Day 1 Day 1

I've been suffering from sciatic pain for 5 months and I kept coming across Dr Sarno's name on sciatica forums so I finally looked into it, and I'm glad I did! My Mri shows 2 herniated discs, one that seems to be pressing on the S1 nerve root. I had a cortisone injection that relieved the pain, though not the strong tingling. At my follow up appointment I told the dr the pain was pretty much gone but the strong tingling was still there and affecting my quality of life. He advised me to not get another injection and save my money for surgery, and to try to just suck it up for a couple months and see if it got any better. I left the office in tears, and the pain returned and is now worse. This is bad news of course, but I was excited when I made the connection between the pain returning and this stressful/disappointing dr visit. Sounds like TMS!

I believe that TMS is real, and I am praying that this is what I have. In the back of my head I worry that I am one of the few who really DO need surgery and am I continuing to be in pain needlessly when surgery could have fixed this months ago. And I worry that I won't see results soon enough to really give the program a chance to work before I get discouraged and try something else.

 

Hi, zero76.

I would follow your doctor's advice and wait a few months before getting surgery.
Dr. Sarno says herniated discs most often do not cause pain. The pain may be because you fear
you are structurally damaged.

I would spend the next few months doing the SEP and thinking TMS is causing your pain.
TMS healing requires 100 percent belief that pain is psychological and not structural,
so as long as you continue to think cortisone or surgery will relieve your pain for good,
it will probably stay with you. But you may very well notice less pain if you believe it is TMS.

Do give the SEP a chance to heal you. It has helped many others, me included.

Don't be impatient to heal from TMS pain. It came because of some repressed emotions
and/or a perfectionist-goodist personality. It will take a while to discover all that,
and the SEP will help you. JOurnaling is especially helpful.