Completely cured from 6 years of chronic pelvic and chronic back pain - starting at age 21

My Success Story!

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share my story in the hope that it will inspire others .

My journey began with two minor muscular injuries at the gym, one in my upper back and the other in my groin/high hamstring.

Looking back, I understand that whilst these injuries would have structurally healed in a matter of weeks, my fear and catastrophising that my body was seriously damaged kept the pain switched on for six years. This was both due to my prior lack of injury history making me more reactive, as well as the injuries being in areas where I had never experienced pain before.

In addition to this body-based fear, the injuries ruined my lofty fitness aspirations at the time. As I had made these goals a huge part of my identity and was living out of balance as a result, this disruption was very psychologically threatening and produced a lot of fear and related emotions.

My body had good reasons to sound the alarm and the danger signal that is pain!

For some more information on my symptoms, I had really bad 24/7 pelvic and lower back pain, especially in the area on the inside of my right sit bone. It was especially bad when sitting and bending. This was to the point that I couldn't even put my shoes on without getting on the floor. I was only 21 when this started.

I spent the next four years seeing countless professionals, including physiotherapists, osteopaths and chiropractors, in an unsuccessful attempt to treat my pain as a structural issue. I even sought out an expert tendon physiotherapist half way across the world in the Netherlands whilst studying there, yet nothing worked and the pain persisted.

No one knew what was wrong, medical imaging was clear or inconclusive and I was unresponsive to physical therapy.

It was only in the last couple of years, through the pioneering work of Dr John Sarno and later Dr Howard Schubiner (amongst others), that I learnt of TMS, which as we know explains most chronic pain and other chronic symptoms as having an emotional and psychological root.

It is exclusively through this mindbody approach and trial and error of the various techniques that I began to see progress, and am now pain-free!

To begin, I dived right into the brain science and idea that suppressed emotions and nervous system dysregulation (from anxiety driven patterns such as people pleasing and perfectionism) could be driving my pain. I used this theory as well as journalling and began to understand that my triggers were actually emotional (the fear of physical activity and anticipation around the pain), rather than the physical acts themselves (such as sitting).

I managed to strip the fear away from exercise and slowly but surely was able to exercise without pain. This was a key breakthrough in convincing myself that my pain was not structurally caused. It took me about 6-12 months of emotional work (focusing on repressed emotions and really feeling comfortable with feeling all my emotions, even the "ugly" ones), but I am now chronic pain free and completely uninhibited physically (I have the pleasure of helping others now).

If you have any questions please let me know, and I wish you all the best in your recovery There are so many success stories like mine and it absolutely can work for you.

 

I'm so happy for you. Congratulations. How did you work on your repressed emotions?
How did you relieve the pain while sitting? Was it a conditioned response?

 

Hi!!! That is so exciting!!
Thank
You for sharing)
Did you notice in those 6-12 months that your pain got worse or shifted!?!
I’m at about the 6 month marker and am absolutely miserable! My pain has shifted from low back discomfort to whole body nerve pain . Altered sense of feeling, along with nerve shocks at random. I was thinking I was on my way, then BAM this has come on in about the last month. It’s so much scarier than my original pain.
Thanks for the insight))