Day 10 - Confusion

[Nissim]

I have been on quite a journey the past half year. Migraines started 15 years ago but began daily about 7 months ago. I'd known about Sarno for a while but stayed on the medication route with minimal results. I dove into Sarno 6 months ago but also went with other approaches, which is causing my confusion and probably delay in healing. I saw someone who has an ability to figure out what foods I'm supposed to eat. Some would question his methods as a bit voodoo, but he's helped 30,000 people heal from a large variety of illnesses just by telling them what they should eat. Immediately after I started it by digestive and bowel issues disappeared. I've been told I have Candida and IBS. It didn't help the migraines but helped the IBS issues. But how do I reconcile that IBS in mindbody while the change in diet helped? Then I saw a scientist who has helped thousands of people heal but using a machine to read my entire internal system. She explained that my weak Penial and Pituitary glands cause the pain and the cause of the weakness if from my Candida. If i kill the Candida, the glands will strengthen, and pain go away. She sounds so convincing. I know I have TMS, but these other non-medicated approaches seem legit. I feel if i don't drop them I won't fully heal. But I fear that dropping them with increase my pain. I also just stopped my new preventative that I started a few months ago after I tried going a month or two without any medicine. That was a brutal time, and I'm scared the pain will come back debilitating again. How can i stop the fear of going back there? I've been on a great streak lately and i don't want to lose it.

Thank you!

 

[Cactusflower]

I had IBS, and was put on a dairy free diet.
It helped for awhile, but then I began to have symptoms again.
My IBS is PARTLY related to a health issue now, but was most likely originally generated from anxiety.
I got my IBS pretty much under control and the back pain started.
Then the back pain got better for awhile and I began to get ankle pain.
Then I had both ankle pain and back pain.
Eventually it was ankle pain, back pain, neck pain - other random moving pains that didn't last very long and silent reflux.
It was ALL TMS, which is all anxiety.

Your IBS is most likely doing better because of the placebo effect - you believe deep down that food is the cause, so for now, you are feeling better. But when internal stress builds once again and anxiety increases, you may have new symptoms.

Is the scientist you saw, a medical doctor? Does he sell products and services? Does he claim he cures issues so you never have to take his products again, or does he suggest long term care? How expensive are his "cures".

Your TMS work can be absolutely free, if you can be self-directed and stay on track. Delving into other methods means you were never totally on board with Sarno's theories. It might be good to sit back and think about that. What about Sarno's theories makes you resist them? Why have you now circled back to his ideas now?

Dr. David Clarke is a retired gastro doc, who now heads the PPD Association (another term for TMS) - here he is talking about the link between IBS and TMS

 

[JanAtheCPA]

100% with @Cactusflower. The placebo effect is very powerful. You can harness it mindfully, using free mind-over-body techniques but you must also be totally committed to doing the deeper work, which requires emotional vulnerability, self-honesty, and a willingness to rationally reject avoidance and resistance to the real work.

 

[Nissim]

Thank you both for the responses. This scientist wanted me to change my diet drastically, which I declined to do because I love the diet I am currently on. Her other instructions were taking supplements to deal with the issues. She is familiar with Sarno and is of the understanding that he was not opposed to treating infectious illnesses. She thinks doing Sarno and healing the body through diet, exercise, and whatever should be done all together. Not one or the other. That one should not expect to live on Cheerios and cake and expect to be healthy because they follow Sarno. I reached out to her this morning and these were her responses. I kind of regret it because she's really making a compelling argument to follow her rubric. I will not follow her diet but paying to see her again and taking the supplements seem okay to me. I'm just nervous it is holding me back. Getting a headache now as I'm writing about this.

 

[Nissim]

She keeps offering to treat me for free and she never refuses treatment if money is the issue. She's a very sincere and truthful woman and just cares about people.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

She thinks doing Sarno and healing the body through diet, exercise, and whatever should be done all together. Not one or the other. That one should not expect to live on Cheerios and cake and expect to be healthy because they follow Sarno

Well, I have to agree with that. Exercise and healthy foods are both essential to recovery, because if you're not to treating your body with respect, how can you feel good enough about yourself to recover from your negative emotions? It's all connected.

But IMHO you don't have to be obsessive about diet. The advice to follow the "Mediterranean" diet most of the time is all you really need to keep in mind. That plus Michael Pollan's advice, which I follow, with one additional word:

Eat REAL food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Pollan's famous quote did not include the word real, but you gotta consider the unhealthy proliferation of highly processed foods claiming to contain natural and organic ingredients. Cooking from scratch with raw ingredients is preferable for obvious reasons.

I do believe that our sugar consumption is a problem. Most of us far exceed the recommended 50 grams of "added" sugars per day, and any anti-inflammatory diet will recommend less than 20, which I'm trying to follow.

And let's not forget about the liquids in our diets. I'll put this out there to anyone paying attention: there's no reason to be sucking on disposable containers of drinks all day long, especially ones containing any kind of sweetener.

Learn to drink plain tap water instead (I filter mine at home and carry a bottle). You'll save a ton of money and resources, and if you've been sucking down drinks that have been sweetened with any substance at all, you'll immediately improve your health.

Learn to drink coffee and tea, with just a small amount of sweetener that you control, preferably not a chemical one. I add a little white sugar to coffee, but I mostly drink hot tea, unsweetened, about 32 ounces a day, along with another 32 ounces or so of plain filtered tap water.

Coffee and tea both supposedly have significant health benefits when consumed with minimal or no sugar. Sweet bottled drinks are extremely unhealthy, period. There is no excuse for daily consumption of these, which should be an occasional treat.

And bottled or canned water is nothing more than a massive waste of money and resources and a huge money maker for producers. The transportation resources alone are shocking. The only legitimate time to drink bottled water is when you can't access safe tap water. Bad tasting tap water can be improved with filtering, which uses minimal resources by comparison.