This is a follow up and some added detail to my previous blog. If you didn’t catch that one, you might want to start there.
Although I wasn’t someone that talked about it regularly, I was one of the multitudes in significant pain every single day for years. I physically could not lift my right arm straight in the air because of severe shoulder pain. I also couldn’t turn my neck fully most days due to sharp pain. I had red hot knots in my shoulders and even acute sharp pains in various places in my neck. I had hip/leg pain when I slept, and I was also dealing with severe foot pain. And my low back pain would lock me up to the point I could not get out of bed some days. Even things like basic bending and stretching resulted in pain and discomfort almost everywhere.
When I occasionally tried Yoga, I had to modify half of the class to accommodate my ailments and pains. My wife would look at me like I was crazy as I described the excruciating experience of doing a simple forward fold for the first time or even just attempting to sit straight with my legs out in front of me. It wasn’t just uncomfortable; it was downright painful!
In addition to computers and desk chairs, mattresses were the other bane of my existence. I have probably wasted more money and done more damage to the environment because of my bad back, hip, and shoulder than in any other area of my life. We have tried a few different types and only the exact right combination of body pillows, memory foam and strategic propping up could get me through a night without waking up in a knotted-up ball of shooting pains. I won’t even go into the excruciating details of my first night sleeping on the mattress that came with our new RV, but I can tell you that I walked around stiff like a Zombie for about two days. A “My Pillow” and an RV “Sleep Number” bed quickly found their way onto our credit card bill and yet another nearly new mattress found itself in a landfill.
I have always been a little skeptical of using traditional medicine for everyday aches, pains, and ailments based on the results I saw other people getting. I did not want to go to an MD for my back because I knew and had seen the treatment plan. I was not interested in the pharmaceuticals or injections that they were likely to suggest, and I was not particularly interested in the barrage of radiation I am sure my body would be subjected to as they carefully zero in on what I already knew. I have an arthritic back condition and it is exactly what my aunts, uncles, and grandparents all struggle with and what essentially left my grandfather crippled for a good part of the later years of his life.
HOW I GOT INVOLVED WITH A CHIROPRACTOR
When I first started experiencing low back pain it was not too bad, but I was primarily worried about my future. I probably could have kept sucking it up, but unfortunately, it was starting to affect, not only my ability to play golf well, but my ability to play golf at all. While attending a local golf expo years ago, I talked to a chiropractor that had a booth set up. He explained how he specialized in back and neck issues for golfers and that his program was not a quick fix. It was a combination of chiropractic adjustment, soft tissue manipulation, ultrasound stimulation to increase blood flow, and a thorough and specific program of stretching and exercise based on my golf goals, specific weaknesses, and any physical abnormalities that would be revealed during a thorough physical examination. He also assured me that I would not be asked to quit playing golf! That was the crucial piece to me and what convinced me to make an appointment. I had heard chiropractic care was quackery, but this guy was an actual doctor and sounded legit, so I thought I would give it a try.
Since I have always had a high deductible, HSA insurance plan, the chiropractor’s quoted out-of-pocket prices seemed reasonable compared to the traditional insurance route of going to a family doctor, getting a referral to a specialist, and paying for it all out of my high deductible. The chiropractor also answered my questions and concerns as I explained to him that since this was all out of pocket for me, I was not sure I wanted to start a long-term treatment plan. He assured me that his main goal was to teach me how to treat myself through exercise, and that once we got rid of some of the persistent pain in a couple of visits, only an occasional office visit for a maintenance adjustment would be required.
HOUSTON WE HAVE SOME PROBLEMS
During my first office visit I questioned the need for an X Ray primarily because I didn’t want the radiation and because I really didn’t think my problems were that severe as I was only in my 30’s at the time. He assured me that the X Ray was safe and necessary so that he could have a better idea what he was dealing with physically. I went along. To be honest, I was stunned when the X Ray, not only showed abnormalities, but according to the doctor, they were extensive for someone my age. In hindsight this is exactly the moment my real problems started. He spent a good deal of time showing me my narrowing discs, crooked low back and neck compared to someone with a healthy spine. To be honest it was not just surprising it was frightening.
