Pastor Ken
Peer Supporter
I was in the military when my physical problems began to overtake my regular life. I began to have incredible pain in my heals and feet and lower legs.
After several years of treatments and visits to specialists, the military doctors diagnosed me with chronic, bi-lateral tarsal tunnel syndrome and achilles tendonitis.
No matter what we did, the pain never went away. It only got worse.
They could never determine exactly why my issue started in the first place, or why it wouldn't go away.
Eventually, they got to the point where they had given up on fixing my problem, I was kicked to the curb with a medical discharge. This was just after 9/11 and the doctors and my superiors all said I was a liability. If I couldn't keep up, someone else might be put in harms way to support me if/when our unit was ever deployed.
During my last meeting I had with a military podiatrist, I was told that the problem would never go away. I was told that I should never run or jump anymore, and that if I did, it would mean certain pain. I was told that my tendons were at risk of rupturing and that eventually the left achilles tendon would almost certainly do so. At that point I would require surgery, but the podiatrist said, surgery would not guarantee a cure for the issue. I was advised to avoid surgery for the tarsal tunnel because the results of that kind of surgical intervention was a "mixed bag" at best.
So in civilian life, I avoided running and jumping, though my old profession (prior to my call into pastoral ministry) required a lot of walking, climbing and carrying a heavy load. So, the pain remained, but I pressed on.
Once I followed my call into the ministry, I took on a much more sedentary lifestyle (except for standing up to preach on Sunday's, most of my time is spent at a desk in my office, or in a chair during pastoral counseling sessions. But, my logic was that with less movement and not carrying heavy loads, my pain should go away.
The Opposite was true.
After a couple of years, my pain had increased so much that I couldn't walk with any assurance without a cane. I was prescribed a high powered anti-inflammatory for the tendons and a nerve med for the tarsal tunnel and given high-dollar orthotics. They provided some relief, for a time and I was able to come off of the cane, but then I began to have side effects (I was told from the meds) including skin rashes and a possible ulcer (severe gut pain and IBS).
So what happened?
About a year and a half ago, one of our locals who I was friends with came to me with a book called "Healing Back Pain" by a guy named John Sarno. I love my friend, but, as he described how the book (and a 20/20 news report on Sarno) had helped him understand his chronic pain to be a "Mind/Body" issue, I quickly tuned out, inwardly thought, "What is this "New Age" nonsense, and placed the book on a shelf to collect dust and never to be read.
Fast forward to a month or so ago (I am writing this in November 2018), as my friend saw the pain increasing and traveling to new parts of my body, he tried to tell me about Sarno again. This time, God bless him, my friend gave me another copy of the same book, this time underlining and tagging each page that spoke directly to my issues! He also gave me a copy of an article he had written for a regional newspaper recounting how he used information to cure his chronic pain.
As I read his story and as I read the underlined passages, I began to consider TMS/PPD to be a likely culprit for my life altering chronic pain.
I then looked up the 20/20 video on YouTube, watched it and really began to see myself in the story.
So, I checked out the audio book version of Healing Back Pain and gave it a listen and — I don't know how else to say it — I was better!
My pain in my feet went away. AFTER 16+ miserable years!
My gut issues also subsided. Then the pain started to move around to other parts of my body. But, having read about "having the pain on the run" I actually laughed it off, told my brain that it need not try to distract me with pain, that I have all the tools I need to deal with any "repressed rage" or whatever else it was trying to cover up, and those traveling pains, traveled on out of my life (for the most part, though they still try to creep back in for a fresh rebuke
.
So, I am joining the page because, yesterday, I bought a pair of running shoes and this morning I ran.
I. RAN! Actually I walked, ran, walked, ran in accordance with an app I'm using to help couch potatoes get back on to their feet.
This is a milestone that I am nearly without words to describe.
I am also here to start a conversation about the understanding that Dr. Sarno posits about the id, ego and superego in his book, "The Mindbody Prescription". While I don't buy into Freudian terminology, there is a direct correlation between what Freud described (retold as the "Child" "Parent" and "Adult" by Sarno) — There is a direct connection between the war within those aspects of our mind and the war within the human soul described in the Scriptures as the "inner man" and the "me" of faith. The Apostle Paul describes this tension between the letter to the Romans, chapter 7. Later he talks about a "thorn in the flesh," which no two scholars agree upon what that "thorn" was. Also, the Psalmist (in Psalm 31) describes a distress causing his 1) body and bones to wasted away, 2) his years spent with sighing, and 3) his strength failing, because of his own iniquity (sin).
Those could all be terms I would have used in the past for my chronic pain!
Anyway, I won't enter into any squabbles about the different faith traditions of the consumers and contributors of TMSwiki, but as I couldn't find much here or anywhere on the Christian approach to this helpful movement in the relief of chronic pain, I'd like to be a part of helping that avenue take shape for those interested.
