The morning after I went to see Dr. Sarno, I woke up pain free! Hallelujah! It was like a faith healing.
Sarno’s declaration that there was nothing wrong with my back was very freeing and caused me to become pain free. But I have had equally strong declarations from other doctors that may have caused and perpetuated pain.
For example, in order to see Dr. Sarno or Dr. Gwozdz, or any of these other Mind-Body Pain Specialists you have to go and get an MRI to make sure that there is not a disease process like cancer. When I had an MRI done of my spine recently, the Orthopedic doctor that I saw said that I had the spine of an 80-year-old and that he was surprised that I could walk. He said that I should get steroid injections but that they probably would not help. The only thing that would help was surgery. I didn’t have to get it right away, but it was inevitable.
That was hard to listen to and to be able to walk away from and not be crippled! I think that I have had a hard time getting out of pain because of doctors like that. If I have the spine of an 80-year old now, what will my spine look like in 20 years? I have an uncle who is 80 years old. He has suffered from back pain for as long as I have known him. He has had multiple surgeries and nothing has worked. I don’t want to end up like him.
I took my MRI’s to Dr. Gwozdz and he reassured me that my spine looked the way it did partly because of genetics (we had a lengthy discussion and he took a family history) and partly because I have had an extremely active lifestyle. He also felt that there was nothing wrong with my spine and I would be ok.
When I first saw Dr. Sarno in the 90’s I was completely cured in less than 24 hours. However, since I have had episodes where the pain has recurred my therapist thought that was because I simply took Dr. Sarno’s pronouncement on faith and I didn’t do the work to deal with the underlying and repressed emotions that are the cause of the pain syndrome.
What is the work that you have to do to rid yourself of chronic pain?
Dr. Sarno instructed his patients to go over these 12 Daily Reminders. These can be found on page 82 of Healing Back Pain.
1. The pain is from TMS and not from any structural abnormalities.
I have to remind myself that my pain went away even though my MRI had showed herniated disks, spinal stenosis and arthritis. Those things didn’t go away, but the pain did. So, these things don’t cause pain, they are simply incidental findings (as Dr. Sarno taught).
2. The direct reason for the pain is mild oxygen deprivation.
There is nothing structurally wrong with my back, but my brain knows where all of these imperfections are so it creates pain that corresponds to these areas. The brain cuts off oxygen flow in those spots to cause pain. It’s similar to what happens when your leg falls asleep when you are sitting for meditation. It can be quite painful, but once you are up and moving around, the pain goes away. To me, this has got to be true, because there are times when my back hurts and there are times when it doesn’t. If there was something structurally wrong with my back, it would hurt all of the time. Dr. Sarno said that the symptoms of TMS were the most painful thing he knew of in clinical medicine, but that it was essentially harmless. Once the pain goes away, there is no lasting damage.
3. TMS is a harmless condition caused by my repressed emotions.
For whatever reason, the brain has decided that pain is easier to deal with than emotions. Personally, I’d rather deal with the emotions, but that is a tricky thing because it is not socially acceptable to let our emotions out in many situations. When my son was 12 or so, he wanted a paintball birthday party. One of the boys got hit in the neck with a paintball. There must have been a gap between his face shield and the collar of his jacket and it was just an unlucky shot. Being hit by a paintball is painful. The boy cried and sat out of the rest of the game. The rest of the boys who went back in to play again must have talked about it because in the car on the ride home later my son told me that he would never cry again. I was saddened as I realized that my son learned one of the rites of manhood that to cry is to be ridiculed.
4. The principal emotion is my repressed ANGER.
This one is hard to wrap my brain around because I don’t see myself as an angry person. But things do make me angry and I don’t show it. My mother got angry a lot and it was ugly. I think I would rather repress anger than to look and act the way she did. I believe that my mother also had TMS as she suffered with migraine headaches as well as back pain. Dr. Sarno said that TMS can be a learned behavior and that if one or both of our parents had TMS, it is likely we would, too.
5. TMS only exists to distract my attention from the emotions.
I think I would rather feel my emotions than experience back pain, but my subconscious mind apparently thinks otherwise. Dr. Sarno likened the pain to a smoke screen or diversion. All I know that is if I focus on the pain, it doesn’t help. However, it’s hard to focus on the emotions when the pain is intense, especially when most of the medical world is telling you that you have pain because of a herniated disk, or spinal stenosis, or some other structural reason that is causing the pain. But perhaps the pain is an emotional barometer, letting you know that there is some inner conflict happening.
6. Since my back is basically normal, there is nothing to fear.
Dr. Sarno talks about how the fear of the pain can be more debilitating than the pain itself. But Sarno holds that our spines did not go through millions of years of evolution to become these fragile, spindly things that cannot support us.
7. Therefore physical activity is not dangerous.
This is a big one because a lot of our orthopedic docs and physical therapists will tell us that certain types of activities are dangerous and that we should never do them. I’ve been told not to run. I’ve also been given conflicting advice that swimming is bad for my back or that swimming was good for my back. I decided that swimming was good for my back and I enjoyed doing it. This pronouncement that physical activity is dangerous can become a form of conditioning, too and we can start to expect pain when we do those activities. However, it is important to keep moving and doing the things that you love to do. These activities can release stress and give you pleasure.
8. And I must resume all normal physical activity.
In my latest episode of back pain, I couldn’t ride my bike, it was painful to hunch over the handlebars. But I told myself that riding my bike was not dangerous and I was determined to do it. So, I set small goals for myself. My first goal was to ride to the stop sign at the end of my road which is about a half mile away. (This seems ridiculous to me as I was previously able to ride for 100 miles!) It was painful, but I persisted because I believed that I could not hurt myself further. I gradually kept improving. I set a goal to be able to ride my usual 10-mile loop by Mother’s Day (2 years ago). The first time I did it, it was hard and a little painful, but I was able to do it. Until eventually I was able to ride for as long as I wanted. I successfully retrained my brain to understand that riding my bike was not painful!
9. I will not be concerned or intimidated by the pain.
Dr. Sarno thought that people who have chronic back pain lead lives that are more limited than people who are confined to wheel chairs. Our lives can become so restricted by the pain or even the fear of the pain. I do not want my life to become smaller and less active.
10. I will shift my attention from the pain to the emotions.
When the pain flares up, it is a good time to think about your emotions. What is bothering me? What am I stressed about? What am I afraid of? In my next blog post, I will write about the personality traits of someone who is prone to TMS. You will see how these traits contribute to self-imposed stress and inner turmoil.
11. I intend to be in control, not my sub-conscious mind.
I want to live a full life, not one that is restricted by pain!
12. I must think psychological at all times, not physical.
One of the main therapeutic techniques that has worked for a lot of people is to write about their feelings in a journal. Writing about them is more therapeutic than thinking about them. I’m not quite sure why that is true, but I know that I have more success with processing my emotions when I write about. I think it has to do with the “rational mind”. Not, the logical mind, but that part of our mind that rationalizes what we think say or do.
I hope these steps are helpful. They come from Dr. Sarno’s book: Healing Back Pain. I recommend that you read his book to understand the physiology and the psychology of this Mind-Body Syndrome.
Next time I will share with you some questions as to how you determine if you have TMS. But, please, if you think you have TMS I recommend that you get checked out by a doctor. Dr. Gwozdz is in our area (Somerset, NJ) and is a caring and compassionate man.
Here is his info: Dr. Paul Gwozdz, 710 Easton Avenue; Suite 1A, Somerset, NJ 08873,
(732) 545-4100