Chronic Hip Pain Stories??

Happy New Year!

I finished reading Dr Sarno's MindBody Prescription book 11 days ago and am 5 days into the Structured Education Program.

I feel very close to fully believing TMS is the cause of my right groin pain (tightness/pinching) and deep right buttock pain (worst while sitting!). I had a surgery on my hip in March 2015 and the pain came back 9 months later. All of my follow up doctor visits and images (MRI and X-Rays) show nothing structurally wrong! Yet, I still have this voice in the back of my head saying something is wrong with my hip joint and soft tissue/cartilage in and around the joint. The groin pain is hard for me to get past.

I've read so many stories on back pain (and some other very common TMS pain sites) but have not seen much on hips, groin, and buttock pain. Does anyone have any stories or examples to share that will help me reinforce my believe in being a true TMS diagnosis? I have been seeing multiple physicians the past 2.5 years and at this point there is "nothing wrong with my hip" and they "don't know what to do for me". I'm a young man (28 years old) and desperately want to get back to the active lifestyle I once had. Thank you!

John

 

Hi John,
I can share that a client of mine had a lot of hip pain, used Dr. Sarno's approach and now has no hip pain. One orthopedic wanted to investigate surgery, the pain was that bad, and the images didn't look too good either. Pain, anywhere in the body can be caused by TMS. If your doctors are saying "We don't know what to do, because we can't see anything really wrong," then this is a huge support for your Sarno work. When I first investigated my foot pain with Dr. Sarno's work, I couldn't find very many references to foot pain, and like you, I was doubtful. I know now that it does not matter where the pain is. If you've been cleared by a doctor for serious issues, apply Sarno's work.
Good luck.
Andy B

 

I am also suffering from hip pain which I have had about 10 years.
However, last year, for the whole of 2016, my hip pain disappeared: I had a back pain instead! I eventually came across Sarno's work, and after 2-3 months of quite emotional work on my own to believe in the psychosomatic diagnosis, the back pain faded away.

Guess what - as it faded, the hip pain began to reappear. It is now back in full swing.

Like you I have had surgery - for impingement- which did no good at all. And like you I find it hard to be deeply convinced that this is a mindbody pain - it feels so much like it responds to the way I move, what I do physically - and yes, there is little mention of hips in the TMS literature.

However, scans after my surgery also looked ok, the doctors seemed to want me to just go away and stop asking awkward questions they couldn't answer.

So I'm writing all this to say yes, Hi, I am a fellow sufferer, I get the difficulty! -- But speaking just about my case: if it is not psychologically caused pain, how could it go away for a year then come back? Your case could be very similar.

It was a mental battle to believe that my back pain would go away by itself. It took a long time, I was very sensitive to what other people might have thought and kept it all pretty much a secret - I had to be sure Sarno was right, and the only way to be sure, paradoxically, was to get rid of my pain.

Even when I thought I believed Sarno, I still had further to go - real conviction for me came slowly and erratically.

People here have written about not caring about the pain, almost as if you have to stop believing in the pain - against all the evidence of your senses.
I don't mean stop believing it hurts, or is real, but stop believing that it is forever, that it is damage, that it is independent of you and stronger than you.

So there is a lot I still find mysterious about TMS, but I have had a definite and amazing success losing my own back pain, and crucially losing the fear of it. Dr Sarno is right.

So take heart from the oddness of pain that in your case is there despite there being no evidence of any damage, and in mine that can go away completely for months when there's another urgent symptom to take its place!

Post how you're getting on - you might have some encouragement for me! All the best for now ...

 

Hi guys,

Really excited and happy to hear some near identical stories to mine as i start research on TMS and Sarno's approach. about 3 years ago i was diagnosed wiht FAI and labral tear in right hip. I fought hard with physio and pilates and osteo and movement therapy and all sorts of other treatment but could not get on top of it, so ultimately submitted to the surgeon who did an arthroscopy. The recovery was much longer than expected and whilst the pain i had before has largely gone it has caused other problems I think and i have some residual pain left over from the actual surgery. Before I went in for the first surgery my other hip had become symptomatic and that has been gradually getting worse, to the point where i have had that scanned and had the same diagnosis. All through this process has been underscored by varying degrees of mental pain/depression that I have also worked hard to get on top of.

