TMSWiki:About Specific Symptom & Diagnosis Pages

The goal of a Success Stories by Symptoms & Diagnoses page (SS&D page) is to collect in one place all information specific to a particular symptom or diagnosis that would be helpful to a TMSer suffering from that symptom or diagnosis. In other words, a very wide variety of information can be contained on a SS&D page.

Specific Symptoms & Diagnosis pages (SS&D pages) are very important pages for two reasons:

• because they have important keywords in their URLs, page titles, page headings, and in links to them, they are some of the only pages on the site that will get traffic from people who don't know anything about TMS and weren't searching for TMS. These pages have the potential to transform people's lives by telling people who have TMS but have never heard of it what TMS is. Pandamonium stresses how important this is: "It was pure luck that I came across TMS whilst googling to see what (if any) surgical procedure could be done for the annular fissure in one of my discs. Thankfully with one click of the mouse I changed my life in a way I had hardly hoped was possible."
• because TMS is a mindbody disorder, believing that what you have is "only TMS" is crucial to the treatment plan. Especially if what you have isn't standard back or neck pain, reading information aimed at people who have exactly your symptoms can be a very important part of your treatment plan. Forest adds, "on a personal note, if I hadn't read a bunch of stories by other people who had had RSI and then been healed by Sarno, I still would be highly disabled today, so this aspect of SS&D pages is especially important to me."

Ideas for where to find content for SS&D pages

• Search Google for success stories or information about TMS and the specific symptom or diagnosis. For example, if you wanted to add to the Fibromyalgia page, you could type "Fibromyalgia TMS" or "Fibromyalgia Sarno" into Google.
• Search the TMSHelp forums for success stories or information about TMS and the specific symptom or diagnosis. Naturally, when searching here, you don't have to include the word "TMS" or "Sarno" in your search because all posts should be relevant to those subjects.
• Search Amazon.com for books about mindbody approaches to the symptom or diagnosis.
• Look up the symptom or diagnosis in the index or table of contents of any TMS books that you own.

Adhere to a Common Format

As much as possible, Specific Symptoms & Diagnosis pages should adhere to a common format. Doing this will make the pages easier to read and more credible.

All of the SS&D pages were built using a template that was designed for lists of success stories related to a specific symptom or diagnosis. As the wiki matures, we will want more content on the SS&D pages, so a new template has been developed. The new template for SS&D pages can be found here. Discussion of the proposed template can be found in the discussion threads attached to the page. It will take a long time before all SS&D pages conform to the template, but it is good to have a target to work toward.

Amazon.com Reviews

There are great reviews of TMS related books and how they have helped individuals cure their chronic pain. The customer reviews are a great source to look for TMS success stories. Some of the reviews will be strictly examining the book from a literary perspective, but a majority of the customers write about their personal experiences with the mind body approach. Due to fair use law the wiki does not want to add complete amazon reviews to the site. However, we strongly encourage people to summarize amazon reviews and link back to the source. When linking to the source make sure to link the success story to its permalink, and not to the main page. The permalink will allow the user to connect directly to the source, and they will not have to look for the source by scrolling through the main page. The most valuable success stories will ones that cover symptoms that have few, if any, success stories on its page. Also make sure that the success story being adds value to the page. Currently we have thoroughly examined the following books: The Mindbody Prescription, Healing Back Pain, The Divided Mind, and Mind over Back Pain, and added several summaries of their book reviews/success stories.

DISCLAIMER: The TMS Wiki is for informational and support purposes only and does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment recommendations. See Full Disclaimer.