Rating: 
Summary: The mind body scam!
Review: Dr. Sarno has created his own blanket term for pain called Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS) that essentially is the mind's ability to cause the body pain because of repressed emotions. According to Dr. Sarno herniated discs, arthritis, nerve impingements, tendonitis, and a host of other pathologies are NOT the cause of a person's pain. His evidence is that many people have these different physiological sources of pain, but are pain free . . . so the pain is all in one's mind. Dr. Sarno spends 99% of his book convincing the reader with success stories and anecdotal evidence of his theory of TMS and then leaves it up to the reader to recognize that he must be right and their pain is all in their mind. The host of positive reviews shows the power of the mind considering that there is only about 10 pages of actual "take action" information and the rest is spent in the convincing. Read the reviews of the convinced and ask yourself - if you have tendonitis, arthritis of the spine, spondylolysis, disc herniation, nerve impingement, or many of the other serious health issues Dr. Sarno disregards as sources of pain or concern - and you choose to ignore the pain, or believe it doesn't exist, haven't you turned off your body's natural ability to warn you that something is wrong and to seek professional help. Has the problem resolved itself, or just been swept under the carpet? If the problem still exists (pain or no pain) research has proven that it will most likely progress if unattended to and I feel Dr. Sarno is doing a great disservice to his readers by not recognizing that fact. Don't fool yourself - leave this book on the shelf.
Rating: 
Summary: This book took me out of the bed
Review: I was 2 months at home with leg and back pain
This book helped me to resume my life.
I am still struggling with getting the TMS stuff out...Gil.
Rating:
Summary: Still Ecstatic
Review: See my review from September 9, 2001; I am still 99% pain free, and the pain I experience is ultra-manageable. This author gave me my life back, and I want you to experience this miracle as well. It is simply time for all of us to understand that our thoughts create our lives. It is very simple: good thinking creates good lives, bad thinking creates bad lives. People want a pill to fix their lives, because they're unaware that they have the power within themselves to change everything in their lives for the better. There are no diseases, systemic or mechanical, that aren't caused or cured by our thoughts. I still believe, a year and two months after my first review, that if you are psychologically ready to put this information to use, it will work for you, and if you aren't, it won't. If you're not ready, you will be some day, because you are sick enough of the pain to at least by looking for help. You will find it. When you finally get "it" (that you are the key to everything that happens in your life), come back here and re-visit this wonderfully simple book, and rid yourself of the pain that is crippling you. God bless you, and KEEP GOING.
Rating:
Summary: It saved me lot of agony and pain. I highly recommend it
Review: I have been meaning to write this review for a long time but was waiting to see if my pain returns back. I have had severe back pain in the February 2002 and I went to all kinds of doctors. I read Dr. Sarno's both books (this and Mind-Body prescription) in April 2002 and applied his techniques. The back pain has been better ever since. The pain kind of shifted in different bidy places but finally I am pain free (99% of time). This book is incredible and Dr. Sarno is doing a lot of good for chronic pain sufferers. He is a saint. I highly recommend this book to any one with chronic pain.
Rating:
Summary: I Wouldn't Have Believed It ...
Review: *I felt my back relaxing as I read this book.* I'm not a major sufferer of back pain, but when I wrenched my back a bit (or so I thought) digging postholes for a garden fence, I sought out the book. Sarno believes that back pain (and some other conditions, notably fibromyalgia) are not so much responses to physical accident or illness in most cases, but more likely the body's response to repressed emotional trauma. Not only that, the standard medical community's ability to deal with back pain is generally wildly unsuccessful and based on erroneous data. To wit: * Almost everybody has a "herniated disk" by age 20, and there is no correlation whatsoever between herniated disk and back pain. *The back is extremely strong in anybody who can walk and has to be working all the time just to make us able to stand upright. * You may well be able to reduce or eliminate the pain you're having just by understanding the emotional conflict you're suppressing. * The incidence of ulcer in the U.S. has declined in the past 20 years, as ulcer has come to be understood to be a hideout for stuffed emotions, making it less effective for this purpose. In my case, I was helping my Lovely Wife build a fence on Memorial Day weekend (2002) and feeling under pressure (we need the fence before we can plant the garden) and incompetent (I'm a software guy and know very little about fence construction) but in a double bind of wanting to help L.W. finish her project. So I stuck with it and found my back hurting the next day and into the next week. After reading this book, I found my back relaxing immediately and I just relaxed in general upon learning that it's actually rather difficult to really injure one's back ... I fervently recommend this one for anyone with back pain or fibromyalgia.
Rating:
Summary: Good golly, let's look at the whole picture....
Review: The premise of this book is that most back pain is not caused by structural abnormalities. Rather, your back pain, although a true physical disorder the book calls tension myositis syndrome, is caused in the first place by psychological factors such as stress or repressed emotions. Forgive me if I missed the boat on any of these points. Now a few thoughts I'd like to share with readers that don't readily have access to medical libraries.
