From bedridden to playing soccer

My whole story is too long to copy here, so you can read it on my blog below if you want.

Here's the short of it: a year ago, after suffering from increasing back pain (sacroiliac joint pain and herniated disc, or so they told me) for several months, I became bedridden for 6 weeks, unable to take care of my own children. I had also experienced heart palpitations, nausea, and a panic attack. I had believed I had hurt my back playing soccer. I read Healing Back Pain and the Mindbody Prescription and within 10 days 90% of my pain was gone, like a miracle. Eventually I was back to soccer and running. I even ran a race and placed first for my age category. The last 10% of mild pain and stiffness trickled away more slowly, but eventually it disappeared. I still can't believe what happened to me. It was like a nightmare and I'm more grateful to Sarno than I can express. I tell everyone I can about it but people are so stubbornly skeptical, even after witnessing what happened to me.

Sacroiliac join dysfunction/malalignment/hypermobility is a TOTAL HOAX. I had it, and it's completely gone. I can smash a ball into the back of a net and lift my six-year-old with absolutely zero pain. Don't listen to the physicians..... You have to walk away completely from your diagnosis. Doing so is not going to hurt you. Actually, the opposite is going to happen.

You need to shout at your brain. Sometimes the pain goes away when you're not looking, but sometimes you need to be proactive. Sarno says the conscious should address the unconscious, and the more forcefully, the better. Don't give up! Don't let setbacks get you down! You have to be able to relish setbacks. You get knocked down, you get back up. Give yourself a pep talk. Don't resign yourself to "I'm one of the ones who takes longer" kind of thinking. That "kind of thinking" is the wrong kind of thinking. I know what it's like. After my back pain I struggled with yeast infections and although I tried and to apply Sarno's methods to no avail and I gave up. Then the next time, I just had it with these stupid infections and somehow I got rid of it with my mind. I spent all day challenging myself, every 20 minutes, talking to my brain, taking charge. Reading over and over again in the MBP the sentences where Sarno says yeast infections are mind-induced. And it finally worked! I got rid of an infection with my mind. I even apply his methods to colds and the results are mind-blowing. I watch people even in my own household suffer with the same ailments for three times as long and with three times the intensity.

You have to get a little wild in your thinking. You have to be able to believe you're invincible. It doesn't matter that it's not true because your body simply responds to your thinking.

You have to challenge your body. Start running. Who says you can't? The doctors? They already misdiagnosed you - you're going to believe them? You say you can't? Well then you're the problem. Healing is about challenging your body and your mind, which you can't do inseparably, because they are one.

I know many think he's a quack, and he very well may be, but I found reading You Are the Placebo by Joe Dispenza very helpful in challenging thought patterns and ruts. I did not use his method of unconscious meditation though, because it goes against my Christian beliefs. It wasn't necessary though. I healed without it.

I also highly recommend reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People as well as Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend. These are simply must-reads.

I told someone who had post-concussion syndrome about Sarno's books, they read them, and healed themselves. PCS is another "in vogue" mindbody syndrome. It's my personal belief that all of the conditions that rise in popularity are mindbody conditions, including ones like sudden-onset gender dysphoria.

I could go on and on but I have to stop somewhere. I get more into looking at TMS from a Christian perspective in my blog if you're interested.

All the best to everyone in your healing.

https://christianvictorianliterature.com/2019/01/18/my-story-a-victorian-healing/ (My Story: A Victorian Healing)

 

Hi grapefruit,

Thanks for posting your wonderful story. I put tags up at the top, and you can add or change if you want. This makes searching easier, so more people will find your story.

There is a strength --a sense of boundaries in your post. I feel your independence from what you were told by physicians, and what your fears were, what you thought was possible. Just this process can be life-changing because we realize we're stronger, and have more control over our lives than we thought. Bravo!!

I think you might like this post I wrote, discussing the change in understanding of our health once we have some success with the TMS approach. Your experience of the yeast infections and colds come to mind.
http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/ease-trust-success-and-positive-loops.19807/ (Ease, trust, success, and positive loops)

The Boundaries book looks interesting. Thanks!

Andy B

 

Hi grapefruit,
I did not get all the way through your wonderful linked article, but the following quotes, and your writing style is penetrating and brilliant, and I want others here to see at least some of it.

