Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection

this is a weird book. it's not really all that impressive, in and of itself -- a couple hundred pages of loosely sketched out theoretical ideas, and a general sort of critique of common chiropractic diagnoses. some of it makes a lot of sense, some of it seems a little far-fetched – objectively speaking, i can absolutely understand why some people dismiss dr. sarno and this (and his other similar) books as fluff/quackery. that being said – it works. or can, depending on who you are and what kind of pain you’re experiencing. i was suffering from horrible, near-disabling levels of lower back and neck pain when i first read this book, and as many others report, simply reading the book and thinking about what it had to say, made 95% of my discomfort simply vanish overnight, like magic. it was frankly shocking to me how effective it was, and i am a person who absolutely, 100% realizes how ridiculous that sounds. but that was my experience. i do still have back pain, but it is now 10 years later – just reading this book one night literally produced something like eight or nine years of very significant relief. whether the back pain i’m experiencing now is something different or just a recurrence/regression of the TMS described in this book is something i’m currently trying to figure out. the general argument put forward here is that changing the way you think about back (and certain related types of) pain can dramatically alter your experience with it, because the way we’ve been taught to evaluate this type of condition to ourselves is largely based on false medical myths that have an (unfortunately) strong influence on the way our psychology interacts with our body. sounds a little out there, perhaps, but it is – to my honest surprise – quite true. what the book offers is not a placebo effect. what's weird is that the pain a lot of people are experiencing is in itself a kind of (negative) placebo effect already – what this book can do, is sort of quickly train you to reverse the psychological processes that create that scenario. it's not that the pain you’re experiencing isn't real, or that it’s just imagined – it is very, physically real, as any sufferer knows – but in many people/cases, it's being produced and greatly exacerbated by a kind of trick of the brain that can be unlearned with surprising ease. a lot of people in the last couple of generations have, for various reasons the book gets into, unconsciously programmed themselves to be susceptible to certain types of back pain that don't have any real physical cause. most chiropractors and even physical therapists will x-ray you and explain you have a herniated disc, something out of alignment, scoliosis, etc. -- but while true, this is in most cases a very natural part of aging, and it only produces ongoing pain/discomfort in certain people. generally, they won't know exactly why – they'll theorize you have a "pinched nerve" or something along those lines, but this book explains how, in dr. sarno's opinion, that's just unethical guesswork and makes no diagnostic sense. he proposes that the pain is more akin to a negative placebo effect based on the anxiety natural to certain personality types, and nurtured by cultural conditioning. this anxiety and conditioning train the brain to deny oxygen to certain muscle groups and body areas, which produces spasms/constrictions/tension in those areas. while harmless in and of themselves, they can be very uncomfortable, and many in the medical community erroneously link this discomfort to what is actually pretty normal wear-and-tear along the spine. in turn, we (the sufferer) begin to overthink the fragility of our spine/back, and expect it to give us problems, which fuels the negative link the brain has already made to those areas. this begins to allow all kinds of personal anxieties and emotions to start registering in a very physically real way as body pain, usually in certain parts of the back or neck where we most anticipate pain to occur, and it becomes a self-fulfilling cycle that can just grow worse and worse over time. the book explains this all better and in more detail. not everything put forward in the book is 100% convincing, but dr. sarno has definitely tapped into a legitimate phenomenon – and i say that simply because the book just plain worked for me. after years of very depressing and increasingly excruciating levels of discomfort and pain that i attributed to a slipped disc, i read this book, and poof ... it was just literally gone. i couldn’t quite believe it and many people i relate the story to do not take it seriously. but my brain wised up to the trick it was playing on my body and the relief was literally an overnight phenomenon. and not only did it work – the results lasted many years. many people will blow off this book and sarno’s others as pseudo-scientific fluff – i get that. but, listen – i spent $2 on this book at the time i first read it, and got years of shockingly significant relief from it. it’s not like it’s a big expensive gamble, if you think it might help you. i also get that it won’t work for everyone – obviously there are legitimate injuries and conditions that can occur and cause pain that are unrelated to what the book describes (and which the book is very clear about). however, a lot of conditions that people think are legitimate physical problems are covered by this book, and have a far shakier medical basis than you’d think. psychology and the way your psychology programs your body and its expectations has a lot to do with a lot of the pain people suffer from. if you think there’s even a chance this book could help you, spend a couple bucks on a used copy and give it a shot. it takes a couple hours to read, and it could save you thousands in medical bills. worst case scenario, you learn a little about an alternative theory re: body pain. even if you’re skeptical, it’s sort of a no-brainer if you’re really suffering discomfort.