+ The book says that psychological factors are at the root of most back pain.The book also points out that structural abnormalities rarely cause back pain because things like herniated discs and spinal stenosis are found so frequently in people with NO back pain. One can also use this kind of logic to disprove the book's theory. I know people with repressed emotions (say from bad childhood experiences), plenty of people that are stressed out, and friends with the classical "Type A" personality, that have NO back pain either. You probably do too. We might need to flip a coin to decide if psychological vs. physical causes are really the culprit if we use this kind of logic to support a back pain theory. +The book pounds away at structural abnormalities saying that they are not really a source of pain because they are found so frequently in pain-free backs. Goodness gracious, it seems like the book "left out" things such as the multifidus muscle, the most important back muscle that provides 2/3 of the muscular support for your back. Many studies (Stein 1993 and Haig 1995, to name a few) have shown that normal pain-free backs rarely show any abnormalities of the multifidus while a plethora of studies have shown multifidus abnormalities in patients that are pregnant, have herniated discs, unstable vertebrae, scoliosis, acute back pain, and chronic back pain when studied with EMG's, MRI's, and muscle biopsies. Regardless of how this muscle is studied the result is the same- pain-free backs show no consistent abnormalites while the back pain patients do. A more balance, less BIASED view of the medical literature DOES reveal true structural findings that are associated with back pain. +Let's assume the book's theory is 100% correct and back pain stems from psychological factors. You read the book and feel better. If you've had long-term back pain, you most likely (acccording to all the back literature I've ever read) are left with weaker than normal back muscles (Cassisi,1993 and Roy,1989 and Mayer,1989 and Mayer,1985 and Smidt,1983) and have smaller than normal back muscles too (Daneels,2000 and Parkkola,1993) when examined with CT scans and MRI's. Your pain may be gone, but your back muscles have suffered all the while you were in pain. Now the book doesn't believe in using exercise to treat back pain but on this I disagree based on the above mentioned, published studies. The smaller and weaker back muscles most backpain sufferers have must be addressed regardless of what caused the problem in the first place. Maybe the examples in the book of people feeling better and then relapsing are best explained by out of shape back muscles that haven't been properly treated instead of additional episodes of repressed emotions and stress. Just some food for thought now that you have more facts on hand.
Rating: 
Summary: Understanding pain to relieve pain
Review: I have had laminectomy surgery and multiple problems since having surgery with my back. I recently read this book and there are some good points to it. The author describes a condition known as tension myositis syndrome. This concept is described as a de-oxygen state to tissues of the body. The term myositis is "inflammtion of muscle tissue" but this is misleading. The author states that it can also occur in ligaments and nerve tissue. His theory states that, after an initial injury, the body heals but that we continue to have pain. He states that the pain that continues is not due to the actual injury but the neural pathways leading to the brain that continue to "tell" the brain that we have pain. The author feels that it is a conditioned response that continues long after the injury has healed. So we "train" ourselves to think that we will have pain with certain activities. There is plenty of theory and the basis for his theory in this book but it does not give a lot of treatment guidelines. It made me see pain in a new perspective and to not be so "scared" of doing things. However, I continue to have pain even after gaining this information. I am lead to believe that this concept may be of help to some people if they truly have TMS. This theory is not a blanket concept for all people who suffer from back pain. There are many causes of back pain and this is just one of the many.
Rating:
Summary: Still Pain Free
Review: Give this theory time. It will help you. You have to fight the pain. It works- I'm still pain-free three years after reading this book. Your chiropractor will not like this book, neither will your accupunturist nor will your orthopedist.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book! Answered my questions.
Review: I was suffering from chronic pain in my back, legs, knees, feet, neck, arms, and hands, and was almost completely disabled. Healing Back Pain answered the many questions I had about my condition. Combining guidelines provided by Dr. Sarno with techniques used by Olympic athletes, I was able to design a nine-step repid recovery program that allowed me to improve immediately and recover within four days. My story is detailed in Rapid Recovery from Back and Neck Pain: A Nine-Step Recovery plan and serves as another testimony to the accuracy of Dr. Sarno's diagnosis.
Rating:
Summary: Pain Free after three months...
Review: I had disabling sciatica. Only someone who has experienced it can know how terrifying and frustrating it is not to be able to walk (being otherwise an active and healthy working mother of two). My doctor said that my back was pinching a nerve. Nonsense! I read Sarno's book and applied the principles. There is absolutely no question in my mind that I have TMS (as described in detail in the book) and will have it in some manifestation and varying intensity for the rest of my life. Sarno's book gives you the right information to deal with it. I was 95% improved and 100% unrestricted within 5 weeks after reading the book. I am completely 100% pain free now after 3 months. John Sarno is a saint. My advice -- be patient...the pain does not go away overnight.
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