Dr. Sarno and Back Pain

About six weeks ago, I experienced the worst back pain of my life. That’s saying something, since it’s been something I’ve struggled with since my early twenties.

My grandmother had back pain, my father has back pain, and I inherited the one thing they both had in common: their lack of a booty. Being flat-assed seemed to be the culprit along with having some extra pounds most of my life. There’s actually a great episode of King of the Hill where they called it “diminished gluteal syndrome” and Hank has to wear a fake butt to compete in a riding lawn mower race. My wife laughed so hard during that episode, that even to this day she says I have a “Hank Hill booty.”

When I say I’ve done it all to help with my back pain, I mean it. There isn’t a treatment or device I haven’t bought and tried. After years of trial and error, my best treatment option has been: regular trips to the chiropractor for a manual adjustment, a TENS device, lots of ibuprofen, lots of ice, some yoga, and the McGill Three exercises. At least that’s what has kept the flare ups down the most or helped me recover the quickest.

When my back seized up on me a few weeks ago, it was odd. I was coming back from the doctor, and I just stepped out of the car. I had a four-day weekend planned, and it was 10 AM on Friday, right as the weekend was about to begin. I ended up missing all of work the next week, I bought an inversion table, and even went to a mobile chiropractor at the fairgrounds in an attempt to find some relief.

After falling off the couch and scaring my wife, I decided I should hop online and see if there was anything new, I could try. I’ve probably spent hundreds of hours researching back pain relief over the years (not to mention thousands of dollars), and the reality is: doctors don’t really understand it. Back surgeries are rarely successful, and treatment tends to be at most physical therapy and pain medicines. When I finally went to urgent care for my back, I got a shot of pain medicine, some high strength ibuprofen and some muscle relaxers.

On reddit, I saw a comment somewhere. It wasn’t upvoted and in fact, it was at the bottom of a post, but it said, “Read Healing Back Pain by Dr. Sarno. The audio book is on YouTube. It’s out there, but it cured me.”

That raised a huge red flag. I mean, how could a book cure back pain? Still, I was desperate, so I went looking for more information.

The first article I ran across was from The New Yorker from 2021: I Have to Believe This Book Cured My Pain. The opening paragraph reads:

“Every time someone tells me their back’s been giving them trouble, I lower my voice before launching into my spiel: ‘I swear I’m not woo-woo, but…”

That paragraph piqued my interested. I am very much a rational person. I don’t believe in much that I cannot see and without a butt load of scientific evidence (I’ve been convinced the chiropractor visits are just a placebo effect for years), well, you’re rarely going to recruit to me to any cause. But here I am, experiencing the worst back pain of my life and I’m just about ready to give some woo-woo stuff a shot. So, I kept reading. Then I started this Vox article: America’s most famous back pain doctor said pain is in your head. Thousand think he’s right. Then I decided to pick up the book.

My experience reading Healing Back Pain is apparently like many others. I kept seeing myself on almost every page. The way my back pain manifests, the times it flared up, and the stubbornness of it never fully healing. And as I kept going, I guess, I felt a little hope that I could make this go away one day.

Now, I’d recommend reading over The New Yorker Article or the Vox article, because the professional writers do a better job of summarizing Dr. Sarno’s beliefs than I will, but here’s my brief synopsis:

Dr. Sarno was a rehabilitation doctor who noticed the physiological/skeletal approach to treating back pain was not effective. He theorized that chronic pain (back, shoulders, butt) was caused by oxygen deprivation in the muscles which was a result of repressed emotions, usually anger. The idea was: chronic pain was actually a psychological condition, not a physiological one and that is why the treatment was not effective. When Dr. Sarno helped people realize that these issues were actually psychological, many of them got better with just that knowledge. He recommended journaling and psychotherapy to help explore the emotions trapped in the subconscious to help acknowledge them and release the stress. He called this TMS: Tension Myoneural Syndrome.

So, where is the controversary? Well, Dr. Sarno didn’t bother with controlled studies for his theories. Instead, he focused on treating patients. The medical community scoffed at his theories and even to this day, many of his theories are widely dismissed. I guess, there is not much money in telling folks its all in your head and you should work on your mental health.

I mentioned Dr. Sarno’s theory to my father, whose immediately reaction was “Bullshit!” I hardly got the words out of my mouth. And well, while, I probably wouldn’t have reacted so harshly, I think in some ways I probably would have thought the same. Where are my studies? Where is my proof?

I read Healing Back Pain, and then I found a video series on YouTube that Dr. Sarno created. It’s fantastic in all its cheesy 90’s glory.

I decided to put what I learned into action. I sat down, and wrote down everything that has ever caused me any sort of emotional trauma from as far back as I could remember: things that embarrassed me, dumb decisions I made, fights I had, etc. Then each day, I chose one of these items and I journaled about it.

And well… I started feeling better. At first, it was hard to say if my back was just getting better, but after a few weeks, my back had felt the best it possibly has ever felt in my adult life. I’ll never forget one morning waking up and thinking to myself, “I cannot believe how great my back feels. This is just insane!”

I had a couple of little hiccups since then where my back felt a little tight, but in both situations, I realized I was stressed. I was able to find an emotional trigger instead of just blaming it on sitting too long, sleeping wrong, or being overweight. Suddenly, I felt like I had the research I was looking for through my own experience, which is honestly, not what I was expecting. I really expected this theory to collapse on itself when I tried it out.

I’m still working on my journal entries every few days. I’m still reminding myself there is nothing wrong with my back and I guess you can call me a believer now. I feel a little weird writing this blog post, because I honestly know how I probably would have reacted to it had I read it just a few months ago, but I also feel like it’s my duty to share what I’ve seen work in my life with others, because life is way too short to deal with chronic pain and if there is something you can do to treat it, that isn’t going to cause an addiction, or thousands of dollars in surgery, I think it’s definitely worth giving a shot.