Looking forward to Day 8

My back pain started in January, after a move that my wife and I made to another state. Since the pain wouldn't go away, I scheduled an appointment with my doctor and started the normal routine - PT, anti-inflammatory, etc. My pain moved around, lower, middle upper, but there was one area (upper left) that just wouldn't go away (I couldn't take a deep breath) even after several PT sessions. To rule out a few things, my doctor ordered a chest x-ray to make sure there was no fluid on my lungs - x-ray came back clear (no issues). While I was going through my medical evals/PT I was at a work function and a co-worker and I were chatting and I told him I had been fighting through this back pain for months now - he told me that 'this may sound crazy...' and he told me about a family member who went to Dr. Sarno and was cured - he emailed me the video of Dr. Sarno's 20/20 appearance and I wanted to find out more. I started researching, found the Structured Educational Program and bought Healing Back Pain and started reading.

My physical therapist is actually a believer in mind-body connection and uses some of it during his treatment (although not clearly) - yesterday was what I decided would be my last PT session - I stopped taking my anti-inflammatory too (Dr. Sarno method of stopping treatments once you've determined there is no medical issue). When I woke up yesterday morning, I couldn't hardly walk - in addition to my on-going upper back pain, my lower back was in spasms (honestly walked like I was 100 years old - I'm 56). When I hobbled into my appointment, the therapist had me lay on my back - he went through a few small techniques - moving my arms around, flicking my face up and down - and the pain went away in my lower back immediately - he looked at me and said, 'this pain is all in your mind' - he hadn't done one thing that would have eliminated my pain but it was gone. I told him that I was reading a book by a doctor named Dr. Sarno - he smiled and said that he was going to recommend that book to me and that I needed to figure out what was going on in my mind that was causing the pain. Last night was the first night in a long time that I wasn't awaken with back pain - a little sore this morning, but nothing like the pain I've been experiencing.

I'm looking forward to going through the entire structured program and look forward to hearing from others on this forum.

Mike