Shooting Suspect has/had history of Back Pain

https://www.civilbeat.org/2024/12/luigi-mangiones-hawai%CA%BBi-friends-shocked-by-arrest-in-unitedhealthcare-ceo-shooting/ (Luigi Mangione's Hawaiʻi Friends Shocked By Arrest In UnitedHealthcare CEO Shooting)
Weren't we just talking about loneliness today? His friends say they lost touch with him after he went to have back surgery...and he changed.

My Friend committed suicide last month over his back pain. The last time we spoke, I remember him concerned about no longer being covered by Health insurance.
Now, it looks like this kid they picked up also had a back problem.
Remember the Man in 2022 who shot up the hospital because of his back pain (failed surgery)?

If ever there was a time in history where the public needs to know about Sarno and TMS it is NOW.

Sarno prefaced "Healing Back Pain' with the then current stats on it's cost to the nation in dollars, lost productivity, 'geometric expansion' and the impact it is having on western society. That warning was no exercise in Histrionics. I think he underestimated the Juke Ball of anger and confusion the 'system' would create.

It is still like the Black Plague...No one understands where it comes from so the plague keeps spreading.

 

I, too, was struck by his story--the cost of chronic pain and the failure of our health care industry to address it. All we can do is continue to try to spread Sarno's message. Every recovery story is one less life lost.

 

It's absolutely sad and tragic. These stories really illustrate how serious the issue is. I was hopeless at my wit's-end about what to do back when I was suffering. Discovering Sarno changed everything.

Amen! This work is so important.

 

And like Baseball said in another thread— we, who know about TMS—are the extreme minority. Our lives are an example. So many people are unraveling under all the stress. It’s so sad to watch them go through the medical system and not get relief. (And it’s no free ride on our side, but at least we know ours works! It’s just a matter of effort and time.)

 

What a sad situation all around.

 

I always forget...when I was at my bottom I remember spending time thinking of ways to commit suicide and make it look accidental so my wife and kids could get my life insurance. When I was told 'this was it...you're not going to get well' ,for me at least, that feltlike the end of my life.

I haven't had insurance for around 15 years now. The cost/benefit ratio was out of any ability I would have had to pay....e.g. I would have paid 6k a year for the lowest tier that doesn't kick in until after I am 12k out of pocket. So, I am 18k a year away from getting Partial payment..absurd, huh?

It was hard to take 'healthcare reform' serious because it didn't address the elephant in the room...For profit insurance companies. Doctors weren't getting rich either...just paper pushers in the middle. I have no resentment against them anymore, because we have no 'deal' with each other for them to break.

Believe it or not, that has liberated me. When you tell the medical world you are paying cash, the price of everything Plummets. Even when I needed an operation to reattach my thumb....total? 3K....emergency room, operation and follow up visits. If I had Insurance? I can only imagine.

And of course, Sarno. Knowing that the lionshare of my gripes are prolly TMS I now run to a book,and a pen and paper where before I ran to the phone to schedule an appointment.

Blessed are the Poor.

 

I am glad you are here and are better now. I can’t even imagine being told that there’s nothing we can do for you or that you won’t get better. That is soul crushing.

 

Just discussing this with my neighbor. He's a LaCrosse Goalie coach. I noticed he was wearing a cast. Apparently his hand got broken by the ball in the same place it was broken 20 years ago when he was in college. It is set and healing fine, but he was warned that he OUGHT to have surgery, which he can't afford.
He said the Doctor gave him that "Ok..your Funeral...you'r'e gonna have lots of problems with that"

That's how modern "specialized" medicine rolls...if you don't agree with them or want a second or third opinion ....they literally 'curse' you.

I fix homes. One of my clients just told me that a contractor said she needs to redo the siding on her NEW home. I walked around, and yeah they made a few mistakes, but not 20k$ worth of mistakes...like $200-300....and that's just cosmetic..it was actually fine, and I could only imagine that the siding guy should have been a Doctor (LOL)

 

When they make these statements it almost feels like they are projecting something onto you.