His eyes got wide while he took notes as I described how much golf I was playing, my family history and daily computer working position. I described my desk/office setup which was soon declared an ergonomic disaster area. He also quizzed me about any accidents I have been in that might explain some of these neck issues he was seeing. I explained what I could remember about the time I was in a head on collision unrestrained and how I cracked the car windshield with my forehead and about all the times I had tumbled head over heels skiing steep double black diamond terrain while living in Colorado.
This led to my shoulder and the time I broke it and tore my rotator cuff skiing in Aspen years ago but stupidly didn’t do the follow up Physical Therapy that had been prescribed. I let him listen to the audible clicking sound my shoulder would make right before the extreme pain made me drop my arm in agony. He explained that the sound was my bone grinding against the other bone and pinching a nerve that was causing this shooting pain and even finger numbness. I decided that it was not necessary to mention all the other neck injuries I had as a kid from playing sports, taking soccer balls to head as a part of a wall, backyard tackle football, falling out of trees or off rickety skateboard ramps or about the few times I have been knocked out at least for a few moments.
Although I didn’t mention all of these in his office that day, I sure did think about them in the ensuing days, weeks, and months. If I only knew how much long-term damage I was doing, maybe I would have been more careful? I didn’t think I was in that bad of shape, but given what he told me and showed me, I discovered I was probably being a lot tougher than I realized. After the examination, he suggested we get started on treatment right away and that he probably had to back off a little on his original prediction of only a few visits for me. After the grave X ray session, I was just happy I wasn’t being sent for surgical consultation right away! He suggested weekly visits for at least 6 weeks, and I immediately agreed. Something I am certain I would not have agreed to at the golf expo or without the X ray.
THE TREATMENT PLAN THEN
He did a survey and asked me to rank my pain in various places one to ten. He cracked my back and spent a bunch of time on what he explained as “a new technique that was showing great results”. It was basically soft tissue manipulation, and it did feel wonderful on my always stiff neck. On a lot of days including this day, I could only turn my neck a few degrees in either direction, if at all. But the treatment undeniably did improve the limited range of my zombie neck. I also spent some time with the ultrasound machine hooked to my back and shoulder. That loosened me up and felt great.
I set up an appointment for a week later and I left his office with an optimistic spring in my step and the proud new owner of a giant inflatable purple balloon that would become part of a regular exercise routine as well as an eyesore in the floor of my home for a couple of years. According to the doc, although there was no cure for my condition, if I could strengthen my core enough, it would relieve some of the pressure on my bad discs.
After the first week of chiropractic treatment and before my second appointment, my pain had gotten a little worse. My doctor explained that this was because the exercise program almost always causes things to get slightly worse before they get better. He suggested some modifications to my routine that would take some of the pressure off my back and we did another round of ultrasound, adjustment, and tissue manipulations.
It was winter, so the golf clubs were hung up for a while. After few weeks of exercise and office visits I was starting to feel a little better. I had completely replaced my office chair with that giant balloon ball thing and my abs were no doubt getting stronger as I worked on sitting up straight at work and everywhere. In fact, every time I sat, I had to pretend I was the queen of England.
My doctor explained that improving my posture was in turn relieving the stress on the bad discs in my low back and neck. I did not exactly understand how or why based on the explanation, but like my chiropractor said, he is the one who has a degree in this stuff, not me.
I was feeling so well that I decided to stop my weekly chiropractic visits and make my next visit a month away instead of a week. Weather was looking good, and I was excited to try out my new strong core on the driving range. For my first time out in quite a while, I was hitting the ball well and with little pain. In fact, I hit balls at the range several days in a row and I excitedly made a tee-time at a local golf course to play a round. Well, it turns out my golf game was a complete disaster, and I am not even sure I broke 100. Although I was disappointed in my game, that was not too big of a deal and my back did not hurt too much during the round. Unfortunately, that evening, things changed and my lower back was throbbing. Maybe worse than ever. I made an appointment with the chiropractor and we both agreed that going a month between visits was probably way too long. Since I was now starting to play golf regularly, we decided that I should go back to at least weekly treatment. I was disappointed, but if that is what it would take to keep me playing golf, then I was up for it.
