Reddit reviews The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain
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The Mindbody Prescription Healing the Body Healing the Pain
Right. The symptoms described in the article are psychosomatic, caused by stress. Meditation is not magic and can not cure physical problems (ie heart disease, cancer), but it will of course cure emotional-related issues.
Dr. Sarno's Book
Myofascial pain and CPTSD are enormously comorbid.
I would suggest the following books for your friend. They don't talk about pain in terms of CPTSD but they do talk about pent-up rage, the people pleasing personality, anxiety and things of that nature and their influence on pain.
Unlearn your Pain
The Mind-Body Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing Pain
The MindBody Workbook
The Divided Mind: The Epidemic of Mind-Body Disorders
What your friend should understand is that pain is a side effect of chronic hypervigilance from her trauma. And that treating the trauma will, in turn, treat the pain.
I’ve had hypertonic pelvic floor dysfunction for 18 months now. Started when I had a real stressful life event happen to me and triggered the whole thing. Pain started in tip of my penis and epididymis, then moved to perennial area, buttocks and side of my abs. Originally my pain was at a 7-8 out of 10 but has now slowing progressed downward to 2 after doing the below regime. It’s still affecting me but I’m getting control of it and confident I can get rid of it completely (as many people have).
It is posited that the root cause of hypertonic pelvic floor is a central nervous system and sympathetic nervous that’s gone haywire, usually do to emotional or physical trauma/stress.
Here are the things that have helped reduce the pain the most for me.
Your pain in your penis is referential pain coming from tense pelvic floor muscles. This condition won’t kill you (though it will annoy you) and most people resolve it 100% but it requires a multi modal approach to curing and takes discipline and time (months)
https://www.pelvicpain.org.au/easy-stretches-to-relax-the-pelvis-men/
https://www.amazon.com/Headache-Pelvis-Wise-Anderson-Protocol-Definitive/dp/1524762040
https://www.amazon.ca/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156
https://www.physiotherapyroom.com/Therawand-Trigger-Wand
‘Headache in Pelvis’ book has trigger point release techniques in the book.
I use the headspace app on iOS to help:
https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/headspace-meditation-sleep/id493145008
10.. Some people also complain that orgasming triggers flare ups as it causes the pelvic floor to convulse via spasm. Just so you know.
Good luck, you’ll beat this.
And post back when you do, its important that other people hear your success.
You mean [Dr. John Sarno's] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body/dp/0446675156) books?
Well hey there I think you're on to something here!
Trauma can be a sticky thing, especially long term severe abuse in childhood. We all have stress responses that are designed to keep us safe. If a tiger leaps out of the woods on your morning walk to school your body will rocket into a state of fight-or-flight to keep you safe. In a normal situation, when you're able to run from the tiger or the zookeeper catches it your body will realize the situation has been resolved and you are now safe. It sends the "all safe" signal, the stress response smoothes out and your subconscious is able to process the experience and integrate it into the story of your life experience. "Remember that time the tiger escaped from the zoo and we almost got eaten on the way to school? Whew! That was close haha!" Feeling safe in a nest of family and friends is also vitally important. You can share the story, bond over the experience and move forward together.
But what if the traumatic attack was never resolved? What if that tiger held you down over and over again and beat and brutalized you? What if the tiger was your father or your mother, the very people you rely on to take care of you and protect you? Now who do you tell? You're tiny, the tiger is big and strong and it hurts you over and over again every day.
When the body goes into a flight-or-flight response big metabolic changes occur to get you ready to fight for your life. Digestion is stopped. Complex thought and long term planning cease. Blood rushes to your arms and legs to prepare you for battle.
All pain is the same. Whether it's caused by a broken arm or emotional abuse, the neural circuitry in the brain is the exact same. It's said that "neurons that wire together, fire together". Pain responses can be conditioned, learned and seared into your mind and body.
Maybe you outgrew that tiger attack... sort of. But if you weren't able to actively do something about it or process the guilt and shame of that experience you are still carrying around that incomplete memory somewhere in your body. Body memory is different from a cognitive memory. The narrative version of our lives, which we tell to people to describe who we are, is a different version of memory from the physiological memory where trauma is inscribed. Traumatic memories do not come with a start, middle and end. Instead they reappear in fragments, particular smells, the color of the wallpaper, the timbre of someone's voice heard through a thin wall, the sheets of a bed pulled up over your face. These traumatic memories cycle over and over again outside time. It's as if they're happening NOW and on some level they're happening ALL THE TIME. It may be subtle, but the body is constantly sending out signals that "I'm not safe! I'm not safe! I'm not safe!"