 

I made an account just to post about this and saw there was already a thread. Reading about Mangione's story with chronic back pain and then back surgery, and then his actions to target the insurance CEO made me immediately think of Sarno and Healing Back Pain where everything is described there clearly about the rampant corruption involved in our healthcare system, the problems with this industry have exacerbated tenfold since Sarno wrote that book.
It struck me deeply since I'm the same age as the alleged shooter, 26, this year, also kicked off my parents insurance and its been hell trying to get insured again. Like him too, I had developed sudden and chronic back pain last year after leading a very athletic and active life, I blamed it on my mattress and quite nearly purchased a new mattress because I believe that would solve my problems, but then read Dr. Sarno's book and realized it was clearly TMS, as I'd never had problems with the mattress before. I had conditioned myself into believing there was pain, and then of course it move to varying parts of the body and it was totally confirmed.
It really was a book that changed my life, on multiple fronts. This whole situation is so saddening to me, it does feel like a helpless situation.

 

The fact that you , a 26 year old knew about Sarno is what makes it NOT as hopeless. My sons(26,31) know about it, almost all of my friends and many anonymous people I have run into over the years.

It was getting pretty well known in the 00's, but then Sarno retired and all of the celebrities and media who he had treated became irrelevant. If someone with a loud enough voice got the message out (usually via a recovery) it might get back in the national dialogue. One of the 'persuasive voices' I heard was a production lady on Oprah and John Stossel a news guy.

BTW....That's how bad my life got...I was watching OPRAH at 3:30 cause I couldn't go to work!

I'm glad you joined the forum...always need young voices here to balance us old people out.

peace , and hang in there

 

Ok, true story (I have a bunch of them! This is just one.): I broke my ankle in 2014. My primary doctor sent me to an orthopedic SURGEON (always take note when surgeon is in the name). I brought my x-ray confirming it was broken with me.

When I got there, first thing, he ordered his technician to take another x-ray with the machine that he conveniently had in his office. When he looked at the new x-ray, he told her to go back and redo it and make sure to put pressure on it. This, I realized later, was to separate the fracture to “prove” I needed surgery. (Because the first x-ray showed it was too close together to need surgery.) I should be angry at that alone. What if that would have hurt me somehow?

After all this, the doctor starts telling me I need surgery. (I’m in pain. I’m scared. I hate doctors.) His argument was, without surgery, I could get arthritis and maybe have pain later. I asked him, “What are the statistical chances of getting arthritis and pain, if I don’t have surgery?” He said there was no way to know for sure. I said I’d pass on the surgery.

He was literally shocked that I didn’t just follow his counsel blindly. He kept showing me the x-rays and giving me arguments. I said, “no way.” He could see from my chart I was a writer and he asked what I wrote about. I told him I was a healthcare journalist. He just shook his head.

And I wanted to tell him (remind him)— because surely he knew—how the odds of dying or getting complications in a hospital are so much higher than any fear of arthritis.

Surgery does have risks! And it shouldn’t be used to line someone’s pockets or to help them buy a 3rd home. (Sorry, do I sound angry?) Don’t get me started.

So, I went to another doctor and it was awkward telling him I had just refused surgery from doctor #1 and he was my doctor #2. I told him I would only accept his care if it didn’t involve surgery. He agreed.

My ankle is fine and has never caused me trouble since. But the whole time it was healing there was that little bit of doubt. (Did I do the right thing?) He stole my peace. He instilled fear. That’s what they do.

It’s terrible you can never just assume a doctor has your best interest at heart.

 

My god, @Baseball65 , I'm sorry about your friend. And it must have gone quite deep with you as you'd been in a similar place... I am SO glad you got through that. (Hug)

(And I wish you were in the UK to look at my house! Hee hee...) (and you'd have to contend with the UK healthcare system... lots of people here say 'we should have the American system' but stories like this will, I hope, point up the problems with it).

