Successful recovery - gone back to talk to docs?

hawaii_five0

hawaii_five0

Well known member
I am curious if there is anyone on here who has successfully recovered or improved their TMS condition and then gone back to a medical practitioner who previously told you your pain was due to some XYZ structural problem?

It just occurred to me that here is a typical scenario on here (let's take back pain as an example): you have some back pain. You go to a doc. He tells you you have a herniated disc or a spondylolisthesis or something else and that is the reason. You obsess about it. It gets worse. You go to months and years of more doctors, physical therapy, chiropractors, acupuncture, etc. none of it helps. Eventually you learn of the mind-body connection and are able to cure yourself simply by calming your nervous system down, reading Dr Sarno, etc.

But very likely you never go back to those original practitioners and tell them what happened (why spend more money, nothing in our medical system is cheap). So the original back doctors just happily go along telling people their normal abnormalities are the problem and they need surgery. They never really get the feedback that they were basically wrong.
 
Beliefs and Bias die hard. I'll tell you a story to illustrate,
I rode my mountain bike the 6 or 7 miles to go and visit my old Chronic Pain center. I wasn't ever supposed to even Jog again,so riding a bike would have been waaaay out of bounds, lest I damage my delicate self.

I saw my old therapist in the parking lot and came up beside him. I did a 'donkey Kick' off the curb in front of him, skidding to a stop. He was startled, and then automatically gave me the warning of what could happen if I had the smallest mishap. I told him about Sarno and me being out of pain and he skeptically restated his concerns about my weak body and to 'be careful'.

So... that pain center is operating on the 'Secondary Gain' Theory of pain and believes it is mostly psychological too (as opposed to Sarno who believes it is 100% Psychological). Secondary Gain presupposes the injury to be real. From his perspective, all of their therapy 'worked' and I am just being cocky. I could see it in the condescending look in his eyes as we spoke... like he knew something I didn't and I was doomed to failure.
If you take that same idea out a little farther, the chiro, the surgeon, the PT's and Acupuncturists, the shock therapy people and the Massage therapy people would all think that their therapy 'worked' and I was proof. Never mind that I was getting worse all of the time.

The only professional I ever spoke to who not only believed , but was fascinated with the Sarno theory was the YOUNG shrink I went to for my anger issues after I recovered. Not being in the inner circle of the pain world, his mind wasn't as ossified. Perhaps younger Drs. are changing about this a little, but when you have half a million bucks buried into a Phd and all of the other crap, how easily are you going to admit "It was all wrong"...and remember...except for maybe the psychologists, they have nothing they can do to help you.... nothing to sell you.

I think that is why Sarno was a saint... he didn't waste time trying to convince the unconviceable, but brought the info right to us. Thank God.
 
Baseball65 said:
Beliefs and Bias die hard...
Click to expand...
Yeah, Baseball65 pretty much nailed it. I'd love to tell some of my old pain doctors and chiros about my recovery, but I'm sure it would fall on deaf ears.

I mentioned Dr. Sarno to my primary care physician and he was curious. But he's way too busy to follow up on stuff. He's never wondered what happen to my back pain, my tennis elbow, my chronic fatigue, my chronic bronchitis or acid reflux. I should probably get a new primary care doc. ;)
 
A good doc would be happy you recovered regardless of diagnosis. All the doctors I saw at one point agreed with TMS. TMS is increasingly taking hold in modern times and anxiety is formally credited for even more physical symptoms, but it's an either or in severe cases.

Tldr; you don't need to go back to the doctor to verify, just enjoy your life. The best doctors are open minded.
 
Baseball65 said:
Beliefs and Bias die hard. I'll tell you a story to illustrate,
I rode my mountain bike the 6 or 7 miles to go and visit my old Chronic Pain center. I wasn't ever supposed to even Jog again,so riding a bike would have been waaaay out of bounds, lest I damage my delicate self.

I saw my old therapist in the parking lot and came up beside him. I did a 'donkey Kick' off the curb in front of him, skidding to a stop. He was startled, and then automatically gave me the warning of what could happen if I had the smallest mishap. I told him about Sarno and me being out of pain and he skeptically restated his concerns about my weak body and to 'be careful'.

So... that pain center is operating on the 'Secondary Gain' Theory of pain and believes it is mostly psychological too (as opposed to Sarno who believes it is 100% Psychological). Secondary Gain presupposes the injury to be real. From his perspective, all of their therapy 'worked' and I am just being cocky. I could see it in the condescending look in his eyes as we spoke... like he knew something I didn't and I was doomed to failure.
If you take that same idea out a little farther, the chiro, the surgeon, the PT's and Acupuncturists, the shock therapy people and the Massage therapy people would all think that their therapy 'worked' and I was proof. Never mind that I was getting worse all of the time.