I took the liberty of some choice quotes below, including placebo and nocebo effects, and the unskilled information given to you by "experts." Your story has been experienced by hundreds here in personal variations, as you know. I saw myself in so many appointments about my foot pain. Thanks again!!

You write out the bad advice with such sincerity, just as so many of us had taken it, in our pain and need. And of course implied in all these quotes is what we really know --almost the exact opposite, because of Dr. Sarno's brilliant guidance.
Andy B

But the physio said that muscle imbalances lead to injury, and that you need to properly and thoroughly strengthen your whole body if you want to play a physically demanding sport like soccer. He also ...instructed me to sit straight up at all times, always maintaining an arch in my lower back, using a rolled-up towel if necessary. Both physicians strongly emphasized that arching your back forward or slouching were terrible for your back.

At this point I was beginning to feel a little irresponsible for the way I had treated my back. I had always just exercised however I’d felt like it – I’d never consistently done any back-specific exercises and I’d definitely never paid any attention to the way I sat. I slouched on couches all the time and liked to sit cross-legged with my back hunched while playing with my children on the floor.

Surely, a physician who has been practicing for over 30 years in the area of back pain would know what they are talking about and would be able to help me, I thought.

The chiropractor...told me a surprising thing, which was that I actually had a form of spinal bifida (which was news to me). She claimed she had done her master’s thesis on this very defect. She then had me watch an alarming video on the chiropractic philosophy of the spine

...sports are extremely dangerous and bad for you and I was lucky that after playing soccer for 24 years to have had as few injuries as I had had. No wonder I had such back pain. I couldn’t help feeling extremely foolish and irresponsible. I was a mother now – what was I doing playing high-intensity sports? A horrific x-ray chart on the wall in the chiro office showed the degeneration of the spine with associated symptoms. In stage two degeneration, nausea, which I had, was listed as a symptom.

....She said that if I felt pain doing this, that that was proof of a pinched nerve. If I had tingling or numbness, that was a sign of nerve damage and was very bad. Wouldn’t you know it but my foot went numb and tingly when she did this, at which she seemed surprised. I was horrified. I could not believe how badly my body had deteriorated.

Surely I had been foolish in not being more careful with my body. I had been pushing strollers, lifting my toddler, playing soccer and doing all kinds of things without a second thought as to what it was doing to my body.

But worst of all was having to tell a crying, curly-haired cherub that mommy can’t pick him up anymore. I believed what I was doing was for the best of both of us, and that I was being a good mother by trying to get well. This hurts me to read, and must be read by many!--Andy

I began to find that the pain relief following chiro adjustments had decreased in length sometimes to only an hour or so.

I have to pause here to mention what else I found when I began googling “sacroiliac joint pain” and “herniated disc” pain. What I found were stories of millions of people suffering from horrific levels of back pain, many for decades, people who had multiple surgeries, injections, implants etc. only to have the pain return in the same place or surface elsewhere. There seemed to be no cure for back pain. Once you got it, you suffered with it for life. If you were one of the lucky ones, you only had recurring episodes but could generally live your life; others suffered continuously and couldn’t work, or completely lost their standard of living.

 

I love this! You have inspired me to face the dreaded elliptical machine that has been sitting untouched in my spare bedroom for over 5 years. Because I have a sedentary job, I would love to use it for cardio and strength building - but I'm deathly afraid of it. Perhaps, I need to get a little wild in my thinking! Thank you for this post and congratulations on your success.

 

I second Hattie - this is awesome! Thanks for sharing you story @grapefruit - it's so uplifting and inspiring.

Edit: Just wanted to add I have just read your blog post too @grapefruit - wow, one of the clearest and most powerful stories of TMS healing I have read!

I particularly loved this:

"Everybody knows that when you are sad, salty tears fall from your eyes. If you are embarrassed, blood flows to your cheeks. If you are nervous, you feel flutterings in your stomach. People’s hearts pound and they shake with fear after a close call on the highway or if they believe someone is following them (even if no one is – your body only knows the messages your mind sends it). However, people will not accept that pain indicates rage like tears indicate sadness."

Brilliant.

 

Whatever you fear or dread, you have to face it head on at some point. If the pain flares up, just laugh about it. You may have to ride that elliptical 100 times until you conquer the pain (I had to go up and down stairs that many times), but it's the only way to victory. I'm convinced that when it comes to TMS and physical activity, it's a total battle. And you can win!

 

Thanks for reading it. I know it is really long.