You may become agitated, angry and lash out. You might also become lethargic and depressed, withdrawn from anything that might throw you off your delicate balance. It may be hard to focus on long term goals or concentrate deeply on a single topic because so much of your energy is subconsciously preparing for another tiger attack. As said above, digestion and normal body regulation is disrupted. The body is flooded with stress hormones all the time. This may have immediate impacts on your emotional well being. Over time, after days, weeks and years of disrupted behavior, healthy eating patterns may be destroyed, sleep may be shallow or barely existent, your persistent exhaustion and irritability may disrupt your social life.
Eventually these symptoms and disruptions can snowball into huge chronic pain problems with excruciating physical symptoms. Thoughts of frustration and shame and self-loathing only exacerbate the problem. It may be as if your emotional immune system is attacking itself, which only adds more damage. Life can spiral out of control.
There is hope however.
The opportunity to heal is available to everyone if you're willing to face and befriend your pain and come to terms with the shadow experiences that have been ruling your life from the past.
After all, what other options do you have?
What happened, happened. All we can do from here is bring compassion to ourselves and move on to brighter things.
The first step is to establish a feeling of Safety. From the tone of your writing it seems like you've found a point of stability and you're taking Big Action to look into the mechanisms of your syndrome. Very well done, you're off to a great start!
I think I will refer you to some Authors who have laid out some extensive groundwork on the topic. Have a look around and continue to explore body based therapies. It doesn't have to be all clinical. If you're able, go out for a swim or take an easy movement class. Try acupuncture and massage therapies. If you can find a talk therapist with whom you feel very Comfortable and Safe, continue to explore that route as well.
Here are some resources you might find helpful:
Unclenching Blog - How I cured my chronic pain
https://unclenching.com/2017/11/18/how-i-cured-my-chronic-pain/
Mind/Body Syndrome - Pain Recovery Program
http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/painrecovery/
Tension Myositis Wiki
https://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/The_Tension_Myositis_Syndrome_Wiki
Dr John Sarno's Book "The Mind/Body Prescription"
https://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156/
Bessel Van Der Kolk "The Body Keeps the Score" on Traumatic Memory and PTSD
https://besselvanderkolk.net/index.html
Dr Gabor Mate - Focus on Trauma and Addiction
https://drgabormate.com/
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Best wishes!
Consider the impact that stress and your emotional state are having on your condition. Read Dr. John Sarno
http://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156
http://www.amazon.com/Divided-Mind-Epidemic-Mindbody-Disorders/dp/0060851783
The explanation hinges on whether you are prepared to accept the existence and function of the subconscious or unconscious portion of the human mind. If you can accept it, there is a very adequate explanation (largely not accepted by mainstream medicine) that has fallen out of favor, though has never been disproven.
Obviously, if the pain is caused directly by injury or disease that can be explained with clinical diagnostic, then the pain is caused by that injury or disease. However, where there is no obvious explanation for the pain, the pain may be caused by stress or essentially, your own brain. What is pain caused by the brain? Psychosomatic illness or symptoms. What is the psychosomatic illness caused by? Suppressed or repressed anger -- the most powerful emotion. Why would the brain cause you pain? To offer a distraction from your unsolvable or inescapable problems or let downs in life that you may consider inescapable, to, in essence, allow you to function.
The brain frequently picks a 'favorite' site to locate physical psychosomatic pain. I carried my psychosomatic pain in my shoulders/neck for many years, and after a back injury, my brain then 'preferred' to locate my psychosomatic pain in my back instead. Long after my back injury had healed, I still had un-explainable back pain (like 3 bloody years later!).
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Please let me explain (and sorry for the wall of text, oof).
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Sarno^(1,2) believes that the purpose of psychosomatic symptoms or pain are to offer a distraction, to relieve the person suffering of emotional pain, by substituting physical symptoms instead. The bigger the stressor, the more unsolvable, the more intractable, the more emotionally painful it is, the greater the risk is of developing psychosomatic symptoms, and the greater the resulting psychosomatic pain.
