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 Peter Egoscue's Pain Free
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mala

Hong Kong
774 Posts

Posted - 07/02/2004 :  04:53:57  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Austingary,
You've mentioned this book many times in your posts. Without going into too much detail, could you tell me a bit more about this book and how it's different from other exercise books.

Good Luck & Good Health
Mala

austingary

USA
95 Posts

Posted - 07/02/2004 :  07:11:03  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I suggest that anyone interested in this book should read the Amazon customer reviews of it, to be found at:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553379887/ref=cm_rev_all_1/102-4221420-0551317?v=glance&s=books&vi=customer-reviews&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER
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JoeW

United Kingdom
61 Posts

Posted - 07/02/2004 :  08:03:26  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Errm...we should read it because of testimonial evidence?!
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Logan

USA
203 Posts

Posted - 07/02/2004 :  09:56:45  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Others may find this book to be helpful but I threw it away as part of my recovery - I found the book encouraged physical thinking and contributed to my pain because it leads one to see being in pain as the direct result of what Egoscue describes as a muscular imbalance and/or weakness.

I did the exercises religiously for six months. Not coincidentally (not to my thinking, anyway) this time period coincided with what was the very lowest point in my four years of suffering, which is to say I was despondent and terrified of becoming an invalid because the pain got significantly worse rather than better as Egoscue promised it might.

I'm all for exercise and wholeheartedly agree with Egoscue's assertion that most Americans do far too little of it. BUT I would recommend finding an acitivity that one enjoys (like Tom's tennis or Gary's running or in my case cycling/skiing) and then doing it regularly. Strengthen your body with an eye toward utility not therapy - I lift weights and do pilates because I want to have more fun as a more fit cyclist/skiier NOT because I need to correct a so called physical problem.

I know that not everyone on this board is a "Sarno purist" but just to cover that base, Sarno states that weak or imbalanced muscles do not cause pain contrary to Egoscue's belief.

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JohnD

USA
371 Posts

Posted - 07/02/2004 :  12:38:08  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
LOL...thanks for the laugh Joe
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austingary

USA
95 Posts

Posted - 07/02/2004 :  14:14:10  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Errm...we should read it because of testimonial evidence?!

Point taken.

But, of course, it is in the scientific arena that testimonial evidence is considered the worst of the categories, not in the everyday, personal arena.

We can't reject all testimonial evidence. You come home from work and your wife tells you about her traffic accident. I suggest you don't dismiss her story because it's just testimonial evidence!

I haven't said that anyone should read Egoscue's book. I have it; I've read it; I do the exercises. They help me. Others are on their own.

As for the comment from another post that Sarno says that "weak or imbalanced muscles" don't cause pain, well, that's Sarno's opinion. He also apparently thinks that we've evolved to be able to use chairs, cars and all the other modern conveniences without any problems. In fact, he seems to believe that our only pain-causing problem is unconscious rage. Weigh 400 pounds and your knees hurt? Unconscious rage!

Maybe in real life, Dr. Sarno is not quite as extreme as his self-help-book persona.

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Sadiesue

19 Posts

Posted - 07/03/2004 :  11:31:02  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
In Sarno's defense, he does say to always see a doctor first to rule out serious medical conditions. Hopefully any doctor would diagnose being 400 pounds as a serious medical condition!
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moose1

162 Posts

Posted - 07/06/2004 :  08:32:15  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:
Weigh 400 pounds and your knees hurt? Unconscious rage!



HA HA! good one, Austin. good point, too. i've always believed that chronic pain is a combination of some kind of physical and emotional (stress)-related issues. I can't believe that it's either one or the other exclusively...at least not in my own case. i'm especially suspicious of books that claim the old posture problem as the root of all pain. it sounds chiro-ish. but, that's not to say that it's not partially or even largely true for some, so it may very well help a lot of people. i guess my point is that you need to take emotional and physical aspects of a pain situation into account and then experiment from there and stick with what works.

Moose
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Lou

USA
41 Posts

Posted - 07/07/2004 :  06:54:31  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I have been reading this book for the last few days... I was surprised at the simplicity of the e-cises. Many of them are the same or similar to ones I have done in Yoga class.

