Day 1 my journey begins

I listened to Dr. Sarno's 'Healing Back Pain' last evening, and I am ready to commit fully to his program and all of the exercises and information here.

I have been unable to walk or stand for more than few seconds, without pain in my hip and high buttock that requires me to lean forward, supported, for the last two months. I was also having severe sciatica and pain at night, disrupting my sleep, that has eased somewhat. I was on 800mg advil / 100mg gabapentin / 1 T3 every 6 hours for the last month at least. Based on Dr Sarno's book and information, I am going to switch to just a couple of extra strength tylenol when needed while on this new journey to recovery.

I was sent to physio by my doctor and the physiotherapist was trained in the Mckenzie method. She found I was a good candidate for the method as my pain "moved" from my leg to the small of my back w/ the side glide (I had a severe lateral shift) and the cobra stretch. I had been doing these stretches almost every hour since I began about one week ago, and despite extreme pain and discomfort and they did seem to be easing symptoms in the leg. However, mentally the pain of the stretches were breaking me right down and generating a debilitating amount of fear and anxiety to the point I was dreading/reacting to them before I even did them. Intuitively the approach just felt very wrong, and was just too damaging mentally.

Somewhere in my research I discovered a link to information on Dr. Sarno and I was amazed w/ what he had accomplished. I immediately downloaded 2 of his audiobooks - 'Healing Back Pain' (immediately listened to the entire book) and 'The Mindbody Prescription' (listening to that one today).

At this early stage I am trying to fully commit myself to the important concept of TMS being the source of my pain vs the strong 'structural/physical' feeling to my pain. I was hoping that I would be one of the 'read the book / instant pain relief ' cases, but strangely my pain has actually increased somewhat today. I am hoping that is my unconscious mind already feeling threatened by the journey I am committing to!

I am already finding mental /anxiety relief just going through the first day of work today (reading week 0 and week 1 of ed program, reading day 1 of the recovery program, journaling, and of course, posting here).

I very much look forward to reading everyone's posts for inspiration as well. thanks all!

 

Welcome to the madhouse and the heroic journey of healing. It's perfectly natural to experience a worsening in symptoms and it is for the reason you name. Keep listening to your intuition and do your best to maintain a playful, gentle approach to healing.

There is a wealth of information and many good souls on this site who will do their best to help.

Plum x

 

Thank you very much, and I have taken the gentleness suggestion fully to heart, rather than "fighting it" or "pushing through". makes perfect sense!

 

Hey there! I had a lot of these symptoms when I struggled with my major pains all of last year. I could barely shower without my legs giving out, couldn't walk for more than 5 minutes, couldn't run at all, and I used to sleep by using icy hot cream and Tylenol pm. It was awful and it only got worse. I had vertigo episodes that woke me in the middle of the nights and didn't sleep for 3 months. I even got diagnosed with fibromyalgia and a bunch of other stuff.

I'm almost completely healed! I too have anxiety issues since I was a little kid and I think that is why i have tms in a new form. It's not anywhere near as bad as it used to be, but I think it's stuff i still need to dig deep to resolve. I also noticed my symptoms right now are all symptoms that people with anxiety get.

Just stopping in cause I've been where you were and so many others have(thousands). You're going to heal, no doubt.

 

thanks so much for this, really means a lot! and you also actually helped me right this moment. I just finished a painful 35min very slowly on the treadmill (but still a great breakthrough today again). I am super sore now and your comment really helped me just see it as pretty tolerable (and actually easing as I write this!) pain and avoid attaching any terrible doubts / anxiety to it, that always makes things worse.

All the best on your current journey, you obviously know what you are doing!