Hi all
I thought I'd write a post here to introduce myself. I'm a 37 year-old male from New Zealand, and have very recently read Dr Sarno's book Healing Back Pain. It absolutely is me.
For a bit of background... In 2012, I found out that my wife at the time had been having an affair. That was completely devastating, and caused all sorts of emotional turmoil. Not too long after that, I began to notice pain in my thoracic spine after sleeping, and when sitting. I decided it must be because of the fact I work in a desk job, and made a conscious effort to become more active. I joined a gym, and had a fitness assessment done, which determined my posture wasn't great. So I focused my training around flexibility and posture correction, rather than weights or cardio. Over time, the pain subsided. Guess what I thought had fixed it?
Fast forward to the beginning of 2015, when I discovered that the affair in 2012 was far from her last. Long story short, we separated in early February 2015. She took half of the possessions, leaving me with no bed. So I bought a secondhand bed which had a very hard mattress. I was fine on that for just over a week, then came the back pain again. I tried everything I could to soften that bed. In the end, I bought a new mattress, which wasn't cheap either. It took a long time for my pain to improve, but it did. Although it never went away.
In about June last year, I decided I'd had enough, so went to see a physiotherapist. She had a pretty good idea about back pain, but just didn't connect the dots. A couple of things she said to me stood out. First, that pain can be caused by stress and life-changing events. And secondly, she said they have done studies about pain and have found that it all originates in the brain - even when you have an injury, the source of the pain is entirely in the brain. I can see now she was gently trying to get my mind to flirt with the idea that my pain may not be structural at all. But of course, she gave me some exercises to do. They helped. At the follow up visit, she gave me more, they helped too. Until I went through a period of high stress, and the pain came back. It was at that point that I began to put two and two together, and began to question how even though I was doing all the right exercises and stretches, I was suddenly experiencing pain. Nonetheless, I still saw my pain as something physical, that was somehow aggravated by stress.
Over time, it got better again. But it reared its ugly head again just before Christmas 2015. I was also seeing my doctor for what was later diagnosed as Ulcerative Colitis (I've read it is unrelated to TMS, although the jury is still out for me as the timing coincides with everything else I went through last year). No matter which doctors I told about my back, none seemed particularly interested.
The pain when sitting was a right nuisance, but the more debilitating pain was what I felt at night. I was waking up most nights at about 3 or 4am in pain, and when I'd move in certain ways, it would literally make me scream it was that bad. Get up, walk around, and within a couple of hours, it was all but gone (provided I didn't sit).
My GP eventually referred me for an x-ray, which found no abnormalities. I 'conquered' the nighttime issues and subsequent sleep deprivation when I discovered I could sleep on the sofa without any issues. Of course, I then decided it had to be my mattress. Overall, the underlying issue was still there. Too long sitting, or too many consecutive nights on the wrong bed, and it was back with a vengeance. I tried exercises, massage, a more supportive pillow, deep tissue massage, softer mattress toppers, standing desks, adjusting my workstation. Nothing seemed to help. I couldn't sit for longer than about 20 minutes without feeling pain, and when I sleep on anything other than my sofa, I will experience varying amounts of pain. It's been thoracic back pain, and also pain in and around the ribs, with the latter only rearing its ugly head on particularly bad days.
I only this week discovered Dr Sarno's book, which made the whole thing make sense. The physio said it, and I've seen it - it's mental. There's been a historic link between stress and my back pain. I've tried practically everything physical there is to try, and none of it helps, so it simply has to be TMS.
I've been doing some experiments over the past few days, trying sitting while I feel the pain, and observing how my thoughts can make the pain go away almost entirely. How can this be a physical ailment? It's not. We all know that - that's why we're here. I listened to Alan Gordon's session with Christie (on the recovery program page) last night and really like his attitude. I've been adopting some of it. My attitude is a bit like Lieutenant Dan on Forrest Gump in the scene where they are on the shrimp boat in the heavy storm and he's screaming at God, patronising the apparently weak storm.. "You call this a storm!?!?!?! Show me your worst!!". I basically say to the pain "come on... show me what you've got. Is that the best you can do?". When I am about to face situations that would previously have caused pain (such as a long meeting where I sit down) I say to it beforehand "come on pain.... I dare you... I ******* dare you.". Since showing it I am no longer intimidated by it, I've found I am making great progress. For the last two nights, I've sat down on the sofa all evening, just to prove the point. It's been improving gradually each night. In weeks gone by, I would have been lying down after 30-60 minutes of sitting, so as "not to aggravate the fragile structure of my spine and give my physical ailment a chance to heal".
My emotional changes haven't all been to do with conquering and not fearing the pain, though. I unearthed a pretty heavy issue the night I had read Dr Sarno's book, to the point that I broke down in tears like a child for a while. I think the anger I was secretly feeling was probably a big contributor to my TMS. But I didn't want to acknowledge that anger, because of what it implied. So the pain came on as a distraction. I do think that each time I've had an episode of TMS, it has come about for different reasons, so the repeat pattern is clearly a failure to connect with my emotions, and a disturbing tendency to sweep them under the rug and quite happily live in denial.
The biggest challenge is going to be shaking the night-time pain. I'm finding the daytime pain to be far more manageable, because I can employ the more conscious, emotional approach. What my brain chooses to do while I'm asleep is completely outside my conscious control, so training my subconscious is what's going to take the time I suspect.
This has been a very long post, I know, but I thought it would be useful to tell the story.
