Hi, Im new here. Although I am not new to TMS. I was diagnosed with it 22 years ago, when I was 18 years old. I suffered from severe and debilitating back pain, forcing me to drop out of college at the time, because I could not sit. I met with Dr Sarno, after being convinced that he could help me, and he did. I flushed all of my narcotics down the toilet, and I returned to a mostly normal life. I had bouts of pain, most of them were bearable, some wer every difficult, but I always tried to talk to my back and my brain, tell it to stop, that it cant keep repressing the feelings I had, and trust me, there were a lot of them! Recently, I had such severe pain, I couldn't move, it was beyond horrible. It was worse than the 5 labors I had, some of which were without an epidoural. I was taken by ambulance to the hospital, and a pice of the herniated disc that Ive had for 22 + years, broke off, and was pressing on a nerve. I was admitted, and had surgery. Three weeks later, I had another emergency surgery, as I had a lot of weakness in my foot, but I had severe pain, which was not supposed to be after surgery. THe doctor is tops, and he hesitated, and consulted other top professors, before doing the second surgery, but he said he had to make room for the nerves, as it seemed the disc had re herniated. This tiome they removed the rest of the disc, but also they said there was an infection brewing, because there was tons of fluid. Three weeks after that, I was back in the hospital. due to a major infection. I was told on the follow up visit that I was very, very sick, and my body will take a long time to heal. I am not longer having that horrible back pain, but I do have muscular back pain, and I still have numbness/pain in my leg. I started acupuncture, and she actually recommended this program. Although I know that Dr Sarno's theory works, and I think it can help me with my back now , Im not convinced that I didn't need the surgeries, and Im not convinced that I don't have nerve damage, as the neurologist has told me. Maybe I should be convinced, but something is holding me back. So, any encouragement, advice, ideas are extremely welcome! Thanks!