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I am a health care worker who healed from over 15 hears of chronic hip and back pain. My recovery was not linear, but marked by many peaks and valleys. I initially developed bilateral hip pain after a fall while skating outside. I just assumed it would eventually go away, but it lingered for a year. It was quite debilitating, and even walking one to two minutes brought on severe pain. I tried rest, NSAIDS, and eventually physio. After about a year, it went away, and I assumed the physio healed it. But 2 years later it came back even worse, with no clear injury this time. The pain was intense, usually unrelenting, and it stayed to varying degrees for over 10 years. Sometimes it would be my right hip, then my left hip, and then occasionally both hips would improve a bit, and my lower back would start to hurt. I could not walk more than a minute, could not stand for more than 5 minutes, struggled to maintain my job, had difficulty sleeping, and felt life was no longer worth living. If not for the fact that I had 2 young children, I may well have considered suicide.
Because I was in the health care field, I saw a friend who was a sports medicine specialist, another friend who was a physical medicine specialist, and a third friend who was a chiropractor. They all eventually said they could not find any physical explanation for my symptoms, including a benign MRI. I distinctly recall asking the sports medicine specialist whether any of this could be psychological, and his answer surprised me at the time. He said that based on over 40 years of practice, his feeling was that over 90% of the chronic pain he saw was psychologically rooted.
After hearing that, I began to explore the psychological roots of chronic pain. I began to see a therapist, and read many books, including all of Sarno, Schecter, Schubiner, as well as Allan Gordon's new book. I actually emailed Howard directly, and he was incredibly supportive, encouraging and helpful. I eventually also got into contact with Daniel Lyman, who also was amazingly helpful.
I realized that during my spiral down into chronic pain, I had been trying to ignore enormous life challenges. My marriage had become toxic over the last 15 years. I was essentially single parenting both my children. I was working 60 hours a week at a stressful job I did not enjoy (lets be honest, I hated it. My father (who had always been my most important source of love and support) was slowly dying of a neuro-degenerative disease and was suffering terribly. My brother had developed a life threatening cardiac condition. My sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. And through it all, I just kept pushing, and not complaining, because that's what I had always done.
In order to recover, I not only had to come to recognize the incredible stressors I was dealing with, but also come to terms with why I was always trying to care for others, why I always had to push through to function at a high level despite being miserable. I had to come to terms with low self-esteem, had to discover how to like and accept myself as I was, and had to learn to put myself first and care for myself. This was a long painful process, and I envied those lucky people who read Sarno and were instantly cured. In the end, I ended my marriage, and I think that was an essential part of starting to heal. I also had to grieve my father's death and come to terms with losing the most important support in my life, a process that took at least 5 years.
I moved out to a new house in a natural setting surrounded by deer and other wildlife, got a puppy (a wonderful golden retriever), gave up a large part of my work (the part I really hated), and eventually met a new partner who seems to accept me for who I am, and who is nurturing and loyal.
I slowly (very slowly!) went from suffering terrible pain with a minute walk to walking 2 minutes, 3 minutes, and eventually for 30 minutes. I taught myself to fear the pain as little as possible, and push into it a little bit in the knowledge that nothing terrible or damaging was going to happen to my body. I gradually gave up taking pain killers. I used to love to run, and with the guidance of Daniel, about one year ago, I started to run again. I am now running 6 miles twice per week, swimming a mile twice per week, and doing strength training, all without much pain. I still have trouble believing how far I have come, both physically and psychologically. It does not seem real sometimes.
There were many setbacks. I remember vividly last summer when I got back from a 30 minute walk where I had actually run for 2 minutes and thinking "I have this thing beat". The next morning, I developed intense tooth and jaw pain that lasted for 2 months. At that point, I almost wished I had my hip pain back. I spent a lot of time reading about symptom substitution, and realized I still had more inner work to do, and needed more changes in my external world as well. I had to remind myself again and again that I could not always understand why the pain was coming back or getting worse, could not always control the pain, but I could control how I reacted to it. Meditation was very helpful in that journey, as was maintaining a sense of humor. (Not the easiest thing when you feel chronic pain is ruining your life. I watched a lot of Seinfeld and Simpsons over the last 5-10 years).
The path to healing is outlined very well in the TMS literature, including Unlearn your Pain. But if I had to emphasize two points, it would be these:
1. For some of us, an inner journey alone is not enough. There is sometimes a need to make changes in your external environment to heal. And those changes (which tragically are not always an option for people) are scary and difficult, and may require an expert therapist to help navigate them.
2. Everyone's road to recovery is unique. Some roads to recovery, as with mine, are very long, and marked by many setbacks. But progress is possible, and some people do fully heal. So don't give up, and know that even when things look darkest, there is always hope.