Day 1 Feeling hopeful

I’ve been suffering from my latest bout of chronic pain for 7 months now. I’ve been to a doctor, chiropractor, physiotherapist and an acupuncturist, but relief from the pain has only been temporary. My chronic pain is in my right shoulder and goes down in to my right elbow, wrist and particularly effects one of my fingers on my right hand. I’ve found that I avoid doing certain tasks because of this finger pain and was wearing a finger brace to sleep before which didn’t really seem to make a difference. I’ve tried painkillers, an acupressure mat, foam rollers, heat and cold therapy and herbal medicine to help with these issues amongst other things.

A few years ago I had gastrointestinal problems which went on for months and I was so worried about it that I had an endoscopy done. The problem only went away when I found out there was nothing structurally wrong. When I was a teenager I had very bad sciatica for a few months and prior to that I had tension headaches for months on end.

After reading the Mind Body Prescription by Dr Sarno I realized that a lot of my personality traits such as a tendency to worry and keep things inside as well as a strong perfectionist streak match those of a lot of TMS patients. I’m now quite convinced that this is what has caused my bouts of chronic pain over the course of many years.

I still have a couple of small niggling doubts but I’m going to give this a try over the next 6 weeks and I’m excited to see what progress I can make.