Psychosomatic illness or symptoms causing pain are largely unconscious, as in not under any direct voluntary executive conscious control, reactions to strong emotions, particularly anger. This doesn't mean the pain is made up, it means, we aren't even aware its made up, and cannot certainly just pretend it away. The pain is very real, the muscle tension is real, the symptoms are real. The cause, however, is not organic: it is our own brain.
How does the brain cause pain? As Sarno^(1,2) points out, there are studies that show that enervated muscle tissue suffering from psychosomatic pain actively has lower oxygen content. Sarno believes that the brain is capable of utilizing the autonomic nervous system to deprive target tissues of blood flow, and hence oxygen. Nerves that are deprived of oxygen are capable of generating pain.
Massaging the affected areas may increase blood flow, and hence, temporarily alleviate the tension symptoms.
What do psychosomatic symptoms include? They can include muscle pain, particularly lower back pain that doesn't have any obvious cause, depression, anxiety, sleep problems, IBS, fibromyalgia, among others.
Freud is largely credited with documentation and early work on this, however, his insistence that psychosomatic illness was as a result of repressed sexual feelings missed the mark.
Later work (by Sarno^(1,2), Hanscom^(3), Schechter^(4), Schubiner^(5), and Kellerman^(6)) has shown that suppressed or repressed anger or rage is the primary emotion that drives psychosomatic illness. Why repress rage? Because those of us who act on it and lash out end up ostracized, in fights we may not win, hurting people, losing our jobs, or ending up in jail. Thats why. As social animals, we evolved to repress rage.
How does suppressed or repressed anger or rage work? According to Kellerman^(6) ,Sarno^(1), and Luskin^(7), subconscious anger is generated when we experience let downs, stress or our 'wishes' or expectations in life don't get met. Note this is normal: we either (1) don't get what we want, (2) don't get what we want the way we want it, (3) in the amount we want it in, (4) or when we want it.
The anger may also be the result of grevious insult or injury, caused by accidents, abuse, crime (assault, rape, or murder of family member or loved one), see Luskin^(7).
Certain personalities of people, as Sarno^(1,2) pointed out, seem to be at higher risk for developing symptoms of psychosomatic illness. People who suffer from 'goodism', or want to do the right thing and internalize anger very readily may suffer moreso from psychosomatic symptoms.
According to Hanscom^(3) and Sarno^(2), symptom relief provided by massage therapy, accupuncture, chiropractic manipulation, physiotherapy may simply be providing temporary relief of the pain caused by psychosomatic illness, but in the end all of these are possibly a placebo, and do not treat the cause (again, if the cause is not an obvious injury or clinically diagnosable disease).
One way to rid yourself of the anger causing the psychosomatic symptoms is to forgive those who have transgressed against you or caused you emotional suffering. As Luskin^(7) points out, many people who suffer from anger and hurt, decades later, caused by grevious injury or injustice, gain better emotional peace of mind by forgiving.
The more I read about it, the more I am fascinated by anger as an emotion.
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References:
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I'll try (and fail, probably) to keep this short.
Several years ago, I was in terrible pain and was diagnosed with herniated discs. I was told it might be related to weight lifting, or computer use, etc., etc. Had the MRI's that proved it, had the spinal fusion which failed to alleviate the pain, etc., etc., etc.
Basically, I got so desperate that I was seriously considering just stringing myself up from the rafters, because I felt like there was no way I could go through life with this much constant pain.
After the second (failed) spinal fusion surgery, and upon being advised to have a third, I decided that the dozen doctors I'd seen in the prior 1.5 years clearly didn't know what the hell they were talking about.
So, I took things into my own hands and....guess what? Found a cure.
After doing a fair amount of studying, I've come to the conclusion that back-pain/herniated-disc/etc., are all incorrect, and are in fact symptoms of one of the most mis-diagnosed conditions in the country.
Basically, the long and short of it is: after two years of neurologists, occupational therapists, every anti-inflammatory and pain-medication in the book, and two back surgeries...I read a book and followed the exercises mentioned in them, and was cured in about two weeks.
And yes, I expect anyone reading the above to be very skeptical of that claim. Go ahead and be skeptical; I encourage it. All I can say is, if things aren't improving, you probably don't have much to lose by spending two days reading a $10 book.
