Back pain worse when sick

[lbsmarick]

I’ll try to be as brief as possible After 7 or so years of back pain, and trying everything but surgery, I happened upon Dr Sarno’s teachings. My pain is 100% gone but for a day here and there that it will kick in… but I can always trace it to an issue in my life and it’s almost always gone by the next day. A few years into all my back issues, during the time I got a steroid injection and was put on Gabapentin (so?) and Flexerol, my 16 year old daughter, who’s a competitive figure skater, came home from school one day with severe lumbar pain. She and I went through the same trials and errors in trying to heal. When I realized a year ago what my pain really was, I had her read Healing Back Pain and sent her to Dr Schubiner. (Although, to my dismay, he only does virtual visits now, so I feel like she didn’t get that reassurance of a hands-on physical) Anyway, nothing was working. I’m just starting to reintroduce the TMS Idea to her again, as she’s still in pain while skating competitively for her university. She called today to say she is feeling sick, and happened to mention that her back pain is always worse when she has a cold or flu. Any thoughts on why this may be? It doesn’t seem to me to be a logical thing if her pain were structural? Thoughts? Thanks in advance!

 

[Adam Coloretti (coach)]

I’ll try to be as brief as possible After 7 or so years of back pain, and trying everything but surgery, I happened upon Dr Sarno’s teachings. My pain is 100% gone but for a day here and there that it will kick in… but I can always trace it to an issue in my life and it’s almost always gone by the next day. A few years into all my back issues, during the time I got a steroid injection and was put on Gabapentin (so?) and Flexerol, my 16 year old daughter, who’s a competitive figure skater, came home from school one day with severe lumbar pain. She and I went through the same trials and errors in trying to heal. When I realized a year ago what my pain really was, I had her read Healing Back Pain and sent her to Dr Schubiner. (Although, to my dismay, he only does virtual visits now, so I feel like she didn’t get that reassurance of a hands-on physical) Anyway, nothing was working. I’m just starting to reintroduce the TMS Idea to her again, as she’s still in pain while skating competitively for her university. She called today to say she is feeling sick, and happened to mention that her back pain is always worse when she has a cold or flu. Any thoughts on why this may be? It doesn’t seem to me to be a logical thing if her pain were structural? Thoughts? Thanks in advance!

Hi! I would say that being sick is a shock to the nervous system in a way and it also ramps it up in protection of the illness (in conjunction with the immune system). So that sort of heightening of the nervous system can impact pain signals, especially TMS pain.

What I would say too is that Dr Schubiner is at the head of the field, so if he thinks it's TMS then I don't think you're going to get a better endorsement than that - I would take that to the bank (although I do appreciate it may have been better for it to be in person)