After several years of treatments and visits to specialists, the military doctors diagnosed me with chronic, bi-lateral tarsal tunnel syndrome and achilles tendonitis.
No matter what we did, the pain never went away. It only got worse.
They could never determine exactly why my issue started in the first place, or why it wouldn't go away.
Eventually, they got to the point where they had given up on fixing my problem, I was kicked to the curb with a medical discharge. This was just after 9/11 and the doctors and my superiors all said I was a liability. If I couldn't keep up, someone else might be put in harms way to support me if/when our unit was ever deployed.
During my last meeting I had with a military podiatrist, I was told that the problem would never go away. I was told that I should never run or jump anymore, and that if I did, it would mean certain pain. I was told that my tendons were at risk of rupturing and that eventually the left achilles tendon would almost certainly do so. At that point I would require surgery, but the podiatrist said, surgery would not guarantee a cure for the issue. I was advised to avoid surgery for the tarsal tunnel because the results of that kind of surgical intervention was a "mixed bag" at best.
So in civilian life, I avoided running and jumping, though my old profession (prior to my call into pastoral ministry) required a lot of walking, climbing and carrying a heavy load. So, the pain remained, but I pressed on.
Once I followed my call into the ministry, I took on a much more sedentary lifestyle (except for standing up to preach on Sunday's, most of my time is spent at a desk in my office, or in a chair during pastoral counseling sessions. But, my logic was that with less movement and not carrying heavy loads, my pain should go away.
The Opposite was true.
After a couple of years, my pain had increased so much that I couldn't walk with any assurance without a cane. I was prescribed a high powered anti-inflammatory for the tendons and a nerve med for the tarsal tunnel and given high-dollar orthotics. They provided some relief, for a time and I was able to come off of the cane, but then I began to have side effects (I was told from the meds) including skin rashes and a possible ulcer (severe gut pain and IBS).
So what happened?
About a year and a half ago, one of our locals who I was friends with came to me with a book called "Healing Back Pain" by a guy named John Sarno. I love my friend, but, as he described how the book (and a 20/20 news report on Sarno) had helped him understand his chronic pain to be a "Mind/Body" issue, I quickly tuned out, inwardly thought, "What is this "New Age" nonsense, and placed the book on a shelf to collect dust and never to be read.
Fast forward to a month or so ago (I am writing this in November 2018), as my friend saw the pain increasing and traveling to new parts of my body, he tried to tell me about Sarno again. This time, God bless him, my friend gave me another copy of the same book, this time underlining and tagging each page that spoke directly to my issues! He also gave me a copy of an article he had written for a regional newspaper recounting how he used information to cure his chronic pain.
As I read his story and as I read the underlined passages, I began to consider TMS/PPD to be a likely culprit for my life altering chronic pain.
I then looked up the 20/20 video on YouTube, watched it and really began to see myself in the story.
So, I checked out the audio book version of Healing Back Pain and gave it a listen and — I don't know how else to say it — I was better!
My pain in my feet went away. AFTER 16+ miserable years!
My gut issues also subsided. Then the pain started to move around to other parts of my body. But, having read about "having the pain on the run" I actually laughed it off, told my brain that it need not try to distract me with pain, that I have all the tools I need to deal with any "repressed rage" or whatever else it was trying to cover up, and those traveling pains, traveled on out of my life (for the most part, though they still try to creep back in for a fresh rebuke
.So, I am joining the page because, yesterday, I bought a pair of running shoes and this morning I ran.
I. RAN! Actually I walked, ran, walked, ran in accordance with an app I'm using to help couch potatoes get back on to their feet.
This is a milestone that I am nearly without words to describe.
I am also here to start a conversation about the understanding that Dr. Sarno posits about the id, ego and superego in his book, "The Mindbody Prescription". While I don't buy into Freudian terminology, there is a direct correlation between what Freud described (retold as the "Child" "Parent" and "Adult" by Sarno) — There is a direct connection between the war within those aspects of our mind and the war within the human soul described in the Scriptures as the "inner man" and the "me" of faith. The Apostle Paul describes this tension between the letter to the Romans, chapter 7. Later he talks about a "thorn in the flesh," which no two scholars agree upon what that "thorn" was. Also, the Psalmist (in Psalm 31) describes a distress causing his 1) body and bones to wasted away, 2) his years spent with sighing, and 3) his strength failing, because of his own iniquity (sin).
Those could all be terms I would have used in the past for my chronic pain!
Anyway, I won't enter into any squabbles about the different faith traditions of the consumers and contributors of TMSwiki, but as I couldn't find much here or anywhere on the Christian approach to this helpful movement in the relief of chronic pain, I'd like to be a part of helping that avenue take shape for those interested.
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