I've made really good progress since the first operation and have moved to Australia but but the pain in both hips now is so hard and i am spiralling into a stuck situation and losing my mind again, getting lost considering all options - is it structural, is it diet related, is it stress, is it strength and stability is it alignment, should i see physio, osteo, pilates, yoga, naturopath, surgeon, psychologist etc.... - and reasoning that it's possibly all of those things but first and foremost surely it is the cam lesion on my femoral head and the tear of the labrum. But where the hell do I start again? I'm in a new place and finding hard to find practitioners i can trust and build a relationship with, spending lots of money, getting more stressed, which i ma sure is dialling up the pain, and not sure what to do.

I'd be really interested to hear how you guys have been getting on with this approach since these posts above? Does the fact that i do have alignment and structural issues (FAI and labral tear) mean that this is what i should be addressing and not looking at Dr Sarno's approach. I should add that I did break my ankle 9 months before the first hip pain so can't discount that as a contributing factor

 

Hi Edfoster,
You sound like you've been through a lot of pain and confusion -- still are! But you say you've made good progress too. Don't forget that!
It's really hard to say anything about your situation, but I can certainly tell you what's helped me.
First though, my images -- xray and CT scan -- showed large cam type impingements on both hips. Only one hip hurt and I had that one operated on -- so the bone now looks "normal". The surgeon seemed very confident after the operation that I would be much better -- (having seen inside my hip! -- but I had the same old problem back. So he was wrong. The big bump on the bone can't have been the cause of the pain.

That was 5 years ago. Since then, I've quit my job and trained to become a Gyrotonic teacher. (check out gyrotonic.com) So despite having severe hip pain some days I've got a new career teaching a physical, dance-like exercise -- which can also be quite emotionally or energetically powerful. This has been the best thing for me. Teaching invariably makes me feel much better. I feel so lucky to be doing it. To some people this would surely sound crazy: I have a pain that can make a shopping trip into an ordeal, and now I'm teaching people exercises and helping get them out of pain. But it is really working for me.
I also was helped a lot by going to a group class based around Body Mind Centering, Authentic Movement, and Skinner Release Technique. You might also check those kind of things out: for me, the whole experience was a revelation, amazingly therapeutic, interesting and just joyful.
Lastly, I'm also now seeing a body psychotherapist -- emotional life is lived in the body, and getting more familiar with that connection is quite a process of education for me.
I'm a total Sarno convert, but I have to say that curing my back pain was an emotionally demanding three months and even with that good evidence behind me I'm still on a long road with my hips. But no way would I go back to my old life!
Best of luck ! and by all means message me if you want to know more about anything I've mentioned

 

When you have butt pain that moves to groin pain that changes into leg pain, you just have to suspect TMS instead of some structural problem with the hip. Mobility and variability are two signs of a psychogenic condition; that is, once you have ruled out an autoimmune disorder or something worse. Makes me think that many of the hip replacement surgeries that are being performed are related to pain conditions that are psychological in origin. Just a handy dandy one size fits all approach that makes money for surgeons. It does seem to me compelling that many of these hip problem seem to develop around the time of crisis birthdays like 40 or 50 or 60. My next door neighbor, an insurance adjuster, got intense debilitating pain in his hip about the time of his 50th birthday around the same time he was sitting on hard benches in a courthouse in a case involving millions of dollars. He also had a special needs child that he was home schooling while his young wife took tennis lessons at the country club. Three other kids going to college too. The case concluded and his hip pain went away. Then, a few weeks later he was walking around with his arm in a sling due to a rotator cuff the docs told him was on the verge of tearing off completely. What was wrong with him? 8 kids living at home and a $400,000 high-stress job while paying $5 grand a month to rent in the expensive Bay Area. Wonder if he was paying for his wife's tennis lessons too? Way beyond my limits!