HAVING SOME SUCCESS
For the next few weeks, I continued to play and hit balls, get weekly treatments, and do exercises and stretching as prescribed. I by far felt my best the day after my office visit and ultrasound treatment so I started scheduling my golf game for the day after my chiropractic visit. Based on my doctor’s suggestions, I cut my driving range practice way down, saving what good swings I had for the course. I also stopped walking as much, and I bought a pushcart for when I did. Carrying my bag on my back for 18 holes was not even a consideration for me over a decade ago.
THAT DIDN’T LAST LONG
Unfortunately, regardless of how I felt the day after treatment, things did not seem to be getting better overall and both me and my chiropractor were frustrated. One day after completing the typical pre-visit pain survey, my doctor suggested what I had been dreading. “Jeremy, you need to stop playing golf for the rest of the season so that you can focus on the treatments and getting rid of the inflammation that is causing this persistent pain and stiffness”. I walked out of the office for what would be my last ever chiropractic visit with my head hanging low and no spring in my step. I had been so optimistic about the treatment plan, but ultimately, my physical back problems, accident history, and my heredity probably meant that golf would not be a part of my long-term future. I certainly could not see any swelling in my back, but I could sure feel it and I could also almost feel my discs dissolving with every golf swing I took. Like the doctor said, being able to walk long-term needs to be a higher priority than being able to play golf long-term. We both agreed that surgery was a bad route to take for this.
WHY I GOT RID OF MY CHIROPRACTOR
As I laid in bed wide awake with my back and neck throbbing, I began to think about my journey with the chiropractic care. Things were becoming clear. I completed updated my office set up, I was doing the treatments, following the exercise routines and my core was stronger than it ever had been, but my back pain was at its absolute worst! Go figure. I called the office and got a copy of all my records including all the pain surveys I had taken. My weekly pain surveys proved exactly what I suspected and already knew. My pain had indeed gotten worse during treatment, but not better. I am not saying my chiropractor had any ill intention, but clearly, the treatment plan was not working by any measurable body of evidence. But the only thing he was able to recommend was to double down on what wasn’t working. It made no sense. This fact bothered my electrical engineering trained brain considerably. And probably also the brain that used to listen to Clark Howard.
So just that quickly I completely dropped my expensive and ineffective chiropractor and devised a new exercise routine of my own. I went immediately back to playing golf and hitting driving range balls pretty much every day. Just as I suspected, my back did not get any worse. In fact, if I were doing day to day pain surveys, I would report that I was feeling better just playing and using mind over body to fight through my pain by spending less time focused on it. Sure, I was still exercising with that balloon ball torture device, and I still had to get rub downs from my wife and use some heat treatment, ice and stretching, but I now knew that the office visits explained to me as crucial were only crucial to the person depending on my repeat business to feed his family. I just needed to play less golf and stop being a baby when I did. Like my grandfather used to always grumble, “growing old isn’t for sissy’s”.
I had sworn off my chiropractic treatment plan, and now I was just muddling through, dealing with pain, and basically accepting the idea that this would be something I would have to live with and accept rather than cure. My time and money with the chiropractor were an expensive lesson that showed me that there was unfortunately no manipulation cure for my condition, a.k.a becoming an old man.
THEN WE HIT THE ROAD
Around 11 years ago is when we decided to sell our house and buy a 3/4 ton diesel truck to pull our new RV home around the country. Shortly after taking off full-time, my back condition got considerably worse. After our first couple of stressful moving days in the RV, I was bedridden for a good bit of the following day. Between the act of driving a truck long distances and sitting on another new bad office chair and playing a bunch of golf, I was feeling worse than ever and once again trying to figure out what to do about my back, neck, and shoulder.
As it turns out, my experience with pain is like my experience with various illnesses. My cure was not found sitting in a doctor’s office, my cure was already sitting on top of my sore neck, back and shoulders. I just didn’t know how to tap into it. But I figured it out with the help of Howard Stern. Yep, that guy.