His views definitely differ from Sarno's, but I agree with his thoughts of motion, and as we age our bodies do less motion. Keeping the body moving cannot be a bad thing.

As I am working with a sarno therapist in NY, and doing my emotional work, I think some of these e-cises would be helpful to counteract our increasingly sedentary culture.
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austingary

USA
95 Posts

Posted - 07/07/2004 :  07:24:02  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
In Sarno's defense, he does say to always see a doctor first to rule out serious medical conditions. Hopefully any doctor would diagnose being 400 pounds as a serious medical condition!

Well, Dr. Sarno's publisher's lawyers would insist on such a disclaimer, whether Dr. Sarno takes it very seriously or not.

In any case, my 400-lb man description was just an extreme example to make a point.

Most of the situations where someone is doing something (as distinct from having something) that causes or contributes to his chronic pain are not so obvious. The person has developed a bad body habit in the way he scrunches himself up while sitting, standing or walking. Or he sits all day long at work, in a hideously-designed chair, barely moving, with a phone scrunched up to one ear. He lives a sedentary life, with no exercise, only moving his body in a narrow range. He eats poisonous food and way too much of it.

This person is unlikely to go to a doctor who will even partially link his lifestyle to his pain and suggest lifestyle changess. If he does, he is unlikely to act on the doctor's suggestion.

If he reads Dr. Sarno, he will be told that he has somehow evolved so as to be able to fit into all the accrutrements of the modern American lifestyle even though such things never existed in our evolutionary environment.

While I applaud Dr. Sarno, as others do, for bringing psychogenic pain to our attention and suggesting ways to combat it, I think he does us a disservice by providing an excuse to people who habitually abuse their bodies to not make changes in their lifestyle.
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2scoops

USA
386 Posts

Posted - 07/07/2004 :  08:02:39  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Gary you would make an excellent physical therapist.
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Dave

USA
1864 Posts

Posted - 07/07/2004 :  09:22:13  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Lou

As I am working with a sarno therapist in NY, and doing my emotional work, I think some of these e-cises would be helpful to counteract our increasingly sedentary culture.


Yes, if you treat them as part of an overall goal towards better fitness. But if you treat them as an additional mechanism to get rid of pain, then you will not be following Sarno's program.
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Lou

USA
41 Posts

Posted - 07/07/2004 :  10:00:27  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
I agree... I am not looking to abandon Sarno's ideas. They have helped me ALOT....

I would agree with the thought of better fitness through motion and additionally, I have found myself doing the same exercise routines over and over again. I need to mix things up and stay away from just one routine. The e-cises in the book appeal to me as a way of hitting various parts of the body that may be left out of a regular exercise program. To give me better overall fitness as I get older.


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tennis tom

USA
4749 Posts

Posted - 07/07/2004 :  10:42:47  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Lou

I have been reading this book for the last few days... I was surprised at the simplicity of the e-cises. Many of them are the same or similar to ones I have done in Yoga class.

His views definitely differ from Sarno's, but I agree with his thoughts of motion, and as we age our bodies do less motion. Keeping the body moving cannot be a bad thing.

As I am working with a sarno therapist in NY, and doing my emotional work, I think some of these e-cises would be helpful to counteract our increasingly sedentary culture.



Lou, Yes, Egoscue's exercises are similar to Yoga. I consider Yoga to be an excellent tradition for structuring one's life on if their own family's lineage has not given one the tools necessary to naviagate through this noisey crazy world. I feel those guys in India hanging around in caves stretching had a lot of time to reflect and figure out life. There's a lot more to Yoga than the physical poses which is what it is mostly streotyped by--pretzel pose. The purpose of the poses is to condition the body to be able to still the mind to be able to meditate. This I feel fits in very well with what Sarno says to do--.forget the physical, do the emotional work. Easier said than done, when one is in an accute stage of fear and anxiety faciing the prospect of mini-amputations of body parts.

I have visited Egoscue's clinic several times and spoken with him after reading his books. He has had lively disucussions with Sarno.