Loved the info

Years of back pain vanished and restored my ability to bend forward, be active and do the things i love doing - including swimming and running.

I have thought long and hard about writing this review as I know how it feels to spend hours trawling through the internet searching for a cure for crippling pain, and knowing how much information is out there, I have hesitated to add to it. But my sincere wish is that this post will give someone else the courage and confidence to take a chance with this book. My story: I, like many people, have suffered with back problems all my life - I'm now 43 - and had accepted that frequent bouts of pain, my back 'going' and regular trips to a much trusted and respected osteopath were just part of life. And that was fine. Until I had a really bad and prolonged bout of pain that started in Autumn 2013. I'd had 'disc issues' in the past but my pain had ALWAYS been on the left side. One morning I woke up with real soreness in my right lower back. Slightly perplexed but not unduly alarmed I went to see my osteo as usual and expected everything to be fixed in a week or two. However, It didn't get better - in fact it got progressively worse. I started to worry that it would turn into the sort of pain that I had experienced a couple of years earlier. I was told then by my osteopath that I had injured a disc. The pain at the time was excruciating, but after treatments and several weeks of rest it did get better. Well this time my pain got worse and seemed to be evolving. It had started in the back but three months later was moving to my leg and becoming far more intense. Standing and walking became very difficult, making my long commute to work on the tube a nightmare. Losing faith in my osteopath I saw other physiotherapists and tried acupuncture - all to no effect, other than to be told repeatedly that my back 'was a mess' and I could expect pain on and off all my life. Finally in desperation I went to my GP who ordered an MRI. This showed various bulges and degeneration but most worryingly, an extruded disc (where the inner material has leaked out) and this was pressing on a nerve. My GP explained all this with patience and told me that if conventional treatment didn't work, I would have to consider injections or, down the road, surgery. The pain got even worse. Then, one day I stumbled across an article about the comedian Howard Stern and his battle against pain. He seemed to have found a miracle cure in the shape of a treatment by Dr John Sarno. By this time, I was endlessly searching the internet and becoming an expert on all things disc related. Thinking more information could only be good I bought the book. I read it within 48 hours - it was the Easter holiday and I was spending most of my time horizontal anyway. After the initial excitement that I might be one of the blessed ones who start to feel the pain evaporate as they read, I had to confess that although I liked the idea, and wanted it to be true, my pain was still there. Also I had an MRI, a GP and a host of other back pain specialists telling me it was a physical problem. To cut a long story short, I suffered on for another few months, until one day I just suddenly decided that I would suspend my disbelief and - as wholeheartedly as I could manage - do some of the exercises recommended by Sarno. I even wrote the date down in my diary 'first day of TMS'. I didn't by this stage hold out much hope, but I was willing finally to give it a go. So I started writing in a journal and doing the daily reminders. I also saw a therapist to talk about emotional stuff but completely abandoned all back treatments and exercises. Within a week I was 75% better. A few weeks later I was pretty much back to normal - although I was still taking paracetamol regularly - but now at least it made a difference to the pain. A few months later and the pain was basically non-existent and any residual pain would vanish if I simply ignored it. So it did work for me. It wasn't immediate and it took a lot of soul searching to really commit to the idea. But once I did, it worked. Now I read a lot of reviews that say this approach may work for 'unexplained' pain (i.e. you don't have a real, physical problem.) But I had the worst form of slipped disc and I got better pretty damn fast once I got my head around the concept that a slipped disc might not be causing the kind of pain I was in. I have a great deal of respect for those who have tried this book and not found it to be useful, but I do believe that the premise of the book is correct and that, once you have been cleared of any disease or immune disorder etc.. the cause of ongoing and chronic pain is emotional, not physical. So my advice, in a nutshell, would be: Go to a professional and get an opinion, an MRI if necessary, if there is any lingering concern that the pain is caused by disease. Then, once you have the all clear for anything truly serious, buy this book and read it. Not once but many times. Let it sink in. Then practise the exercises and daily reminders religiously. Don't give up after a few days if things aren't improving. Work at it. I cannot guarantee I will never have back pain again, but I'm pretty sure I now know what lies behind it. Like many thousands of other people I am incredibly grateful to John Sarno for this . I wish you luck.

