Healing Back Pain
by steve
(mylowerbackpain)
Healing Back Pain
Healing Back Pain - by Dr John E Sarno
My Bowen therapist recommended Healing Back Pain by Dr John Sarno to me. And I experienced something quite remarkable as I read it.
Although my therapist recommended Healing Back Pain in our first session, it took me a while to get to a bookstore where I could get it. So as it turned out I had nearly completed my Bowen therapy and it was going well when I started to read. As I began Healing Back Pain I could feel the pain in my lower back that I'd had all day.
After about 30 minutes of reading (I hadn't reached page 50) I sat back and thought about the time when my back pain first appeared: it was 1993, and I'd just bought my first house. I remembered that because I remember mentioning to my Doctor when I started suffering that I'd just got a new bed - and I remember getting the bed because I needed one in the new house.
When I thought a bit more about that year, I realised that it had been quite a year for me:
- My first house. Which meant living alone for the first time. Also I was living some distance from my family.
- A 3-week visit to Indonesia and Bangkok to visit my sister.
- I sat (and passed) my professional review which lead me to become a Chartered Civil Engineer (my day job).
- I started the year with a short relationship that ended disastrously.
- I spent the summer working on a construction site to which I wasn't particularly suited.
As I thought about these things, it occurred to me that 1993 was one of my more significant and high-pressure years. And as I thought about this, my back pain vanished.
And so far (2 days later as I type this), it hasn't returned.
According to Dr Sarno, an awful lot of back pain (and shoulder pain, buttock pain, etc) is the result of the subconscious mind creating pain to suppress emotions and anxieties. That sounds a bit far-fetched, but I've always kept my emotions carefully tucked away - and perhaps my back pain has been the result?
I don't know. But I do know that spending a couple of minutes just thinking about those fairly anxious events in 1993 seems to have done the trick.
Of course, I haven't finished my Bowen, so perhaps it's that. Or both together.
(Hmmm. If my back pain really is the result of my subconscious distracting me from my anxieties, that does explain why nothing else - not the flexiback, the tempur mattress, osteopathy, painkillers, alexander technique - has worked. They've not worked because, fundamentally, there's nothing wrong with my back at all!)
The book isn't particularly well-written - and the key point was made to me in the first 50 pages. But it appears to be astonishingly effective.
One of the most surprising things about Healing Back Pain is that it was published in 1991 - two years before I got lower back pain! I'm not sure that back then I would have been ready to accept its theories, but why didn't my doctor know about it?
Anyway, I'm pleased to discover it - after all, it could have been another 15 years before I did!
So if you have back pain, do pick up a copy of Healing Back Pain. It's only a few pounds/dollars - and it could be what you're waiting for.
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