For me, it’s day 1 of this particular program, but I’ve been working with Dr. Sarno’s books (and a good, similar one by Georgie Oldfield called "Chronic Pain: Your Key to Recovery") for a few months now.
I’d like to share my story but I’m going to try to keep it fairly quick and positive because it’s long and complicated, about it and I worry about getting dragged back in to hopeless feelings by retelling it.
I’m 24 now, and for over a year I had such debilitating pain in my left hip that I had to leave my job. There were times that I could hardly walk, and could not sit for more than a few minutes. I spent most of a year in so much pain that I could barely get through 2 workdays a week. I was terrified of sitting. I was in too much pain to exercise.
I saw 3 physical therapists, 2 chiropractors, and did acupuncture. One of the chiropractors really did help me quite a bit by actually figuring out which muscles were being affected (no one else could find what was wrong), and acupuncture provided amazing but temporary relief when painkillers did nothing. (I practice mediation now and it results in a very similar feeling of physical relief as acupuncture, and helps me work through my underlying psychological issues.)
For about a year I have also been seeing a therapist, to work through childhood traumas and their effects on my personality today. (My trauma is ‘mild’ comparatively speaking, but it has an enormous effect on me and I have always struggled with mental health.)
About 3 months ago, my hip pain was finally much less severe. Then I got ahold of Georgie Oldfield’s book and that really finished it up over the course of a month. I hardly have any discomfort in my hip any more (after a year of being disabled!) and I am going to work and exercising comfortably.
The pain moved, though. Early on as my hip pain started to get better, I started getting headaches, which turned into intense neck and shoulder pain. I learned to be afraid of sleeping because I could not get comfortable during the night, and would wake up with more neck pain. It’s a very specific pattern: I know exactly which muscles act up, in what order it progresses. My neck muscles felt like ropes about to snap. There has also been a ringing in my ears almost all day, every day, for months.
The past 2-ish weeks the neck/shoulder issues have been milder, and very obviously correlated with extra stressors and with worries about the pain.
So, I see it’s definitely getting better, when I step back and get some perspective. I know that feeling afraid, frustrated, and hopeless just reinforces the pain (telling my body that the pain is working because it’s distracting).
The most helpful things are: making sure I go to therapy, reading the TMS books, meditating, and getting on with activities I am afraid of, regardless out their outcome.
Meditation has been helpful to me because it's teaching me how to disentangle pain and suffering. I can be in pain, but I don’t always have to suffer from it. I can allow it to be and let it be ok. Then it kind of looses its hold on me. I can go about whatever activity that sounds scary —say, typing at a computer when my shoulder hurts— and tell myself, “It’s ok. You’re not damaging yourself. There is some pain, but you don’t need to pay attention to it. Don’t worry about willing it to go away. Just keep working, it won’t stop you.” And then usually it recedes after a while.
This is different from suppressing negative emotions, which I know is the root of the whole problem. I feel afraid somehow that this isn’t a good long-term technique, though. Is it still reinforcing the pain to pay attention to it this way? Is that why it comes back? I expect, based on how hard I had to work on my hip, that it will probably just take time.
To end on a positive note, because that feels helpful to me: I have been sleeping better and waking up with less neck pain. It’s not completely gone, and I often do worry about it increasing throughout the day (which is definitely a self-fulfilling prophesy) but overall it is much less severe. It’s normal to expect pain symptoms to jump around, it’s normal for them to get worse before they get better. Maybe I’m past that hurdle? Maybe I’m not. I guess we’ll see.
My main challenge now is to ‘un-link’ my learned fear of sleeping. I need to fully, completely know that sleeping will not cause my neck to hurt. I would love, love, love to hear from you, especially if you’ve had similar struggles. Have you made good progress? What kinds of coping techniques work for you?
~Bennet
I’d like to share my story but I’m going to try to keep it fairly quick and positive because it’s long and complicated, about it and I worry about getting dragged back in to hopeless feelings by retelling it.
I’m 24 now, and for over a year I had such debilitating pain in my left hip that I had to leave my job. There were times that I could hardly walk, and could not sit for more than a few minutes. I spent most of a year in so much pain that I could barely get through 2 workdays a week. I was terrified of sitting. I was in too much pain to exercise.
I saw 3 physical therapists, 2 chiropractors, and did acupuncture. One of the chiropractors really did help me quite a bit by actually figuring out which muscles were being affected (no one else could find what was wrong), and acupuncture provided amazing but temporary relief when painkillers did nothing. (I practice mediation now and it results in a very similar feeling of physical relief as acupuncture, and helps me work through my underlying psychological issues.)
For about a year I have also been seeing a therapist, to work through childhood traumas and their effects on my personality today. (My trauma is ‘mild’ comparatively speaking, but it has an enormous effect on me and I have always struggled with mental health.)
About 3 months ago, my hip pain was finally much less severe. Then I got ahold of Georgie Oldfield’s book and that really finished it up over the course of a month. I hardly have any discomfort in my hip any more (after a year of being disabled!) and I am going to work and exercising comfortably.
The pain moved, though. Early on as my hip pain started to get better, I started getting headaches, which turned into intense neck and shoulder pain. I learned to be afraid of sleeping because I could not get comfortable during the night, and would wake up with more neck pain. It’s a very specific pattern: I know exactly which muscles act up, in what order it progresses. My neck muscles felt like ropes about to snap. There has also been a ringing in my ears almost all day, every day, for months.
The past 2-ish weeks the neck/shoulder issues have been milder, and very obviously correlated with extra stressors and with worries about the pain.
So, I see it’s definitely getting better, when I step back and get some perspective. I know that feeling afraid, frustrated, and hopeless just reinforces the pain (telling my body that the pain is working because it’s distracting).
The most helpful things are: making sure I go to therapy, reading the TMS books, meditating, and getting on with activities I am afraid of, regardless out their outcome.
Meditation has been helpful to me because it's teaching me how to disentangle pain and suffering. I can be in pain, but I don’t always have to suffer from it. I can allow it to be and let it be ok. Then it kind of looses its hold on me. I can go about whatever activity that sounds scary —say, typing at a computer when my shoulder hurts— and tell myself, “It’s ok. You’re not damaging yourself. There is some pain, but you don’t need to pay attention to it. Don’t worry about willing it to go away. Just keep working, it won’t stop you.” And then usually it recedes after a while.
This is different from suppressing negative emotions, which I know is the root of the whole problem. I feel afraid somehow that this isn’t a good long-term technique, though. Is it still reinforcing the pain to pay attention to it this way? Is that why it comes back? I expect, based on how hard I had to work on my hip, that it will probably just take time.
To end on a positive note, because that feels helpful to me: I have been sleeping better and waking up with less neck pain. It’s not completely gone, and I often do worry about it increasing throughout the day (which is definitely a self-fulfilling prophesy) but overall it is much less severe. It’s normal to expect pain symptoms to jump around, it’s normal for them to get worse before they get better. Maybe I’m past that hurdle? Maybe I’m not. I guess we’ll see.
My main challenge now is to ‘un-link’ my learned fear of sleeping. I need to fully, completely know that sleeping will not cause my neck to hurt. I would love, love, love to hear from you, especially if you’ve had similar struggles. Have you made good progress? What kinds of coping techniques work for you?
~Bennet