Good one

Me lisant handicapé par un lumbago persistant, de bonnes âmes m'ont écrit pour me conseiller diverses pratiques de guérison. Soulagé momentanément par les bons soins de la masseuse chinoise, de l'ostéopathe, du réflexologue et de la nouvelle pharmacopée, en l'occurrence de l'Ixprim, savant cocktail de tramadol et de paracétamol, mais néanmoins bloqué en position allongée depuis trois semaines, j'ai eu tout le loisir de lire Healing Back Pain en anglais dans le texte, le best-seller du Docteur John E. Sarno. Le médecin américain y livre son intuition sur l'origine du mal au dos et comment s'en débarrasser définitivement, même affecté comme je le suis par une hernie discale et trois disques écrasés ! L'hypothèse formulée par le médecin américain tient du bon sens, mais son style est celui d'un auteur à succès s'adressant à une large population plutôt inculte en matière psychanalytique. Dès lors que l'on considère que la majorité de nos afflictions proviennent de la somatisation, ou du moins que notre mental a une influence indéniable sur les maladies que nous attrapons, pourquoi ne pourrait-on guérir par ce qui provoqua le mal ? D'où sa suggestion de soigner les TMS (Tension Myositis Syndrome, en français Troubles musculosquelettiques) sans médicaments, ni chirurgie, ni exercice physique, mais par le seul pouvoir du cerveau... Si l'I.R.M. montre une lésion vertébrale, Sarno prétend que ce n'est pas elle qui provoque la douleur. Il est question de manque d'oxygénation des tissus, mais je ne vais pas réécrire ici son bouquin. Le stress et la colère rentrée seraient à l'origine du mal, comme on peut se fabriquer un cancer, un ulcère à l'estomac, de l'asthme, quelque maladie dermatologique, etc., la liste est longue. Pour avoir envisagé moi-même depuis fort longtemps cette théorie et l'avoir testée avec succès, la lecture confirme mon hypothèse. On peut évidemment atténuer la douleur et la faire disparaître en l'apprivoisant, de même on peut très bien guérir de moult maladies par un travail psychologique ou psychanalytique, tout dépend de l'ampleur des dégâts. L'inconscient est hélas plus puissant que la concentration volontariste et la relaxation philosophique, aussi n'est-ce pas toujours facile, particulièrement en période de crise aiguë. Sur tous les terrains il est fondamental de juguler la peur. Là où Sarno est léger, c'est évidemment dans la guérison miraculeuse qui tient, malgré ses dires, plus d'une sorte de conviction à laquelle je ne peux adhérer, n'ayant pas en son temps acquis la petite croix Vitafor qui guérit tout, peines du corps et peines du cœur, il suffit d'envoyer le bon de commande, ici un petit livre de poche à quelques euros, je ne me suis pas ruiné. Le pouvoir de suggestion des praticiens ayant recours à la méthode du médecin américain est certainement la clef de leurs succès, mais j'ai beau avoir suivi, ou plus justement précédé à la lettre, les conseils avisés prescrits, soit traiter l'affaire par le mépris, je me suis tout de même coincé le dos après trois ans et demi de rémission alors que je pensais être sorti de là ! Cela fait trente ans que ma cinquième lombaire joue le rôle de mon talon d'Achille. Si le ciboulot est souvent à l'origine du mal, s'il est possible de s'en débarrasser par un travail psychique, il n'en reste pas moins que le best-seller qui aurait soigné des milliers de personnes de par le monde tient par son style d'une entreprise commerciale juteuse qui laisse planer le doute sur les intentions philanthropiques de son auteur. Ouvrage de vulgarisation sur le pouvoir de l'inconscient, il n'empêchera pas chacun de morfler et de trouver également l'issue qui lui convient...