It's not brain surgery, but it requires a certain amount of discipline for at least a couple of weeks.
It's all based on the work of a professor of medicine at NYU named Dr. John Sarno.
If you are interested in a very basic, step-by-step kind of plan, i.e., a "Do X tomorrow morning, Do Y the next day, Do Z the following day" type of thing, this is the best book for it, by Fred Amir:
http://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Recovery-Back-Neck-Pain/dp/0966982614/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266587108&sr=8-1
If you are interested in the actual science behind why this stuff works the way it does (which might be useful to read, because otherwise some people might think this is crackpot medicine, or some new-age-crap, as opposed to the science-based treatment that it is), then read this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266587189&sr=1-1
You might wonder why, if Dr. Sarno is the scientist behind this, why I recommend the first book instead, which is not written by him. Reason being that, in my experience, Sarno's own books are great for understanding the science and so forth...but the first book by Amir actually presents a much better and more specific step-by-step plan for what to actually do about it, whereas Sarno can get bogged down in the science of why it works...but isn't as good about saying "Do this, then do this, and then do this."
If you want to read more about Dr. Sarno, here is a link on Wikipedia. I don't expect you to change your entire treatment program based on PM on reddit, but if you are as desperate as I was, you'll probably find spending $10 for the book and 2 days reading it to be a mighty fine investment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sarno
Best of luck. It' possible the above does not apply to you, and I am not personally a doctor and obviously can't diagnose you. But I can say what you described fit my situation to a "T", and I very strongly suspect it's the same condition I had. And I can tell you, without any doubt whatsoever, the system cured me.
For the record, I am in no way associated with either of the above authors or books and receive no financial or other consideration from them or anything related to them.
I just have a lot of sympathy for people undergoing what I went through, and are dealing with a medical establishment that simply does not, in the main, accurately diagnose and treat this problem.
TL;DR: I had the exact same problem and was cured of it by reading a $10 book and following some simple exercises.
https://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156#productDescription_secondary_view_div_1469988663602
Yes, before work or school would not be the appropriate time to medicate.
You may find this following book helpful The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain. It is certainly different but Howard Stern raves about it having cured his 20+ years of back pain.
> Yet doctors can't find anything physically wrong.
Maybe there's nothing physically wrong. Check out Dr. Sarno's book on healing back pain:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body/dp/0446675156/
So you've had RSI for the last 7 years!? Props to you for keeping going! Typing out that post must have been a painful process. IANA doctor, so take this all with a grain of salt as you should anything on the internet.
First thing is to find out if you've done any serious damage to your wrists. Is it at all possible for you to have a scan or something similar done? That would be a great start.
Rest and gentle stretches seem to be the way for most people, tendons can heal but they heal a lot more slowly than muscles do. There are many things on the internet, but a really good book I bought (one of 3) is It's Not Carpal Tunnel Syndome. It says it's for computer professionals, but it's for anyone really. I also read through this book and it seemed to have some good advice.
But honestly, what got me through was a thing called TMS. It's hard to grasp, that something like RSI (especially as severe as you have it, it seems) can be caused by your mind but it worked for me. It sounds really, really insane, but I was at the point where I was giving up and just thought 'screw it'. There's a pretty recently made program that could be a starting point, but I recovered by reading through this book and putting in to practice some of the exercises he goes through in the final chapters. It genuinely sounds like a shill from the outside, like someone trying to make money off of the suffering of others, but you don't have to spend any money on it.
Good luck with whatever you choose, /u/TexturedMango. There's a facebook group that will give you excellent advice too if you want the link to that.
My dad (hippy but smart) swears on this book. “Mind over body baby”
Don't know if this will be of any help but about ten years ago I experienced chronic carpal tunnel syndrome and pain in my wrist, along my arm and in my shoulder. It was absolutely debilitating and went on for months. I tried so many different things including trigger point therapy, had physiotherapy through my local NHS, saw an osteopath but nothing worked and I was in agony. I then read this book; http://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419634173&sr=8-1&keywords=mind+body+sarno.