Richard
I thought I'd write a post here to introduce myself. I'm a 37 year-old male from New Zealand, and have very recently read Dr Sarno's book Healing Back Pain. It absolutely is me.
For a bit of background... In 2012, I found out that my wife at the time had been having an affair. That was completely devastating, and caused all sorts of emotional turmoil. Not too long after that, I began to notice pain in my thoracic spine after sleeping, and when sitting. I decided it must be because of the fact I work in a desk job, and made a conscious effort to become more active. I joined a gym, and had a fitness assessment done, which determined my posture wasn't great. So I focused my training around flexibility and posture correction, rather than weights or cardio. Over time, the pain subsided. Guess what I thought had fixed it?
Fast forward to the beginning of 2015, when I discovered that the affair in 2012 was far from her last. Long story short, we separated in early February 2015. She took half of the possessions, leaving me with no bed. So I bought a secondhand bed which had a very hard mattress. I was fine on that for just over a week, then came the back pain again. I tried everything I could to soften that bed. In the end, I bought a new mattress, which wasn't cheap either. It took a long time for my pain to improve, but it did. Although it never went away.
In about June last year, I decided I'd had enough, so went to see a physiotherapist. She had a pretty good idea about back pain, but just didn't connect the dots. A couple of things she said to me stood out. First, that pain can be caused by stress and life-changing events. And secondly, she said they have done studies about pain and have found that it all originates in the brain - even when you have an injury, the source of the pain is entirely in the brain. I can see now she was gently trying to get my mind to flirt with the idea that my pain may not be structural at all. But of course, she gave me some exercises to do. They helped. At the follow up visit, she gave me more, they helped too. Until I went through a period of high stress, and the pain came back. It was at that point that I began to put two and two together, and began to question how even though I was doing all the right exercises and stretches, I was suddenly experiencing pain. Nonetheless, I still saw my pain as something physical, that was somehow aggravated by stress.
Over time, it got better again. But it reared its ugly head again just before Christmas 2015. I was also seeing my doctor for what was later diagnosed as Ulcerative Colitis (I've read it is unrelated to TMS, although the jury is still out for me as the timing coincides with everything else I went through last year). No matter which doctors I told about my back, none seemed particularly interested.
The pain when sitting was a right nuisance, but the more debilitating pain was what I felt at night. I was waking up most nights at about 3 or 4am in pain, and when I'd move in certain ways, it would literally make me scream it was that bad. Get up, walk around, and within a couple of hours, it was all but gone (provided I didn't sit).
My GP eventually referred me for an x-ray, which found no abnormalities. I 'conquered' the nighttime issues and subsequent sleep deprivation when I discovered I could sleep on the sofa without any issues. Of course, I then decided it had to be my mattress. Overall, the underlying issue was still there. Too long sitting, or too many consecutive nights on the wrong bed, and it was back with a vengeance. I tried exercises, massage, a more supportive pillow, deep tissue massage, softer mattress toppers, standing desks, adjusting my workstation. Nothing seemed to help. I couldn't sit for longer than about 20 minutes without feeling pain, and when I sleep on anything other than my sofa, I will experience varying amounts of pain. It's been thoracic back pain, and also pain in and around the ribs, with the latter only rearing its ugly head on particularly bad days.
I only this week discovered Dr Sarno's book, which made the whole thing make sense. The physio said it, and I've seen it - it's mental. There's been a historic link between stress and my back pain. I've tried practically everything physical there is to try, and none of it helps, so it simply has to be TMS.
I've been doing some experiments over the past few days, trying sitting while I feel the pain, and observing how my thoughts can make the pain go away almost entirely. How can this be a physical ailment? It's not. We all know that - that's why we're here. I listened to Alan Gordon's session with Christie (on the recovery program page) last night and really like his attitude. I've been adopting some of it. My attitude is a bit like Lieutenant Dan on Forrest Gump in the scene where they are on the shrimp boat in the heavy storm and he's screaming at God, patronising the apparently weak storm.. "You call this a storm!?!?!?! Show me your worst!!". I basically say to the pain "come on... show me what you've got. Is that the best you can do?". When I am about to face situations that would previously have caused pain (such as a long meeting where I sit down) I say to it beforehand "come on pain.... I dare you... I ******* dare you.". Since showing it I am no longer intimidated by it, I've found I am making great progress. For the last two nights, I've sat down on the sofa all evening, just to prove the point. It's been improving gradually each night. In weeks gone by, I would have been lying down after 30-60 minutes of sitting, so as "not to aggravate the fragile structure of my spine and give my physical ailment a chance to heal".
My emotional changes haven't all been to do with conquering and not fearing the pain, though. I unearthed a pretty heavy issue the night I had read Dr Sarno's book, to the point that I broke down in tears like a child for a while. I think the anger I was secretly feeling was probably a big contributor to my TMS. But I didn't want to acknowledge that anger, because of what it implied. So the pain came on as a distraction. I do think that each time I've had an episode of TMS, it has come about for different reasons, so the repeat pattern is clearly a failure to connect with my emotions, and a disturbing tendency to sweep them under the rug and quite happily live in denial.
The biggest challenge is going to be shaking the night-time pain. I'm finding the daytime pain to be far more manageable, because I can employ the more conscious, emotional approach. What my brain chooses to do while I'm asleep is completely outside my conscious control, so training my subconscious is what's going to take the time I suspect.
This has been a very long post, I know, but I thought it would be useful to tell the story.
Richard
Last edited:
