Laughalot

The first time I had TMS, I didn't know I had it! It started in the summer of 2005, when I was a manager at a Summer Camp. I had 8 staff and 50-60 kids to oversee. I had never been a manager before and it was a stressful job where I had to work long hours. Halfway through the summer, I began to suffer intense groin pain. Once I had to go to the emergency room, the pain felt so intense. My family doctor recommended I visit a surgeon who was an expert in groin-related injuries, who had heard of this problem before and suggested surgery. He cautioned me that even with surgery, some of his patients relapsed into pain.

After a couple of months in recovery, I was fully functioning again and the groin pain was gone. Fast forward to 2009, when I lived in Japan working as an English teacher. I was a couple weeks into a weight-training program to support my budding interest in sport rock climbing, when once again I began to feel groin pain. This time the groin pain was accompanied by acute pain from my butt all the way to the back of the heel on my right leg. My whole right leg was tense and stiff. The local doctor told me I had a herniated disc and recommended I stop exercising.

At the age of 24 to be bed-ridden seemed totally absurd to me. People my age were out conquering mountains and surfing big waves, not lying in bed because of some "herniated disc." I was angry, and I wanted to find a real answer. Enter Doctor Sarno's book "Healing Back Pain." His description of the common sufferer sounded just like me. His "knowledge therapy" seemed so easy and practical, and I had some intuition that a lot of my pain was mental. I just had to give it a shot.

The first Saturday of putting "knowledge therapy" into practice, I went to go lead rockclimbing even though my leg and groin hurt considerably. And it occurred to me, I was deathly afraid of falling (even though a key aspect of lead rockclimbing is the possibility of falling up to 20 feet). I was extremely afraid, but I had not admitted it to myself or others. So I made myself get on the rock and fall 10 times. When my friend lowered me off the wall, the pain was gone. And it didn't come back. Moreover, the muscles in my leg had relaxed. I went to my doctor, who couldn't believe how fast my entire body had changed. I explained to him the book, but he didn't believe that such drastic changes could all result from a simple change in mindset.

Since 2009, I have continued to have experiences of ongoing physical pain in various parts of my body (including my groin). Using Dr. Sorno's method has resulted in the pain disappearing EVERY time.

I have seen a lot of people suffering from mysterious ailments, from the inability to sleep, to migraines and tight, painful backs/shoulders. Most are extremely skeptical of Dr. Sarno's book. So I am now searching for ways to help people explore this extremely important mind-body connection.