It sounds crazy but the pain I had had for over 6 months dissipated after reading the book, taking in the information and since then if it ever starts to come back I think about the information in the book and the pain goes. I got the book very cheaply from ebay. He has written another book more specifically about back pain; http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Back-Pain-Mind-Body-Connection/dp/0446557684/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1419634173&sr=8-3&keywords=mind+body+sarno
Totally recommend his theory/treatment.
he has two books. which one do you mean?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Healing-Back-Pain-Mind-Connection/dp/0446557684/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mind-Body-Prescription-John-Sarno/dp/0446675156/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=MWWGAD4BD918X0CCDB61
I switched to evil/spacemacs a few years ago when my RSI was worsening to see if it helped. It helped for a short time but then my RSI started coming back. Vim keybindings can also cause RSI.
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However I don't regret learning evil. I really enjoy modal editing. Also, trying out spacemacs exposed me to lots of cool packages I didn't know about before. Though I'm using my own config these days, whenever I'm trying out a new language I usually check the spacemacs config to see what packages are installed there.
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Over the years I've tried various things that have been more or less helpful for RSI:
- Conquering carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive stress injuries
- http://www.workrave.org/
- Voice coding (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI, https://github.com/dictation-toolbox/aenea)
- Mind-body prescription (it's a bit wacky, I don't agree with all of it, but I think there's something to it & a lot of people seem to find it helpful)
- Standing desk
- Back massage (https://www.amazon.com/Tiger-Tail-Ball-Roller-Corded/dp/B0078PX01G/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=ball+rope+back+massage&qid=1558366141&s=gateway&sr=8-4)
- Exercise
I've been dealing with chronic pain and fatigue for about a decade now, so I've read quite a few of these books. I would recommend one of John Sarno's early books, Unlearn Your Pain by Howard Schubiner, or The Great Pain Deception by Steve Ozanich.
Have you tried this (or anything similar) for your chronic pain? I know it looks stupid and useless but according to plenty of perfectly sane and skeptical people it can make a profound impact.
Not trying to suggest that your chronic pain is invalid or anything, and personally I haven't read this yet, I just saw it mentioned in a discussion on Hacker News yesterday and I'm kind of intrigued.
Worked for me-
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Pain-Deception-Faulty-Medical/dp/0615462219/
https://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156/
I had chronic back pain for several years, then I saw a story (either on reddit or hacker news) about this book called "The Mind Body Prescription". I know this sounds crazy, but simply reading the book made most of my pain go away. I can't state emphatically enough that I'm not some kook. I hate pseudo-science garbage, I hate chiropractors, I hate "alternative" medicine, but I highly recommend that you give it a look. The worst case scenario is that you're out $10 and 2-3 hours of time (it is a fairly short book). The best case scenario is that you don't hurt all the time. Here is a link, (not an affiliate link, I'm just trying to help) - http://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156 - or just search it on amazon.
Whether it is this book, or something else, I hope you find something that helps you.
Read this book:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body/dp/0446675156
Check out the reviews. Search for "knee"
She's right.
http://www.amazon.ca/The-Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body/dp/0446675156
This Dr. writes about the mind/body pain connection.
This might be of some help to you. May not be a fit, but worth the read.
Read this: https://www.amazon.com/Mindbody-Prescription-Healing-Body-Pain/dp/0446675156
Helped me cure RSI/carpel tunnel five years ago, I have two friends who I've recommended it to and it's helped both of them. It sounds a bit like pseudoscience junk but the author is an NYU medical doctor and it's legit.
Read The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446675156/102-2317159-6574542?v=glance&n=283155
Just reading the first few chapters of the book worked wonders for me.
Maybe there's nothing actually wrong and your brain is tricking you into feeling pain to distract you from repressed emotional issues? (Serious)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0446675156?pc_redir=1405392490&robot_redir=1
Sounds crazy I know.
"Musculoskeletal pain disorders have reached epidemic proportions in the United States, with most doctors failing to recognize their underlying cause. In this acclaimed volume, Dr. Sarno reveals how many painful conditions-including most neck and back pain, migraine, repetitive stress injuries, whiplash, and tendonitises-are rooted in repressed emotions...and shows how they can be successfully treated without drugs, physical measures, or surgery."
Warning: I may sound like a crazy person trying to sell something but
YOU DON'T NEED DISK SURGERY, BUY THIS BOOK IT, IT LITERALLY CHANGED MY DAD'S LIFE. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446675156/ref=s9_psimh_gw_p14_d0_i2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0339YWWDVJP9RJSDN98W&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1389517282&pf_rd_i=507846