Dr. John Sarnos 80X More Successful Treatment

[Emilyomouse]

I read this while searching the net. I have read up on this Dr and he is very interesting( though now retired).His treatment is around 80X more successful than corrective surgery and steroid injections. Here isa quote from one of his patients below."After months of searching and reading, I learned about the work of John Sarno, M.D., a professor of rehabilitative medicine at New York University, who was also trying to determine the correct diagnosis. He too was disappointed with the failure of common treatments and realized the need for a new understanding. As he looked deeper into the medical histories of his patients, Dr. Sarno discovered something that is often neglected by medical professionals. He noticed that 88 percent of his patients had histories of disorders such as migraine headaches, colitis, stomach ulcers, hay fever, asthma, eczema, and high blood pressure. These disorders were strongly suspected of being caused by chronic repressed anger, anxiety, worries, frustrations, stress, and tension. Dr. Sarno wondered whether, in the same way that chronic anger, anxiety, worries, and frustrations can cause physiological changes leading to these illnesses, back pain could also be a physical manifestation of negative emotions. So he put this new diagnosis to work and began treating his patients accordingly. At first the majority of his patients felt there was not enough stress and tension in their lives to cause their pain. Many of them believed that they were handling their teenage children, problems at work, and marital problems effectively. They didn’t realize that these difficult situations were creating a great deal of anger and rage, internally causing pain in various parts of their bodies. Once Dr. Sarno treated back patients for this new diagnosis and not for some structural abnormality, his patients began to recover. In fact, 98 percent of his patients with confirmed cases of herniated discs recovered without surgery—certainly a much better result than the 1 percent success rate experienced with surgery."This might sound crazy and i'm not an advocate for this guy but I was just talking about the broad range of SX most of us experience with a friend last night. No BS, there are literally thousands of testimonials from this guys patients. He's been on 20/20, dateline, Howard Stern( healed patient) and a bunch of other investigative programs. Not only has no one debunked him, he is actually being proven correct.I know a lot of us might not have back pain "per se" but the symptoms list prior to bfs is what got me. What got me even more was talking to some people on this other forum and finding out that their SX are like fibro, bfs folks. It seems we all kinda feel very similar stuff but our chief complaint can differ. Food for thought

 

[illeraceaccounting]

Sarno's TMS (tension myositis syndrome) is not just back pain. That is how it started but it encompasses symptoms that move around and don't have any organic origin that can be identified. He believes CTS, Fibro, most back pain, CFS and GERD are all psycho somatic in nature. I have read his book, the divided mind which goes into much detail on all of this. Basically, he believes the subconscious uses slight oxygen deprivation and the CNS as a method of distracting you (actually protecting you) from repressed emotions and rage. I asked a neurologist i saw earlier in the year about pyschosomatic or non-organic causes and he believes that a large portion of the people he sees suffer from this. Obviously, MS, Parkinsons, etc are organic illnesses, but there are so many folks that suffer from fibromyalgia, BFS, or other syndromes where the symptoms move around that fall into what he describes.

 

[SecretAgent007]

I am glad to see that more doctors are realizing the dependent relationship between our emotions and our physical bodies. Our thoughts and emotions are in essence energy and this energy is used at our discretion to create our experience, whether we understand this relationship or not. If our emotions, feelings, and thoughts had no influence on our physical health then techniques like the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or 'tapping' as it is sometimes referred to would not work. See my post in the support forum for more details. As human beings were complexes of mind, body, and spirit. Each and every one of these are important to our well-being. Modern medicine fails BFS sufferers because they only look at the body as a mechanical system and ignore the other aspects. Equally so, not all of a BFS sufferer's symptoms are simply origins of the mind. In my case I required adjustments in all three categories to make the recovery and turn-around that I did. Everything in nature is about balance and our health is no exception. Bravo on this post and thank you for bringing this doctor's work to the attention of the forum. If more people who suffer with BFS are to take back their lives and reclaim their health they will need encouragement and evidence from multiple sources. To open up your mind to new perspectives takes courage, even when the old trusty paradigm continues to fail you. There is a comfort in trusted old beliefs. I had much resistance to opening up to new ways of looking at things myself, but it was a decision I made when my determination to find answers outweighed my desire to stay secure in my old beliefs. This decision must be made of one's own free will, and I respect that. I will simply share my knowledge and experience based on my unique perspective and encourage others to discover the power that is and always has been theirs. Again, thanks for posting this info.

 

[illeraceaccounting]

In the end, each of our experiences leads us to our own conclusions. In my 17 month journey, I have watched my symptoms wax and wane, come and go, and literally move around within the same hour. I'm not advocating anyone believe Sarnos theory, only elaborating on it. BFS is a personal journey of which there are no certainties at this point. My condition has greatly improved(knock on wood) and I thank the Lord every day for having a part of my life back I thought was gone forever. Merry Christmas.

 

[Emilyomouse]

Burger, not sure about your story but as far as ulcers go I know first hand they can be very much due to stress. I've had chronic gastritis with several lesions found over a 15 year period. Always H. Pylori negative, neg ERCP, no UC or Chron's, solid bile movement, negative gastroparesis, no NSAID's. taken, no known cause?I did begin having major anxiety over a year before stomach issues.Stress does cause over production of stomach acid and accelerates stomach emptying. I know that's what caused it. If you think I'm unique talk to Matt.

 

[Emilyomouse]

Seepi, if you knew how thorough I was when trying to find the cause of my stomach issues and how many times I was told " no way stress can cause this" you'd be amazed. Not until I saw the gastroenterologist's that were the elite and highly recommended doctors did I start finding out it was all extremely likely to be caused from stress. If I wanted to argue from burgers perspective, I could refer to when the doctors used to use the term" spastic colon" and believed it was just a colon that was defective in a sense and would spasm. Now it's known world wide as IBS. It's also widely accepted as being a manifestation caused by stress.I'm not saying that everything is caused by anxiety but I do think anxiety can cause a lot of things.

 

[sorincast]

German, thanks for sharing this text. It makes a lot of sense to me. I will search for the books of Dr. Sarno. For the past 10 years I have been dealing with many health problems (rhinitis, gastritis, sinusitis, GERD, heart arrhythmia, BFS, back pain etc). It took me a while to accept that many of these problems were linked to the anxiety+depression combo I live in. Since I was a child I have somatization problems, but never occurred to me how deep it could go. BFS came right after a big emotional crisis when I really wished to be dead. BFS was scary, but now I am done with neurological tests and blood tests. This path only brings more health anxiety. Now I am trying to deal with my feelings and live a better life somehow. I do think that bad feelings can pile up and compromise health of people prone to psychosomatic disorders. However, reversing this course is not an easy task.

 

[manbearpig]

Some additional reading/video on the TMS/MBS/Anxiety topic (and who knows if not sometimes BFS, since they put FM in the same basket):__Take care,Andy

 

[ftheatre]

There is a tms forum, and they are talking of this board as : "a board where all peolple think they have ALS but no one does..." Which I find pretty right ) They also say that BFS is a TMS. I dont think anything about TMS but who knows, maybe they are right.