic process with physiologic symptoms. The burning, throbbing, sharp symptoms of TMS. Symptoms that can be eradicated once you realize that they do not signify further injury.
Parvez Fatteh, M.D. |
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This is why I can't get better
