Day 1 Ten years of pain in the dark

Like others have said before, I feel like I have tried it all. Muscle relaxant, Ostheopaths (4), Acupuncture, Physical Therapy (3), Reiki, Chiropractors (4), Kinesiology (2), Personal trainer, yoga, swimming, quitting running, quitting biking, natural remedies, disk decompression protocole, getting a new office chair, getting a new bed (2), getting new pillows (3), changing sleeping positions, and others I don’t even remember how they are called. I refuse to make the calculation of time and money I have spent on fixing my lower back pain over the last 10 years, it would make me too furious.

I received a diagnosis of buldging discs and mild vertebrae arthrosis. I have 2 MRIs reports, 3 years apart, and the newer one looks kinda better than the older one.
Regarding the pain, nothing makes sense : irrestpective of what I am trying or what I am changing in my habits and lifestyle, the pain randomly comes and goes. It does not correlate with any logical structural explanation for it. I am completely sold on the fact that there is nothing structurally wrong with me. I happen to have a number of other mild health issues which are all symptoms of a disfunctional hormonal balance or imflammation, but never related by any health professional to an identified disease. I believe they are also in some way symptomes of to the same syndrome.

On the psychological front, I have also been working a lot in recent years on improving how I experience my life. My main issue has been to recognise, understand and express my emotions. This was identified before I heard about TMS. I am 100% convinced that my emotional and psychological state has a direct impact on my back pain and possibly other health imbalances I am experiencing. I could also see some “conditioned” occurrence of the pain, coming from all the information I have been collecting over the years regarding the Dos and Don’ts of back pain.

Since I completed “Healing back pain” about a week ago and have been browsing through TSM Wiki, I tried the suggestions and methods whenever my pain was occuring. I have also resumed exercise, after having stopped everything for almost 2 months.
Right now I am not pain free, I feel stiff, from the lack of exercise, sore, from resuming exercise quite intensely, and the conditionned pain is still here, mostly while seating (office chair, car) and bending forward. However my fear and worry about the problem I thought the pain was a symptom of is totally gone. When the pain comes intensely, say shooting down the leg while driving, I usually can control it and after a matter of minutes it is gone.
I want to start running again, going back to yoga, do things in the house without fear, exercise intensely to be healthier and elevate my moods. I am committed to complete the program each day to reverse and overcome 10 years of worry, fear, misinformation and conditionning.

 

Welcome, Natric! I too had an epiphany after reading Sarno's book. You're in the right spot!
I'd like to suggest that you try the SEP--the structured education program found on this wiki. It will introduce you to a number of personal stories, great resources, and give you a lot of food for thought.
Blessings on your journey.

 

Thanks! I am working on it indeed.

 

Hi, Natric. Gigi is right. The SEProgram is wonderful. It healed me from severe back pain and I'm 86! We all wish we were among those who healed right away after reading Dr. Sarno's Healing Back Pain, but for most of us it took a while longer. You have to do the journaling to discover the emotions causing your pain. I found Sarno's 12 Daily Reminders from his book to be very helpful in convincing me that my pain was psychological and not structural.

I will print them below, but first a few words about fear.

Oprah Winfrey: “The thing you fear most has no power. Your fear of it is what has the power.”

Actor Jake Gyllenhaal: “Do you know what fear stands for? False Evidence Appearing Real.”


Herbie’s Extended Version of Dr. Sarno’s 12 DAILY REMINDERS

1. The pain is due to TMS. This is real pain or anxiety but it is caused by subconscious tensions and triggers, stressors and traits to your reactions and fears and also when at boiling point your conscious tension can and does also cause real pain.
2. The main reason for the pain is mild oxygen deprivation. This means that when you get in pain or anxiety then the blood is restricted from going to your lower back, for instance. The blood being restricted causes oxygen deprivation which causes the pain. Remember, where there is no oxygen then there is pain in the body. Also, the pain stays because of fear.
3. TMS is a harmless condition caused by my REPRESSED EMOTIONS so even though you think you can harm yourself from the years of pain you have felt and how you feel in general -- so far no reports have been heard from TMS healing knowledge causing damage to anyone, it only helps.
4. The principle emotion is your repressed ANGER -- this means under your consciousness lies something that happens automatically to everyone. TMSers have repressions that are stored because of our personality traits, traumas, stressors, fears, strain, etc... When these stored repressions build and build, then eventually they cause the brain to send pain into your body to keep you from having an emotional crises. The mind-body thinks it is helping you.
5. TMS exists to DISTRACT your attentions from the emotions, stressors, tensions and strains of your personality traits because if you can get distraction then you won’t have to be in emotional turmoil. When you don't face and feel your emotions and they get repressed because you didn't want to deal with something -- they are just adding up in this beaker, ready to pour over and create real pain and anxiety in your body.
6. Since my body is perfectly normal, there is nothing to fear. So in reality when I fear the pain or anxiety I just cause myself undo strain and tension adding to the beaker of pain. If I fear, then I feed the pain, If I fear, it’s impossible to recondition. Fear keeps the pain and anxiety alive in the body through focus.
7. Therefore, physical activity is harmless. If I want to work against the pain I could but it’s better to lose some of the pain so when I start my life over I have to be in pain trying to heal because facing the repressions and all the other activities that cause the pain and reversing my fear and focus to them, then I can heal.
8. I am resuming all normal physical activity. I don't fear moving anymore. I believe in my body’s ability to heal now. I can move as I want. I will not fear moving with a bent back anymore. I will also practice going out and acting normal again, not in fear of what pain might do to me.
9. The pain is unimportant and powerless. Its only power is how it is hidden -- its illusion, its fear.
10. I will keep my attention on the emotional issues. I will think about my emotions and feel my emotions throughout the day. I will not judge, criticize or fear my emotions. I will not run from my emotional issues but face every one of them. I will feel my emotions fully and cry if I need to. Then I will release the emotion and get my mind and thoughts back to my life and living in the present.
11. I am in control of all of this. This is how I recover.
12. I will be thinking PSYCHOLOGICALLY AT ALL TIMES. This means I will keep my thoughts on psychological issues like happiness, fear and anger -- traits and triggers, conditioning and journaling -- The science behind mind-body/TMS healing, etc.... This way I will not feed my thoughts to the body -- that is a trick of TMS. TMS will always try to get me to focus on the body caused by the pain until I break its show and flair. When I get my attention off physical symptoms and on to emotional issues and psychological issues then I will not feed the fear of the physical issues anymore, thus making the TMS of no pain effect on the body. This will in return, give us the cure and become pain-free.