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myles
30 Posts |
 Posted - 09/23/2008 : 06:27:12
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Is there one?
One of the key points in the Divided Mind is that there is an epidemic of lower back pain caused by the plausability of that condition which has spread as a meme (or mental epidemic) throughout western society. The subconcious mind latches onto this belief and uses it to distract the concious mind. Job done.
He cites the fact that Ulcers were the previous psychosomatic epidemic of choice in the sixties and seventies until it was accepted that ulcers were largely caused by stress and that changing jobs, and relaxing a bit was the cure. As no divided mind's subconcious wanted something already known to be psychosomatic as its primary tool, it switched to lower back pain, neck pain, sciatica, etc.
HOWEVER, I just watched a documentary about the Nobel Prize winners from 2005:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2005/press.html
A couple of Australian doctors who have been awarded the highest prize in science for determining that rather than stress, the primary cause of ulcers is helicobacter pylori. The recommendation being that rather than chilling out a bit and relaxing the best treatment is a double course of antibiotics.
Is Sarno wrong and has he picked up the wrong end of the stick with regard to ulcers?
Is Sarno right and (as he states on page 25) it would be a travesty if common treatment becomes antibiotic courses as recommended by our Nobel winners.
Should Sarno be put forward for the Nobel prize? Or would this award and the attention and esteem to the notion it would bring lead to such a decrease in the amount of pills sold, and manual therapies undertaken that the world economy would suffer?!
Oh me Oh my Oh my!
;)
Whadayathink? |
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LuvtoSew
USA
327 Posts |
Posted - 09/23/2008 : 06:54:57
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There are different types of ulcers and I'm not sure what the treatment of choice is now days, but stress increases hydrochloric acid in the stomach which can contribute to ulcers.
What comes first the ulcer from the stress and a place where bacteria have a easy feeding enviroment due to acid destroying the stomach lining, and the bodies lower immune system from stress,
or the bacteria actually causing it.
Treatment of choice them may be both, you need to relax and heres some ATB to kill the bacteria.
It would be interesting to read studies on if people received the ATB therapy but still continually came down with ulcers if they didn't change their stress levels.
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Hillbilly
USA
385 Posts |
Posted - 09/23/2008 : 08:47:28
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Sarno, of course, has covered this very topic several times. He states that the bacteria present as well as the discomfort are results of psychological factors, secondary findings of sorts.
This is not much different from the explanation of the herniated disc. Sarno states that the mind "picks" a spot that will be more plausible to convince the patient that the pain is caused by a structural anomaly. He does not ever state that perhaps the herniation is a result of the muscle tension common among anxious and angry folks. His early data prove that his program was more effective before all the Freudian mumbo-jumbo became part of his treatment plan. Facts are facts.
And the Australian doctors' findings are reproducible. Sarno's, well......not so much. Look around on the forum for evidence of this. I applaud all efforts to get well using whatever means one chooses, but I don't see the scientific community buying Sarno's herniated disc argument, among others. I read on a previous thread somewhere that shoulders are now in vogue, according to a TMS doc. So we now have a conspiracy theory about the collective subconscious of the masses. This stuff is probably not going to persuade a committee of ubercynical, science-minded pedants.
I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
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fundamental issue with the divided mind
