Day 1

I bought Dr. Sarno's book "The Mindbody Prescription" many years ago.
I bought it because I was having back pain, on my left side, and it hart me when I walked. This condition made me avoid walking more than a hundred yards until I needed to find a bench to sit. I didn't need to sit more than one or two minutes, and I could walk another one hundred yards.
I have always been very sedentary by nature in spite of talking to myself that I should make some exercise and walk. However, since my back pain, it kept me from going into real walking. Curiously enough, when I had to take part in some activity where I was forced to walk I could do it for a somehow longer distance. However, in my day-to-day activity, it was exacerbate.
When I read the book – and I read it or parts of it several times – I saw myself in almost every page. I am really a TMS type. I have had a stomach ulcer for many years, including several bleeding episodes; I had a period when I was afraid of walking in open spaces, including crossing streets; after being cured from the ulcer (Helicobacter pylori), I developed IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrom). One day, I found a booklet explaining this condition and from the moment, I finished reading it; I was almost cured.
Something similar happened when I read about TMS. I was convinced from the very beginning. But somehow I could not apply it to me. I reviewed through all my past (I am now 80 years old). I found many reasons for stress that could justify the series of diseases (ulcer, IBS, TMS), I thought that I cleared all that stuff, but the pain was still there. Sometimes it developed as sciatica. I mentioned it to my doctor, and he agreed with "my diagnosis." Sometimes it would move to my right side, which convinced me even more that it was a case of TMS. I tried acupuncture, shiatsu, with some relief but only temporary, for a few hours. Of course, I understood from Dr. Sarno that in order to succeed with his method, I should give up all this diversion, and for these and other reasons, I believed that I should not see an orthopedist. I didn't go much to my family doctor either, because I truly believed that I had TMS and that the solution of my case could only be in Dr. Sarno's method. However, it was not working for me.
The situation is getting worse in the last few months. I almost don't do any walking; I developed a fear for walking stairs without a hand rail, especially going down the stairs.
So I came back to Dr. Sarno's book and promised to myself that this time I would follow his advice of reading every day a few pages and repeat this exercise during 30 days. I didn't do this before because I always have many things to read, and I failed to understand, considering that I 100% believe in the TMS self-diagnosis, and I accept the method for the "cure," why it was not working for me.
Yesterday I started the renewed reading of the book, decided that today I would start writing essays about my case, and this morning, seating at the computer to write, I came across this program, which seems fantastic and appropriate for me.

 

Hi, Oicani. We're in the same club. I will be 84 in June. I've had a healthy life, just a few hernias over the years,
but got severe back pain two years ago after lifting something heavy. I didn't go to my doctor because he always just prescribes pills and I preferred to tough it out instead. After two weeks of the pain I asked a nurse friend in Hawaii and she said to read Dr. Sarno's Healing Back Pain. I did and believed my pain was not caused from the lifting or my age, but from
repressed emotions. I began to heal and after a few months the pain was gone.

I journaled and discovered I had a lot of repressed emotions going back to my childhood. Divorced parents, stepfather, caring for my elderly mother that left guilt in me. Other things.

In your case, I'd say your symptoms are from TMS and a combination of repressed emotions from your past and
also maybe your personality if you are a perfectionist and also hard on yourself to be the best.

I've learned so much about myself and others from two years now in TMSWiki. Another member, Herbie, and I just wrotee a book about our journeys to TMS healing, bringing God into the healing. It's called GOD DOES NOT WANT YOU TO BE IN PAIN and is available in paperback from amazon.com books and a Kindle edition if you read books that way.

In TMS healing, you have to believe 100 percent that your symptoms are caused by TMS repressed emotions and/or your personality. I withheld about 10 percent thinking the pain was from aging, and that slowed my healing.

I hope you will keep reading Sarno and working on TMS healing. The Structured Education Program is excellent
and so is Alan Gordon's TMS Recovery Program, both free on TMSWiki.

Let me, us, know your progress.

Herbie and I also will be on call-ins Tuesday nights for a month or two, about our book.
Hope you will listen in by phoning.
Here's the info about the call-in:

http://tmswiki.org/forum/threads/call-in-tues-april-8-beginning-walt-herbies-book.4275/