How many out there have suffered from severe, even debilitating back pain? How about upper back and neck, sciatic etc.
Have you been told it’s because of depressed vertebrae, loss of cushioning cartilage? Have you been given medication in the form of anti-inflammatory, or pain medication? Worse, has surgery been suggested as an alternative?
I know because I’ve been all routes except surgery until I heard about a book by Dr. John Sarno called: Healing Back Pain. Not the greatest title because he goes so much deeper than that title would suggest. It’s the mind body connection.
Anyway, I was at the end of my rope. I was in constant pain in my middle lower back and it would just “go out” for seemingly no good reason. We had a history in our family of bad backs, beginning with my grandfather, my father, my brother and myself. When my back first failed me I thought: Oh no, I’ve inherited the “bad back” portion of my existence in life, and I more or less accepted it as a sort of family tree sentence.
I knew the pain would get progressively worse for about a three to four day period, culminating to one entire day of bedridden misery. After that, it began to get better until I’d be pain free a few days later. This painful ritual went on for a number of years and my brother knew my pain and I his. My father shared with us the news of degenerative lower back arthritis that awaited us in the future.
His golf swing gradually became more stiff and aggravating. We just had to put up with our bouts of misery three to four times a year.
During my divorce some ten-years ago I was so crippled with back spasms I couldn’t get out of bed in the mornings. I swallowed Tylenol like it was all we had for breakfast. For the first time in my life the pain was always there, sometimes less, but never completely gone. I was desperate and willing to try anything. I got a hold of Sarno’s book and devoured it while trying to stay in a somewhat comfortable position on the couch. When I began to understand the simple concept of what he had to offer, I literally felt the pain begin to subside. The jig was up, my brain couldn’t fool me anymore. I finally understood that it wasn’t that day in the gym years ago doing heavy lifting that caused irreversible compression in my lower back. My back was fine. It was stress that made the beast. That was the key, it wasn’t phycosymatic, the pain was real believe me.
It was caused by what he describes as: TMS (tension myositis syndrome) it is a harmless but potentially very painful disorder that is the result of specific, common emotional situations. It is a cradle-to-grave disorder, that if understood, is completely easy to control and recognize. The primary tissue involved is muscle and nowhere on the body are there more striations and formations then across the back and neck. I finished the book ten-years ago and I’ve been pain free ever since. So has my brother, and we dont’t “baby” the back and stray from physical activity, hoping that it doesn't “go out”. My dad, sadly, just keeps putting up with the pain though he does have far fewer bouts now that he’s retired. He doesn’t see the correlation between the two, he insists there’s something structurally wrong. One year when he was under extreme pressure at work, his back blew out. He was bed ridden for about two days and then the strangest thing I’ve ever seen occurred. He began getting burning sensations running down his right leg. Soon after (hours) a round red circle began to form on his outside right ankle. It was about three inches or so across and it began to bubble up, after a while my mom called his doctor and arranged a quick visit. He was in agonizing pain and the circle quickly became very inflamed looking just like a raw hamburger attached to his ankle. The doctor sent him to the hospital and my mom was fearing the worst as was my dad. No one could figure it out. There were actually a small team of doctors and interns called in to witness this strangest of occurrences. They ran a battery of tests on him and everything came up negative. I went to visit him and he was a little groggy from sleep medication, he’d had a busy day. The next morning he awoke in the hospital completely fine, back pain gone, ankle just like nothing had been there.
No one could figure it out. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing like regular checkups and physicals to make sure everthing’s working right. The femur, the biggest bone in the human body can heal in six weeks, your body knows what it’s doing.
But, when I read Dr. Sarno’s book the first time that’s the story I thought of the entire time. My dad was a text book example of extreme TMS.
I’ve read the book twice, and I’m midway through it a third time. Why a second and third time one might ask, or be thinking? Well, the mind has a way of forgetting what we learn, it gets categorized and filed under: “learned stuff”. Then we forget about it, but, TMS never sleeps and about a week ago or so I found out the painful way. This had been mildly annoying for about the past four or so years.
I noticed a little pain on the outside of my hip, just a bit further back than the front pocket of my pants. It was occurring while driving the car for more than half an hour or so. Well, it began to get worse to the point it was tough to haul my right leg over and out of the car. Strangely or not, I began to think I may have a pinched nerve, maybe some kind of structural flexor damage. Well that’s just the foothold TMS needs, a firm belief there’s a problem in the house. It was off and running. I brought bags of groceries into the house and could barely make it up the stairs. I couldn’t put any weight on m y right leg. The pain was in an area the size of a silver dollar, painful to the touch. I could barely sit or stand.
I went online and Googled hip pain, pain outside of hip etc. Talk about stoking the furnace, the pain increased with each keystroke. I read about blocked arteries not allowing proper blood flow to the site, torn flexors and degenerative arthritis (my dad) loose cartilage, hyper extended hip and joint muscles. I slept a total of three-hours that night. The pain was horrific I’m not kidding, I fantasized about a little back pain in exchange.
Then in the middle of agony, an epiphany occurred, where did I put Sarno’s book? It’s only a little paperback filled with a 183 pages of gold, easily misplaced, or worse, lent to someone who never even cracked it open and now being used to collect dust under a bed.
I got up as quickly as I could afford (not quickly) and hobbled to my books. It wasn’t there and I cursed my self for ever lending it to someone who’d told me I’d never felt pain like they had. And then, there it was, buried under useless fiction and a 2003 ticket stub to a sleeper of a Ranger’s game. Believe it or not I’d forgotten about TMS all together and its insidiousness. I sat and read in the euphoria of pain. I literally felt the pain begin to subside, I lie to you not. My oasis of relief was found and as I write this the book is by my side. If you suffer now or have in the past you owe it to your self to pick up this book. Buy it used on Amazon if you have to and keep it, don’t lend it out to people who want to prove you wrong so they can continue with their drugs and surgeries. It’s been one of my greatest finds and again I found it when I needed it most.
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