HOW HOWARD STERN POINTED ME TO MY CURE
Yes, I will admit it. One day, while listening to the Stern show on satellite radio Howard mentioned the name John Sarno. He didn’t talk much, but he credited this Doctor for completely curing his chronic back pain years ago. I started to do a little research online and I soon found several books by Sarno. The most popular of which was the book “Healing Back Pain the Mind-Body Connection”.
I read some more about Sarno and his claims that most people that have chronic back pain are primarily experiencing a psychosomatic reaction to repressed emotions like fear and rage. Although I was intrigued, I already knew that my back problems were not psychosomatic. Mine were clearly visible physical issues that were obvious on the X Ray and a result of past injuries and my heredity. None the less, as someone that is very interested in mind body medicine, I read some reviews on Amazon. Wow, very much to my surprise, the reviews for this New York Times Best seller were extremely positive for a book that claims to “cure” not treat chronic pain. So, I started reading the actual reviews to see if this was, as I suspected, primarily just for people that have mental disorders instead of physical ones like mine. I was amazed to see that, not only did positive reviewers have scans as bad as mine, but some were on the brink of surgery or post-surgery with completely blown discs and herniation and most were claiming to now be pain free after reading this book! I even came across testimonials from people that claimed to have broken their backs severely in car accidents, requiring rods and how they have remained pain free due to Sarno. Other reviewers didn’t even have back pain but were claiming the book cured their knee pain, their hip pain and even pain from known past injuries like my shoulder! I was blown away and I hadn’t even downloaded the book.
HOW HAD I NEVER HEARD OF THIS?
At this point, I was still skeptical, but intrigued more. I found a past episode 20/20 and even a pro-golfer and a bunch of others who swear by Sarno. How had I never heard of this until now? Did my chiropractor know about this? Did Tiger Woods know about this?
That was more than enough for me, and I bought the Kindle eBook and started reading Healing Back Pain. From the very first few pages I felt that John Sarno was writing directly to me as he explained about Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS). His description of a typical patient of his was me including the personality type. He further described the more typical less effective diagnosis and course of treatment and the role it plays in exasperating the condition. Exactly what I had incorrectly bought into with the chiropractor, hook, line, and sinker.
So much of the book made complete sense and some of the questions I always had were answered. Since I have a disc problem, why would most of my pain be present at night or in the morning, or when just sitting on the couch or even sometimes randomly? This was very different to the time I broke my leg. I had to keep that still for weeks and then it was completely and permanently healed. Pretty much the opposite of my back condition which almost seemed to get worse the less active I was. Why not much pain during the day or when I am walking or when the bad discs were receiving the most shock and friction? Some days, I felt little pain at all playing 18 holes. Especially on days when I was hitting it well. On other days, 26 minutes sitting in the waiting area at the Department of Motor Vehicles, and I would have been willing to buy heroin (possibly from the guy sitting next to me) to make the pain stop.
IT WAS ALL STARTING TO COME TOGETHER
On days when I could not even move my neck, what was physically happening compared to days that I could? Was the nerve going from pinched to un-pinched somewhat randomly? My chiropractor did not have an answer for that one, but Sarno did. I devoured each page of the book like a hungry lion, but at first, my pain and stiffness were still there although something was feeling different in my body. More so each day that I read and contemplated.
RISE AND WALK – YOU HAVE BEEN HEALED BY SARNO!
A day or two later, although I had not even completed reading the entire book, while sitting outside of my travel trailer home in the early morning on a cushion on a dock on the Island of Cedar Key Florida, my eyes awakened from my daily morning meditation and my awareness landed squarely on my normally throbbing lower back. After fifteen minutes or so of straight back meditation my back is normally barking. But on this day, the area of normal biting pain, was extremely warm and tingly. I turned my neck side to side and found that I had a full range of motion and no pain. I raised my right arm straight in the air and there was no sharp bite. I scanned my body, head to toe, and realized that for the first time in years, I had absolutely no pain anywhere! If this were the morning after a chiropractic appointment I would have been calling my chiropractor a miracle worker and telling everyone I know about him. But I hadn’t done anything but read a book!
