fibromyalgia - Thank You, Dr. Sarno

Candace’s Thank You

Dear Dr. Sarno,

About a year ago I was in the worst state physically and mentally. I was in the process of interviewing surgeons to have surgery on the discs in my neck, which were believed to be causing the excruciating pain that radiated down my shoulder and arm. I was unable to sit, walk, and drive, which basically meant I spent a lot of time on my back, medicated. This was no easy task with two small boys. I was no stranger to chronic pain and had suffered for most of my adult life. My diagnoses ranging from irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, herniated discs, migraines and high blood pressure just to name a few.

As I lay on my basement floor, unable to move and realizing I couldn’t live my life like this any longer I was reluctantly going to pursue surgery. Then, enter my brother-in-law who had been suggesting your book to me for several years after his success with your TMS theory. This time I had finally agreed to read it. As I read the pages I began to wonder could this book be written about me. Of course it wasn’t, but I represent so many others who are struggling with chronic pain and desperate to find relief.

Your words resonated with me and I began to open up to the possibility that my pain could be emotionally charged. I especially found comfort in your words explaining that the pain I felt was very real, but originating from a psychological concern rather than a mechanical one. I had done every conventional and alternative treatment recommended that should have cured my pain and none of them worked. Now I know why, the pain was not being caused by a physical problem. Within six weeks of reading your book and subscribing to your theory of TMS, I was able to walk my kids to school, do hot yoga and drive a car without pain. Fast forward to today, it has been just over a year and I have been pain free and feeling better than ever! When life begins to stress me out, I reach for your daily reminders and I’m able to manage my mind and body as a whole and keep chronic pain away for good. I am eternally grateful for your dedication to TMS and hope to continue to see your work and legacy provide the shift our culture needs in the treatment of chronic pain.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Candace

Sharon’s Thank You

I read Healing Back Pain in the mid-1990’s, saw myself on every page, and it changed my life. I have never met you, but I owe you the a great debt for saving me from a life spent in pain in doctors offices. I had knee pain at that time that cortisone shots and physical therapy could not heal when a woman who had had severe back pain (including 2 operations) and was swimming 2 miles a day suggested I read Healing Back Pain even though my pain was in my knee. The next day I had a appointment with yet another doctor who told me I had fibromyalgia. I got off the exam table, thanked him, paid my bill, and never looked back.

Now when I have pain, I talk to/yell at my brain and reread your books as the basis to think about things that are bothering me. It has really helped to understand what is actually happening physically. For example, when I had recurring urinary tract infections, it helped to understand how the brain causes infections and allergies by suppressing or increasing the immune system. Once I understood this, it confirmed for me that this was a TMS equivalent, and I my last infection literally disappeared overnight.

I must also thank you for describing the subtle childhood emotional abuse of some TMS sufferers in the Divided Mind. I felt like you must have been sitting on the couch of my childhood home. I cried for an hour knowing I was not alone and did not imagine it. I have reread that section many times and it has been a great comfort.

Thank you, and I wish you peace and health in your life. I know you have brought a great deal of that to mine.

Joy’s Thank You

Dear Dr. Sarno,

I was one of those children with a ‘nervous tummy.’ I had myriad allergies and seemed to catch every bug that was going around. In my teenage years I became, like my father, one of those ‘back people,’ withdrawing from the chaos of family life at intervals to lie painfully, but quietly, on my bedroom floor.

As I grew older and encountered the adult challenges of education, marriage and travelling abroad, I developed various TMS symptoms, often at a time when these diagnoses became ‘trendy’ – in the 80’s I had ‘IBS,’ in the 90’s I had ‘fibromyalgia,’ and both my doctors and I were pleased to have a clear, simple label to hang upon my condition. But then new symptoms would develop…At a time I should have been having fun, I was having tests (always clear), taking drugs (always placebos that wore off) and undertaking physical therapies (which made me feel temporarily better from the interaction with a sympathetic practitioner). I wondered if I were a hypochondriac, but I so, so hated being ill…

With the advent of the internet, I was able to search out ever more reasons for my symptoms. Luckily, whenever I typed in the words ‘back pain,’ I kept finding references to a certain Dr John E Sarno… I ordered The Mindbody Prescription and wrote the date it arrived on the book’s front page: 15th June 2007.

