1. Alan has completed the new Pain Recovery Program. To read or share it, use this updated link: https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/painrecovery/
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Our TMS drop-in chat is tomorrow (Saturday) from 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM Eastern (***NOTE*** now on US Daylight Time). It's a great way to get quick and interactive peer support, with Steve2 as your host. Look for the red Chat flag on top of the menu bar!

Much hope

Discussion in 'Support Subforum' started by oicani, Apr 8, 2014.

  1. oicani

    oicani New Member

    I am 80 years old, and I don't live in the United States.
    I bought Dr. John E. Sarno's book "The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain" six years ago.
    It was easy for me to identify myself as a typical TMS character and accept Dr. Sarno's diagnoses. In my past each time I had a new complain; fears were my main cause of concern. However, the moment I found information about the new condition (sometimes this took years); I relaxed, and the condition would reduce considerably or even be cured.
    I read Dr. Sarno's book once, and then repeated the reading of parts of it several times, and I accepted everything that he wrote. From the first reading, I was sure that the cause of my back pain was emotional. I believed that by the simple reading of the book I would be instantly cured from the pain I had on the left side of my lower back, sometimes in my left leg. Well, it didn't happen. From time to time, the pain did "move" to the right side, which convinced me more that it was a case of TMS.
    Before reading the book, I had tried shiatsu and acupuncture, with some relief for a few hours. After learning about TMS I stopped all this treatment.
    I was renitent to go see an orthopedist. I believed that he would send me to X-rays and then recommend physiotherapy, which I had done many years ago, without much success.
    In the last five years, I experienced the same left-side lower-back pain, whenever I walked. The consequence was that I almost gave up walking. All my activity is at home. I became very much sedentary. I realized that for the sake of my health, I should do more exercise, especially walking, and I did it sometimes. However, the moment it started hurting I looked for a bench to sit, and then returned home.
    I finally went to see an orthopedist in order to find out if after all, I had any serious structural problem. I had a CT and an MRI done. They found several problems in my back that would explain the pain and the sciatica. The doctor gave me temporarily some painkillers, suggested physiotherapy (I saw in his face no hope of success) and added that "if I felt like I could try surgery!
    This situation is becoming worsened and worsened. I drive even to places at a walking distance. And when I must walk 100 yards, I sit several times on the way. I only sit for 1 or 2 minutes and then go on walking. I cannot go up or down stairs without a rail to hold. I realize that this is due, mostly to fear, but I can't help.
    I decided that I must take myself in my hands and returned to Dr. Sarno's book, this time decided to make a 30 days reading program.
    At the same time, a friend wrote to me that she was suffering terribly from back pain, the doctors had identified a serious structural issue that could not be cured. From her description I was convince that her case was also a typical TMS.
    I Googled in order to find some reading about TMS to send to her and this is when I found TMSwiki and this forum. It seems to me much easier and effective than Dr. Sarno's technical style. So I am following the program, and I am now in day 3.
     
    North Star likes this.
  2. Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)

    Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021) Beloved Grand Eagle

    Hi, oicani. I'll be 84 in June so I know all about back pain. I lifted something heavy the wrong way two years
    ago and had screaming pain in my back and shoulders and sides of my rib cage. I didn't go to a doctor because
    I figured they're put me through a series of tests and examinations and/or give me pain killers. I toughed it out
    without even an aspirin or Advil, but it didn't help much. I asked a nurse friend about it and she recommended
    I read Dr. Sarno's Healing Back Pain. I read it and believed my pain was TMS and began to heal. Not completely,
    and figured that was because I withheld about 10 percent of TMS belief I attributed to my age and aging back.
    It took a while, but when I believed the pain was 100 percent from TMS and did more journaling into my
    childhood repressed emotions, I was almost 100 percent pain free. Maybe 95 percent. I think Sarno and Steve Ozanich and others are right when they say we won't be completely pain free until we believe 100 percent in TMS causing it.

    That isn't easy, especially for those like us who are 80 or more. We also may be reluctant to believe our TMS cause
    is thinking or worrying about our mortality. It's a subject we may have repressed all our lives, as I did.

    But I'm working on positive thoughts about what comes next. I do believe something comes next and
    that we go to (as Dickens says in A Tale of Two Cities) a far better place.

    I just wrote a book with Herbie, God Does Not Want You to Be In Pain, and my final chapter is on faith
    in being healed of pain and going to a far better place. It's available in paperback from amazon.com books
    and in a Kindle edition. There are a lot of TMS healing techniques in it, as well as the faith part.

    You might want to join the call-in tonight at 9 pm eastern. Herbie and I will be on to answer call-ins
    about the introduction to our book. Each following week

    Here's about the call-in tonight:

    http://tmswiki.org/forum/threads/call-in-tues-april-8-beginning-walt-herbies-book.4275/
     

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