Although it would be a while before I could explain this to my wife or anyone else, tears welled in my eyes quite a few times during the ensuing days as I began to grasp the enormity of the miracle I was experiencing. I literally walked through the next day or so in a complete daze of bewilderment and gratitude. I thought I knew that there was no quick fix for my conditions! How was this working? Was this just a placebo that was going to go away in a couple of days?
Over ten years later, I can tell you with certainty it was no placebo. It took a few more months for my results to become permanent, but with ongoing research, more reading and regular meditation, I have learned to return to that dock and that day in my mind, and on command. I know others can learn how too.
Completing and fully digesting the book “Healing Back Pain The Mind-Body Connection” by John E. Sarno and reading several other books by this author has answered my questions and, as advertised, has healed my pain. My own personal experience as well as others that have shared their experience has backed up the info in the book very well. My own book review is now one of the hundreds of five-star reviews on Amazon.
And now, over ten years later, I have remained pain free and only expanded the extent of my permanent cure to other body parts and chronic ailments. I have played golf nonstop and crisscrossed the country multiple times driving our truck and trailer/home. I do all the yoga exercises the doctor told me not to do. I am currently sitting hunched over like I usually do, writing on the most ergonomically incorrect desk setup I have ever had in my life. Primary just because I can, and because it would make my chiropractor’s head explode if he saw it.
I came across that balloon exercise ball/desk chair when cleaning out the crawl space of our cabin a while back. I decided to beat it with a baseball bat while playing “Die Motherf…er D ie” by the Geto Boys like they did with the printer in the movie “Office Space“. For the first time ever, my back felt good, real good while exercising with that thing.
Now a days, instead of sitting up straight like the Queen of England while watching TV, I lounge on the couch any way I please. I can even lift that shoulder and swing it around like a crazy person if I want. It still sounds like I am making popcorn but there is no pain. I don’t even bend at the knees when picking up something heavy if I don’t feel like it. Hiking for hours and even carrying my golf bag on my back for 18 holes is a regular occurrence for me these days. I still don’t have any pain. Let me make this clear, I don’t have less pain, I have no pain!
Sure, I can get stiff or sore muscles after exercise, but it quickly dissipates as it should and there is no lingering chronic or severe pain or locking spasms whatsoever. Trust me, I know the difference well.
THE TREATMENT NOW
When anyone is interested in hearing about my experience (they rarely are) they want to know what I do when I have pain or symptoms. Well, the simple answer is that with the knowledge I gained, I have learned how to think psychologically instead of physically. Knowing that there is nothing physically wrong with my body alone keeps most pain from showing up in the first place. When I do occasionally feel a twinge or tightening in the exact areas that used to give me problems, I now simply and ultra-confidently acknowledge the sensation as completely non-physical in nature and a symptom of TMS. I don’t ignore the sensation. I do the opposite. I welcome it because I know there is nothing physically wrong with me and that my body is just communicating to me about some emotional things deep inside via harmless although uncomfortable sensations in the tissue.
Sometimes I know right away what emotional baggage I am repressing and sometimes I don’t. Regardless, if my knowledge is applied without doubt, I can just sit back as the pain quickly dissolves into the same warm tingly sensation, I felt that day on the dock years ago.
I don’t want this to sound easy because it is not. I can take a full 110% swing with my driver, hear an audible “pop” sound from my back with a shooting sensation that goes from my neck to toe. I must be able to quickly and unequivocally recognize this as a nonphysical reaction to the subconscious repression of emotions and have no doubt that there is nothing physically wrong with me that caused that sensation and noise. When I do there is no lasting effect. Even when the physical deception is that strong. If I think physically when faced with the same circumstance, I am laid up.
Over time, this type of conscious process is rarely required as the subconscious mind eventually loses the motivation to deceive the audience that is onto the ruse. I could write on and on about the books I have read and what I have learned about repressing emotions, the subconscious mind, fear, anger, and about how the cure is not solving these issues but becoming aware of them. Ok, maybe I will, but really you should just read Sarno!
For my next blog, I will tackle some common misconceptions that I had when first learning about TMS chronic pain.