That was the date on which I started to reclaim my life. On every page, I got that frisson that everyone describes, the realisation that ‘Hey, this is describing me!’ I had thought I was unhappy because of my pain; I now realise it was the other way around! This was the key to me actually addressing the real problems, and thus healing both my pain and my life.

I thank you, Dr Sarno, for the vision, wisdom and experience you have brought to your pioneering work. I thank you for your courage in standing up to the inevitable short-sightedness of the medical mainstream. I thank you for your kindness in making this information so widely available at such a low cost, and for seeking first and foremost to heal. I thank you, as so many do, for giving me back control over my life.

And I wish you all the best for the happy and fulfilling retirement that you so thoroughly deserve!

With sincere gratitude,
Joy

Cara’s Thank You

Cara's Picture Dear Dr. Sarno,

No matter how hard I try, I can not think of a way to express how grateful I am to you. You have truly given me my life back. At 26 years old, I thought that I was going to live the rest of my life in bed, in excruciating pain. I am now 100% pain free and it is all because of you. I was told by countless doctors that I will never be pain free, that what I have is an irreversible disease, that I need more surgeries, that I will resent any kids that I have because they will cause me so much pain, I will need 24 hour live in help to raise my kids, etc. For the first time in a long time, I am excited to live my life and know that it will be pain free.

In March of 2009, I felt pain in my lower back while at the gym. I had had some back pain in the past and figured that it would just go away. When it didn’t, I got an MRI 3 months later which showed I had a herniated disc at L5/S1. In the following months, I tried physical therapy, had multiple facet joint and epidural injections, and continued to get worse. In the fall, I was taking strong pain medications, wearing a heating pad every day to get through work, and going home to lay on the couch with a heating pad. Over the next couple months I had 2 surgeries, IDET and a microdiscectomy. My pain never went away and that next summer, I started to develop muscle knots all over my body. They started in my lower back and spread up to my upper back, shoulders, neck, jaw, ribs, stomach, etc.. I was diagnosed with myofascial pain syndrome/fibromyalgia, put back in physical therapy, prescribed some new medications, etc. I was in excruciating pain all over my body 24/7. By January the next year, the knots took over my body and I couldn’t hold myself up. I spent the next 8 months getting intensive dry needling done 3x per week. I did not improve. I then started getting multiple medical massages per week, seeing a chiropractor and acupuncture. By January this year, I was at rock bottom, I had tried literally everything to get better and was starting to think I would have to live the rest of my life in bed. This is when someone recommended me your book. I saw myself in every page and started to feel better almost immediately. Now, I can honestly say that the knots I had for years are now gone, and that I am living a normal, pain free life.

Sending a lifetime of thanks your way.

Cara

Chris’s Thank You

Dr. Sarno,

When my back doctor referred me to your book, “The Divided Mind”, I was very hesitant to say the least. In my late thirties, I had dealt with severe chronic pain for almost 15 years in an increasing number of locations throughout my body. I was diagnosed with fibro and had visited a plethora of specialists and pain clinics, not to mention the medications, physical therapy, and devices. I used to be a very active person, but I quit almost every activity because of fear that I would aggravate an injury or hurt myself in a new place.

Well, I forced myself to open your book, and just a few pages in, I started laughing out loud because of the relief I felt. Your words described me. I had never heard such a diagnosis, yet it made so much sense. The more I read, the more I said, “Yes! Yes!” I started working on the daily, mental exercises. I bought “The Mind Body Prescription” for reinforcement. And slowly, I began to resume all the activities I had abandoned over the last 15 years. It was a battle, and I still have lapses of fear, but now I know for sure I have TMS, that I can do things like hike and play tennis without fear I’m going to cause physical harm.

I can’t thank you enough for changing my life. I had resigned to a life of immobility and depression. Getting back to my old activities has made so much difference to me. I’ve had countless tests and a shoulder surgery for impingement syndrome in the past. Reading your words convinced me that nothing is physically wrong now, and getting rid of that fear is a life-saver.

Thank you so much, not only for helping me get my life back, but for your tenacious truth-telling in spite of the resistance from the traditional medical establishment. I hope they will someday follow your lead.

I truly can not thank you enough!!