What I liked about Egoscue's rehab program is that he believes that the body can heal and that cartlege can regenerate. His writing on the hip joint definitely resonataed with me and gave me much hope for physcial recovery (if that is my problem in fact). His overall views on health matters make a lot of sense. I recall him writing that pain killers can lower the body's ability to use oxygen to heal itself. This ties in well with TMS theory which says that slight O2 deprivstion csn be the culprit for pain. The Egoscue method emphasise body alignment as the cause of injury. Computerized photos are taken and the posture is reviewd and then a menu of exercises are recommened for re-hab.

Yoga has a whole branch called pranayama that deals with the breath. There are Yoga books out there the size of the bible dealing with it. Breahting is a good thing. There are yoga classes that specialize in teaching the methods of pranayama breathing. I consider Yoga the basic building block of all movement. There is a chart I have with hundreds of positions--there are thousand of positions-pretty much one for every position the body can get itself into including "toothbrush" position I imagine. I don't use it as a religion but it can be if one needs it to be. Yoga was fortuante that the knowledge gained over thousands of years was not lost and was passed down down from guru to student mostly in an oral tradition.
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Dave

USA
1864 Posts

Posted - 07/07/2004 :  11:08:49  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:
The Egoscue method emphasise body alignment as the cause of injury. Computerized photos are taken and the posture is reviewd and then a menu of exercises are recommened for re-hab.

This is one area where Egoscue is in direct conflict with Dr. Sarno.
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austingary

USA
95 Posts

Posted - 07/07/2004 :  15:02:58  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Body Alignment: This is one area where Egoscue is in direct conflict with Dr. Sarno.

It is in conflict with Sarno but probably not in the way you are thinking, i.e., not in the way chiropractors are in conflict. Egoscue does not think that the bones are out of alignment; he thinks that bones just go where the muscles pull them.

According to his view, when you limit your range of movement, don't use certain muscles, assume odd positions and hold them, etc. that some muscles then unnaturally weaken while others strengthen and one of the results of that is a body "out of alignment".

A very common example is the person who walks around with his head stuck way out in front of him instead of balanced atop his spinal column. The muscles have developed in this way for so long that just putting it in alignment atop the spine for a moment hurts. Headaches and muscle pain are a common result, from neck, shoulder and upper back muscles having to constantly hold up the heavy head.

Sarno would probably dismiss all this, saying that your posture is of no importance. I would want to ask him how extreme the bad posture would have to get before he would concede that it could cause some problem.

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mala

Hong Kong
774 Posts

Posted - 07/09/2004 :  02:33:50  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Tennis tom,
you mentioned that you have been to see Egoscue. I've just received his book and I'd like to know more about your visit, what you think and whether you have had any success using his methods.
Thanks


Good Luck & Good Health
Mala
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tennis tom

USA
4749 Posts

Posted - 07/09/2004 :  10:14:50  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
quote:
Originally posted by mala

Tennis tom,
you mentioned that you have been to see Egoscue. I've just received his book and I'd like to know more about your visit, what you think and whether you have had any success using his methods.
Thanks


Good Luck & Good Health
Mala



Dear Mala,

It's been several years since I was there so my memory is a bit fuzzy. That said, off the top of my head, Some people can heal with their heads, a la Sarno, and some can heal going through a prescribed PT course. I think I'm one of those that require both. All though, after my recent epiphany where my pain moved from my hip to my neck within hours, I am now more over to the TMS side of the "healing" fence. I am 56 and have by now sprained or strained most every part of my body and feel job #1 is DON'T GET INJURED! I've gained enough kinesthetic aweareness through the college of hard knocks that by now I'm getting better at injury prevention.

If I were to get a "real" structural injury, not TMS, I would certainly get PT and Pete Egoscue's facility is one of the best on the planet. I had read his books and was encouraged by his non- invasive views on healing. He believes that cartlege can re-generate if you let it. This makes sense to me, but until the recent popularization of glucoseamine-chrondroitin it was not believed that this could happen--hence the explosion in joint replacemnet surgeries, (mini-amputations as I call them). I think a lot of people loath their bodies so much and with the encouragemnt of docs, go for the new parts too soon. I feel OME parts,(Original Manufacturers Equipment), is best so I'll keep my right hip until I can only crawl.

