A Short Odyssey: From Iraq to Freedom.

I was lying on my twin-bed inside my CHU (compartmentalized housing unit) in Iraq while on deployment for the Indiana National Guard. My shift was over and I was relaxing when the pain started in my back and shot down my legs to my feet. It was my first experience with sciatica, and my first experience with a real "back" issue. What is this!? I asked myself. The sciatica lasted three weeks and the severe stiffness lasted in excess of three months. The hardest part of the day wasn't my job - protecting the air space in a war zone - it was putting my boots on each morning. I went to see the military doctor, who did confirm the sciatica. He gave me three different medications and prescribed physical therapy. I attributed the pain/immobility to a few different things. One was deadlifting, which had become part of the Army's physical fitness test. The other was playing too much sand volleyball with fellow soldiers. The pain did abate by the end of the deployment, and I went home thinking I was finally recovering.

Then, I went running. It was a few months after I returned to the States, and I figured my back should have been "healed" enough to resume my regular physical activities. I really liked running and had done so a few times a week for probably ten years - usually just 2-3 miles at a time. Well, it went okay during the actual run and right after. However, the next day the sciatica symptoms returned! It was not a sharp pain like in Iraq, but tingling, numbness, and occasional weakness. This again lasted for several weeks, along with much tightness/stiffness which persisted long after. Neither could I go hiking (another favorite activity) for more than 20 minutes, especially not over uneven ground. If I did so, the tingling through my legs would return or get worse. I figured that I should "listen to my body" and that these symptoms were signs that I was not structurally healed enough to do these things.

It was time for another doctor's visit. This time, I went to a non-military doctor and got an MRI. I believe the result came back as "impinged nerve at my l5-s1". The doctor said he could prescribe more medication for me and that I should do more physical therapy. He also said I could get an injection for the pain. I declined both of these and just focused on the physical therapy. I was very regimental over the following months with this therapy, doing my exercise and stretches daily. I was also researching constantly about how to best recover. Dr. Stuart Mcgill seemed a wise figure and was a proponent of natural healing (as opposed to surgery) and I favored him for a while. I really strengthened my core, convinced that doing so would help alleviate pressure on the sciatic nerve. There were times when I felt like I was improving, but tightness nearly always remained, and I could never gracefully put on my shoes and socks. I was uber-conscientious about my posture (had been since Iraq) and how I slept (with a special pillow between my legs). I so wanted to heal and get back to my free, active life and away from this disability. Pain wasn't the worst part - it was the disability. I spent long afternoons in bed, as sitting down or standing felt like putting more pressure on my spine.

Then the revelation came. I was watching some documentary on the German soldiers of WWII and how they were ordered to exterminate Jews. This was obviously a horrible time and the soldiers responded in a myriad of ways. Some of them, following orders, would walk or drive to the camp where the Jews were, with the order to kill them, and on the way they would begin to throw up - they would literally vomit; then, become so sick and weak that they couldn't carry on with the orders (God bless their souls). The word "psychosomatic" was used in the documentary to describe this physical reaction to a social/emotional stimulus. I had heard the word before and I had actually been interested in the relationship between the mind and physical illnesses for some time. I read William James' classic book Varieties of Religious Experiences a few years prior in which he discusses the topic some. I began to research more online after the documentary was over.

Now, my back pain had nothing to do with why I took to the internet at this time. I was just generally curious about psychosomatic illness. After searching around for a short while, I came across the idea that certain types of back pain (chronic) is thought by some to fall into this category of mind-body illness. Never before had I considered this. To me, back pain was structural - in the spine and bones and deep tissue - and this could not originate in the mind/emotions. But I dug deeper, and I came across a Dr. John Sarno. I got his book Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection. I was only 10-15 pages into the book when I was telling myself: I have TMS.

What really convinced me was the timing of my initial back and sciatica pain when in Iraq. As I mentioned before, I originally thought the pain was structural and a result of deadlifting and/or excessive sand volleyball. But when I read Dr. Sarno's words about the pain often occurring as a result of extra stress/pressure in one's life, I got to thinking about what was going on during the deployment around the time of my initial pain. Let me first say that overall, my deployment went smoothly. While I was in what was considered a war zone, I saw no bullets and things were cool. However, there was a time period (about a week) when I experienced the most stress and pressure that I have ever experienced in my life. My team was given a very large increase in responsibility, and we had a short time to learn things. This, on it's own, I could have handled; but my direct superior felt an enormous amount of pressure as well apparently, because he became extremely difficult to work with. His expectations were unrealistic, he became very irritable, and he was unprofessional. The way I decided to handle this was to simply comply and carry out the mission. He outranked me and we had a base to protect; I figured that confronting him was not best at the time. This caused a lot of anger and rage to build in me. I, too, became very irritable and uber-sensitive to any type of criticism. I couldn't sleep. This all went on for a week or so, and thankfully, I journaled about it.

Fast forward about one year: when I read the part in Dr. Sarno's book about these kinds of stressors causing back pain. I went back to my journals to my time in Iraq when I had this challenging situation. Well, it happened about 2 weeks before my back pain! Dr. Sarno says that often times, while in the midst of a challenging situation, the mind-body will be resilient enough to carry on with the task without any kind of symptoms, and then the symptoms will often show up shortly afterwards when the situation has been diffused, when things calm down. It was after this kind of hell week that I experienced - when I was finally able to relax - that the pain and sciatica started.

As I read on, my back began to feel looser and just better generally. My mind was also eased. I would not say that I was instantly "cured" at that time. But I kept at it. I ordered The Divided Mind. I read other people's success stories (this may be the single best thing for me that helped). I told a couple people about my finding. I thought and journaled about it a great deal. And now, as I write my story on tmswiki, it has been 3-4 months since I discovered Dr. Sarno, and I am ready to say, I am indeed cured! I am hiking again. I recently played golf 3-4 days in a row. I can drive my car for more than 2o minutes - or for 2 hours - without severe stiffness. The amount of time from when I first discovered Dr. Sarno until I would use the word cured was about 10 weeks.

There is so much more I could stay but I don't want to make this post into a whole book. My struggle was not nearly as long as some others have had (only about 15 months, a relatively short odyssey). I am very fortunate that I discovered Dr. Sarno as soon as I did. I see many things in life differently now - the experience has changed me. I hope to use it to help others.

 

Wow! Congratulations on your perseverance, rapid recovery and also on this very beautifully and powerfully written success story!

Would you be willing to provide a short version of your story to be published on the https://www.thankyoudrsarno.org/ (Thank You, Dr. Sarno) ?

 

Yes, that sounds good!

 

Great, post short version here or send to me via DM and I will post it on thankyoudrsarno.org

 

@Dusty
What a great well-written story! I hung on every word. I have suffered from sciatica for years and years. Was able to live with it by ignoring it mostly. Now more symptoms have joined it and I’ve since learned about TMS. I’ve been on the wiki going on 4 months. Stories like yours are pure gold, not only for giving hope, but for helping us see ourselves in another person’s life. Sometimes that’s just easier to see! It’s amazing your journaled, Pre-Sarno. And you had such great introspection and insight. A cranky unreasonable—even mean— boss or superior can trigger TMS for me in A heartbeat! What a wonderful recovery story, and thank you for joining us here!