-Chris Framingham, MA

Howard Schubiner’s Thank You

Tribute to Dr. Sarno:

Dr. Sarno, your work has changed my professional life in a profound
way. As a academic physician and researcher, my interest in TMS began
with a simple encounter: the chair of my Internal Medicine department
told me about his wife who had one of the famous “book cures” (of
severe hip and back pain) after reading The Mindbody Prescription.
Knowing my interests in the relationship between stress and illness
and mindfulness meditation, he suggested that I “look into this.” I
did and this act was a major turning point for my career.

You were gracious enough to allow me to visit you in 2003 to spend a
couple of days observing your work. What a gift to see this work
firsthand! I will always be grateful to you for that. You started me
on a path that has transformed my career and given me a powerful sense
of purpose and meaning. I have spent the last nine years working
ceaselessly to further the goal of making your work part of mainstream
medicine. I have developed a 4-week program based upon your concepts
(with specific writing and meditative exercises) and used it to
conduct a randomized, controlled trial for people with fibromyalgia.
This study was published last year and was the basis for a $3 million
grant from the National Institutes of Health to study emotion-based
therapy for fibromyalgia.

A group of physicians and mental health providers has formed a
professional organization with the goal of training more health care
providers to spread TMS throughout the world. We will not rest until
we have achieved the objectives that naturally follow from your
groundbreaking insight: that many physical symptoms have their genesis
in the mind and can be cured by educational, behavioral, and emotional
interventions.

I join with my fellow professionals and TMS-affected individuals in
thanking you for your tremendous contribution to medicine. I am
confident that your innovative work will be viewed as a landmark event
when the history of medicine is rewritten in the coming decade.

With gratitude and admiration,

Howard Schubiner, MD

Director, Mind Body Medicine Center, Providence Hospital, Southfield, MI
Clinical Professor, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI

Debra’s Thank You

Dear Dr. Sarno,

I feel my life story has two very distinct segments – “Life before meeting Dr. Sarno” and “Life after meeting Dr. Sarno.” The positive changes in my daily life since meeting you three years ago are truly that dramatic and powerful. After nearly a lifetime of chronic pain, I came to you desperate for even the slightest improvement. My diagnoses of Post Polio Syndrome and Fibromyalgia were completely dominating my life. My world, year by year, was getting smaller and smaller. My body, day by day, was getting weaker and weaker.

I was indeed shocked when you were adamant that I repudiate both diagnoses in order to get well! That was just the beginning of the many ways I needed to learn to change my thinking and to connect with what was really going on emotionally.

Although I had already experienced over a decade of psychotherapy, without the understanding of how TMS worked, it was impossible for me to get better. That was the missing link, and all attempts at healing were futile without it. My gratitude to you also extends to your introduction of Dr. Bob Evans to me within weeks of meeting with you. I continue to see him weekly, and the results are nothing short of astonishing! The boundaries limiting my personal world are falling away, one by one. In fact, I am one of the few women I know who truly feels that as I age chronologically, I am getting younger and more vibrant emotionally and physically. To me, your life’s work is nothing short of a miracle. Thank you, beloved Dr. Sarno, for my miracle.

I wish for you all the blessings that you have given to others.
With the greatest admiration and gratitude,

Debra

Forest’s Thank You

Forest in Jerusalem

My TMS first started when I was a teenager. I was highly driven and passionately devoted to programming computers. The TMS began in my hands and slowly moved to my arms, neck , back and knees. Doctors diagnosed me at first with repetitive strain injuries and then with fibromyalgia, myofascial pain syndrome, and thoracic outlet syndrome. My junior year of college a doctor told me I would never be pain free, and that it was unlikely that I could ever become a programmer. Within a couple of years, my ability to type, handwrite, run, and maintain certain static positions were all severely limited. I lived this way for more than a decade, just trying to get by.

Several years ago, a friend showed me several TMS success stories and for the first time in years I had hope for the future. Through steadily pushing my boundaries, I slowly regained functionality, regaining my ability to do what I needed to do. When the pain occasionally returns, I no longer worry, and just go about my business.

This is photo of me in Jerusalem’s Old City. I spent two weeks there and was able to walk around for hours without the slightest hint of pain. Before I wouldn’t have even considered the trip.

Dr. Sarno thank you so much for all the work you have done. Learning about TMS has given me my life back.

With Deepest Gratitude,

Forest