Love your story @Diana-M , though not bloody funny at the time, I bet. I turned down a load of x-rays from a chiroquackter years ago, and more recently, he was in the papers, in court for over-imaging people... He said he had to take them 'in case I had cancer'... scaremongering wanker... He was noticeably annoyed when I turned him down. Are they drawn to chiropractic because they want to rip people off, or do they just get trained and realise that they may as well because everyone else is doing it?

 

A very tragic story, indeed. But what struck me the most are the comments on social media. The anger and hate towards insurance companies is palpable, and he is often viewed as a hero.

Tragically, too many people believe that treatments they were denied would save their lives.

CRPS is often called a suicide disease, this is how bad it is. I am signed up for several CRPS user groups. A lot of talk there about getting referrals to different treatments. I posted couple times asking how much time and effort people would commit if they knew that they could recover, i get a lot of responses that they would give anything. Then I post a link to Sarno's book and tell them to message me when done reading, I got zero messages.

We live in the culture of self-victimization and laziness. This forum is my breath of fresh air.

 

That's so disgusting.

This is not anywhere near as bad as that, but my orthopedic surgeon told me that my Tennis Elbow would probably return. (After his surgery corrected it, of course... which it did not). But once I fully accepted it was TMS, it has never come back. 20 years later and not a single problem.

 

It's funny because my dad knew of Dr. Sarno, being a Howard Stern fan, but never made the effort to look deeply into it because he didn't experience any chronic pain -- until a few years ago when he had an issue with sciatica which debilitated him, despite being extremely active. Ended up getting those steroidal injections which provided initial relief, but of course the pain returned. Last year when I learned about Dr. Sarno (without knowing my dad knew of him), I noticed he was still wincing when he got up from the couch/chair/walking etc. and so I immediately connected it to TMS (after I had cured my own back pain) -- so I got him to listen to the audiobook for Healing Back Pain, pasted the daily affirmations in front of his desk, and voila, no sciatica anymore. Since then I've told everyone in my family about Dr. Sarno and I try and recommend it to everyone.

The mind is so powerful its awesome but also terrifying at the same time. I'm so grateful to Dr. Sarno and also frustrated that he was so discredited during his time and seems to be fading in the public consciousness today. This case with the insurance CEO is certainly a byproduct of the indifferent and even malicious American healthcare system that Sarno was up against. After reading his book, I was so curious to learn more about how psychosomatic medicine had been abandoned + led to the situation we're in now with healthcare in the US, the chronic pain epidemic and its multi-billion dollar industry.

 

That’s great you could help your dad like that!

 

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/why-luigi-mangione-killed-unitedhealthcare-ceo-a-chronic-back-pain-link-7221725?fbclid=IwY2xjawHGqUpleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHQNhWwlBy_3L2byJZM2k8Mx6EKyqH4LORZ3UMvdCrXM1K7FU6LKUrHJMFg_aem_G54QwoVd00h8yD4vlT46BQ (Why Luigi Mangione Killed UnitedHealthcare CEO: A Chronic Back Pain Link)

 

Those who have seen my posts or read my book know well that I have little sympathy for the medical-industrial complex. It took a lot of stubbornness for me to resist their treatments.

But I am also the first one to acknowledge that this is a market, and where there is a demand, there will always be a supply. We can continue blaming the doctors, but we also need to look in the mirror. Unfortunately, unless we, the people, understand that the culture must change, that we must take our health into our own hands and not look for magic pills, there will be no change in the industry.

Sometimes, I slip into bad behaviors and then experience symptoms, albeit never on the scale as before and I beat them back quickly, but the idea of a magic pill is still tempting. This is why I am grateful to this community for what you all do.

 

Most definitely our profit-motivated society not only encourages these practices to continue but will also keep discrediting anything that undermines its financial incentive. I think that's why Sarno hasn't been able to rid his "quack" label for so many years in the mainstream medical world. Though I do think things are getting better, mind-body ideas "mindfulness" etc. are more accessible than ever now, even if Dr. Sarno isn't the one being credited for them.

I do hope the healthcare system will change however, even if only that means regulating the insurance companies so that lives can be saved. But of course you're right, none of this can change without a culture change and it feels impossible in this country.