When I went to Egoscue's I was not in an accute state. I was given a menu of exercises to do after photos were taken to asess my postural alignment. It's a very professinal operation. There were people from great distanece who came there. I thought I recongnized some pro athletes that were there for re-hab. It's a very healing positve atmosphere. He has a very youthful, athletic, enthusiastic staff of physical therapists. You are given a very nice kit and kiboodle of inflatable props to take home with you to do the exercises with. Honestly I was not in an accute enough state of disability so afterwards I did not do the exercises. If I had done them religiously perhaps I would be 100% recovered from that "injury"--but being lazy, stubborn, stupid and having more money than brains I did not follow through. I do do the static relation pose which I have mentioned often in past posts. That is the one thing that stuck in my mind. I call it the "putting your legs up" pose. It, to me, is a form of time-out, mediataion, relaxtion of the back muscsles. I remembered many of his Physical Therapists lying on the floor doing it between patients. You can think about TMS while relaxing the back muscles from the subltle pounding of the force of gravity.

It sounds like your leaning towards the physical side by asking the question. It's a long way from Hong Kong Mala. If you're in that area I would definitely try it out if your'r looking for a world class physical therapy--but it's n not Lourdes. You still have to do the physcical work.
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mala

Hong Kong
774 Posts

Posted - 07/09/2004 :  18:04:48  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Dear Tom,
Thanks for the prompt reply and for telling me more about your experience at Egoscue's clinic. About my leaning towards the physical in my quest for a pain free life, well I'm at a point where I'm not sure which approach is the right one for me.

Doctors tell me that I have severe facet joint degenration and maybe SI joint problems too. They say "Mala, bad luck, you've just started falling apart earlier than other people and you will have to just manage the pain and make sure it does'nt get worse'. I can't sit for too long or I have pretty bad pain. For the last 2 years I was wearing a belt for support. 2 months ago, I gave it up a la Sarno . I went from wearing a belt for nearly 15 hours a day to giving it up completely. I started to go for daily walks and tried very hard to ignore the pain which for me is constant and severe. The only bit of relief is when I lie down. Anyway, the pain was ok for about 3 weeks and then it got very bad. Still i continue to walk everyday but now I'm beginning to feel the pain in my hips. Mind you I still haven't put my belt back on yet and I'm taking no meds whatsoever. In the meantime I have been seeeing a psychotherapist who after 6 sessions doen't seem to think that my emotions or rage could be causing so much pain. She is a pretty switched on person and I'd like to believe her.

I'm not getting the miraculous results that Sarno's patients are getting and I worry that if inndeed my problem is getting worse. I'm only 46 and the thought of living the rest of my life in such pain is unimaginable. So I guess I'll try anything and I'm hoping something will work for me.


Good Luck & Good Health
Mala
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Susie

USA
319 Posts

Posted - 07/09/2004 :  18:25:57  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Mala, I wore a belt 24 hours a day. I took it off to bathe. I slept in it. I could sit for about 5 minutes. I conducted business on the couch. I had to go to an auction that I was in charge of so I had a couch brought to the coliseum and had to lie down every twenty minutes. I recovered after reading Sarno. I regressed more than once. I have read alot of people on this message board that say when the pain gets worse , you are getting close to healing. I think you are on the right track and I hope you can stay with it. It's terribly painful and very scarry that you are not doing the right thing. Hopefully your cure is just around the corner. It doesn't happen overnight for most of us. Just a layer at a time. Good luck to you. You are definately not alone!
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mala

Hong Kong
774 Posts

Posted - 07/09/2004 :  19:36:16  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Susie,
Thank you so much for your post. It has really given me some encouragement. Could I ask you a few questions?

-What was your diagnosis?
-How long did you wear your belt for?
-How much better are you now.

Thanks.

Good Luck & Good Health
Mala
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