Day 1 Questions

Hello everyone. Have just finished reading Dr. Sarno’s fascinating book and came across this website while searching for more information. I think the day by day structured program on this site is a huge help. I remain mostly convinced that my back pain is psychologically based, but I still have a few doubts.

First, a little bit about me. I am a 28 year old man working as a systems engineer. My job and my hobbies have the spending a lot of time on the computer. At the beginning of this year, I noticed pain in my wrist while using the mouse. I tried switching to the other hand, but in a matter of weeks that wrist began to hurt as well. I tried nearly everything under the sun: physical therapy, ergonomic mice, voice control, heat/ice, massage, anti-inflammatories, acupuncture, injections. Nothing worked. The pain just wouldn’t go away.

About a month ago, my lower back began to hurt as well. I wasn’t terribly worried. I have had pain in my back from time to time and it usually goes away. However, it wasn’t getting better. I still have pain in my lower back, and I would like to try Dr. Sarno’s method for treatment. I just have a few questions.

1. If the pain is coming from repressed emotions, how come it is more widespread today than it was 50 or 100 years ago? Wasn’t society, in general, more repressed back then then it is today? Certainly, we didn’t just invent repressed emotions in the past 50 years. This is something humans have been doing ever since we inherited this earth. Why then, the recent back pain epidemic? If lower back pain is caused by repressed emotions, wouldn’t we see more cases of it throughout history?

2. When I was 17 years old, I began to experience terrible spasms in my neck and lower back. It began a few weeks into my summer vacation and lasted for several months. Targeted exercise and physical therapy did absolutely nothing. The pain didn’t go away until after I started going to school again. This seems contrary to the idea that repressed anger/anxiety was the root cause of the pain. One would expect school to be more stressful than summer vacation. So then how come the pain went away soon after school began? Wouldn’t be increased stress make the pain worse?

3. Is it necessary to identify what the repressed emotions are? Or is it enough just to know that you have them? If the former, how do you go about figuring out what they are?

 

Hey there,

I am in recovery from TMS as well and not yet an expert but i will try to help you with your questions:

1. If you continue to day four, you will read about how 2 centuries ago paralysis used to be a common TMS. Every period has his own acceptable TMS, which is not (yet) considered psychomatic. It used to be ulcers before it became back pain. It has to be something you find logic to suffer from, otherwise it would not distract/concern you enough.

2. It is an assumption that school is more stressful. Maybe summer holiday brought on other stresses. Just guessing: I have to have fun/relax/help my parents whatever. Rememer TMS works as a distraction for emotions you are not aware of.

3. I think it already helps to know that you have TMS, instead of thinking there is something physically wrong with you. That relieves tension and therefore pain. But i think it is necessary to become conscious of your unconscious mind.

Good luck!