Day 1

The day after Thanksgiving 2017 (Black Friday) I began feeling severe back pain for no reason... I tried to discover a moment when something snapped or popped and I thought of the 5k that I ran on Thanksgiving Day and tried to blame the pain on any injury I could possibly think of. It was the worst pain I had ever felt and caused me to have a crooked stance, so I felt like a freak of nature whenever I'd muster up the courage to go out in public.

Eventually, I developed sciatic pain (or similar) that radiated down the side of my leg and into the front of my knee. For about 6 weeks, I refused to see a doctor because I'm the stubborn type that believes that I can do it on my own. So for those 6 weeks, I dealt with the pain that caused me to stay home from work to do nothing but lay flat on the couch or in bed- the only position that didn't result in excruciating pain.

I had become obsessed with researching the cause of the pain and came up with the conclusion that I must have a herniated disc because all my symptoms pointed to it. However, one night, around that 6 week mark, I discovered a blog post about Dr. Sarno's Healing Back Pain book and looked up a preview of it on Amazon. I was shocked at how much it sounded just like me... I immediately bought the book and couldn't wait for Amazon to deliver it 2 days later. About a week after I received the book... my pain was gone.

Fast forward a couple of months, April 22, 2018 to be exact, and my pain came back with a vengeance. No problem, I thought to myself. I tried Dr. Sarno's method again, but in the back of my mind, I couldn't get it out of my head that something could be physically wrong because the pain returned. I decided to go to the doctor and although he didn't take any MRIs or X-Rays, he said it was either a disc herniation or a muscle impinging a nerve and sent me to a physical therapist.

Since this back pain began, I've become an expert on everything that could supposedly physically cause back pain, so it's been very frustrating for me to receive no answers from either my doctor or the physical therapist. For the past several weeks, I had given up hope in Dr. Sarno's method, however, today I've had a moment of enlightenment and decided that it's the only diagnosis that makes sense. Why can't I get a concrete answer from anyone else?

So, now that I've seen a doctor and a physical therapist, and they have no answer besides stretching and core exercises for getting rid of back pain, I am significantly more confident in Dr. Sarno's method and am here for the long haul and ready to LIVE again.

 

I am in the same boat as you, I am just about to write my Day 1 post as well! I read Sarno's book years ago and had remarkable success with it, to the point that I thought I was "cured" too easily. I've more recently had terrible back spasms and now sciatica, and I know I need to recommit to the process and take it more seriously this time.

I will say that online research, which I tend to do for all medical issues, is probably doing more harm than good for me. It is making me doubt whether herniated/bulging discs really are the root cause of all of this, and I keep struggling with thinking along physical instead of psychological lines.

I finally made an appointment with a TMS doctor for next week. Is there one in your area who you could see?

Good luck to you....I am learning that persistence and lifestyle changes are going to be necessary for me to get past this.