The only professional I ever spoke to who not only believed , but was fascinated with the Sarno theory was the YOUNG shrink I went to for my anger issues after I recovered. Not being in the inner circle of the pain world, his mind wasn't as ossified. Perhaps younger Drs. are changing about this a little, but when you have half a million bucks buried into a Phd and all of the other crap, how easily are you going to admit "It was all wrong"...and remember...except for maybe the psychologists, they have nothing they can do to help you.... nothing to sell you.

I think that is why Sarno was a saint... he didn't waste time trying to convince the unconviceable, but brought the info right to us. Thank God.
Click to expand...
@Baseball65: great story.

It seems like it is some combination of a) docs have an obvious vested $ interest in things not changing too much, and b) they are also highly influenced by peer-reviewed studies, and there are no or few studies of people curing their own problem simply by calming down and accepting the psychosomatic nature of it. Even though there are untold number of recovery stories on YouTube, this forum etc (Sarno himself said he had cured "thousands" of patients in Healing Back Pain, and that book is 30 years old) - there really is an overwhelming amount of evidence from many sources that that is a legitimate treatment method that can and does work - too much of it is still anecdotal.

And yet the medical community completely accepts that placebos work. When new drugs are tested, they are run against a placebo sugar pill, which by itself invariably improves x% of people.

There are a few people in a position who could publish harder evidence about "TMS cures" (lets call it) vs "conventional medicine cures". E.g. David Hanscomb ("Back in Control" book) is an orthopedic surgeon who for decades operated on people's back issues, but admits that except for in certain circumstances most of the surgeries did not improve the patient's life in the long run, and often just made it worse (fusing vertebrae just leading to more stress on the other vertebrae, which then have to be operated on, etc.). But he also says in his book that as of that writing at least 50 of his patients who were aiming for surgery "cured themselves" - and stayed cured - by following his protocol of anxiety reduction, etc. So he could easily enough release harder numbers on his patients, but I guess that would not fly really in the world of peer review, i.e. it is not a controlled experiment. But it's still incredibly compelling.

I think humans really understand about 1 millionth of what actually is happening in nature, including our minds, and the power that is potentially there (and I work in a science field). I guess I am very disappointed in my "pain and spine" doctor, who, while being a very nice lady, even after multiple visits did not ever suggest any remedy beyond giving me more drugs, after PT did nothing to improve it. If she even once had said "you know what, you should investigate the role of anxiety and the mind-body connection to your pain", I would have respected her and the system way more.
 
Balsa11 said:
A good doc would be happy you recovered regardless of diagnosis. All the doctors I saw at one point agreed with TMS. TMS is increasingly taking hold in modern times and anxiety is formally credited for even more physical symptoms, but it's an either or in severe cases.

Tldr; you don't need to go back to the doctor to verify, just enjoy your life. The best doctors are open minded.
Click to expand...

@Balsa11: Yeah I agree with you that good docs will be happy for you and passively agree that a mind-body connection exists. But too few will actively propose it as a legitimate method for healing, even after "traditional" methods have obviously not worked. If more patients came back and said "hey by the way, this worked for me", they might be more inclined to do so.
 
It is hard to understand why the vast majority of docs are so closeminded about the concepts formulated by the insightful dr. Sarno many decades ago.
At least Sarno, as opposed to dr. Semmelweis, wasn't locked in a mental hospital.
We are moving forward !
;-)
 
My experience:

I wrote a letter, individually addressed to 12 physicians specialists who assessed/treated me (in several states), explaining briefly my success with the TMS work, and including my long Diagnoses list (which they might find themselves in). I did this because I wanted to educate them. I heard back from zero.

I saw two of my local practitioners at different times while I was vaulting all over a hardwood dance floor barefooted during Ecstatic Dance, and both at different times expressed surprise and happiness at my outcome (from crutches and orthodics). So at least those took in what was happening, and I think opened their minds.

I happened to contact a famous neurosurgeon during the pandemic (this was on support I was doing on Zoom for pandemic isolation) whose whole business is based on finding a deteriorated nerve to "release" whom I had flown for consultation. He asked how I was doing after ten years, and was positive in his response, suggesting that we each find our own way through pain. I was pleasantly surprised.

My primary physician in all of this took in what was happening to me, and was happy and onboard, by the way. That was nice.
 
I wrote an email to the acupuncturist who was trying really hard to convince me that another 3 weeks of his treatments would cure me (at ~$500 per week of needles and herbs, total of $5000 by then). I naively thought that the guy was in his business to help people and would be interested to learn how I managed to recover. He responded something like "glad you are doing better" and that was it, so I know now he was in it for the money.

I finished writing my book about my recovery on the eve of pandemic, so I am still waiting for it to subside so I could go into the medical office and hand-deliver my book to my former GP. It took me years to stop contemplating some kind of revenge on her after she refused to send me to physical therapy first, and then to the pain clinic, telling me that she would only refer me to the pain clinic after I would have had pain for at least 6 months. Anyone who ever had neuropathic pain would tell you that 6 month of it is hell.

I am past that now, I just want her to see me healthy and happy and know that she nearly killed me by her ignorance and cruelty. I doubt she would ever have any remorse.
 
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