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Psychologically induced symptoms
Hello Rip,
In one of your Question and Answer sessions an audience member asked you about fibromyalgia. Yourself and Austin Baraki dismissed fibromyalgia as a legitimate physical disease, and stated that it's just a psychological issue (if I understand correctly).
I'm not sure if you're familiar with a popular book called Healing Back Pain by John Sarno, M.D., but in it the author argues that severe back pain people have, along with other symptoms such as peptic ulcers, dizziness, Psoriasis, Eczema, ringing in ears, Asthma, etc. are not always "purley physical", that they might be serving a psychological purpose.
John argues that common diagnoses such as Tendoitis, Neuroma, Spinal Stenosis, Pinched Nerve, Myofibrositis, Fibromyalgia, and Herniated Disc (and more) are often times just psychologically induced symptoms – that these can occur from tension and stress and there's nothing physically wrong.
Do you think this is true?
*For the record, John tells his patients with severe back pain to resume physical activity and stop going to physical therapy treatments for their back because they block recovery. He says physical therapy blocks recovery because it re-inforces the thought of a physical issue, when they actually don't have a physical issue.
Thanks,
Matt
TMPHBITEU
Member
While fibromyalgia may not have a biological basis as far as anyone knows, this John Sarno is a quack if he claims neuromas, spinal stenosis, and herniated discs are all psychological. One can argue how inadequate or even misguided modern treatment approaches are to these, but not deny they exist as physiological or biological entities. One can also argue that such conditions in their mild forms cannot produce the pain or other symptoms that people (or doctors) attribute to them, but that is not same thing. I 100% agree with the above article.
Member
The book provides many examples of logical fallacies.Originally Posted by Matt-Panz
Member
Sounds like a huge strawman argument. I know nothing about this doctor, so I'm not defending him, but what you just argued against has nothing to do with what the doctor said.
"the author argues that severe back pain people have, along with other symptoms such as {..} are not always "purley physical", that they might be serving a psychological purpose. "
Notice the "not always" and the "purely physical"..... That implies that many cases most definitely can and do have physiological causes, just not all. I'm not sure any doctor would disagree that it is possible to have these symptoms without physical causes. So his statement is not wrong, regardless of your opinion of the prevalence of this phenomenon (the actual possible point of contention).
Your line of thinking is the exact same line of thinking that required Rip to write the "a clarification" article, and the reason people still think SS is tell middle aged fat men to drink a gallon of milk.
Member
12 years ago I was crippled with severe low back pain. Did standard PT for 7 or 8 weeks without much change in my pain. An MRI showed one herniated and one bulging disc in L4/5. I came across Dr. Sarno's work and eventually found a doctor in D.C. who treats chronic pain issues using his approach. I had a single 90 minute session in which she did nothing but talk to with me about phsychosomatic pain and what was at work with my body and mind. After that the pain was gone.
I rarely tell anyone this due to the fact that nobody believes it and I hate nothing more than to argue about shit. I have a herniated disc and no pain so I really don't care about anyone's opinion.
Over the past couple of years I got a squat rack and began barbell training. Having read accounts of this training helping/curing back pain does not surprise me at all. However, I don't think it works due to an increase in strength but because you are doing something considered harmful/dangerous to your low back. When you wake up the next day and feel better, instead of worse, this is a huge psychological boost and breaks the pain cycle. Can't tell you how many people I meet who won't consider squats and deads because "their back is shot" which I find unfortunate. I tell them I have at least one herniated disc that I know of thinking that it may change their view but it never does.
Also, the doctor who helped me with this was a rheumatalogist and understood the body from a structural standpoint very well. She was by far the most thorough, direct, no bullshit medical professional I have ever met.
...and Dr. Sarno doesn't say the herniated discs (among other things) are all psychological but that the pain associated from these issue is.
Member
Dr Sarno's book does contain logical fallacies and his hypothesis is unfalsifiable.
However, the underlying premise, that pain is hugely modified by psychology, is true.
The article by Drs Feigenbaum and Baraki is excellent. Their conclusions and the research they reference do not, to my mind, contradict Sarno. If in chronic pain you can learn it doesn't have to hurt.
Member
Apologies. The article was by Dr Baraki.
Starting Strength Coach
If only a strength training based organization had only done a podcast and a 90 minute lecture in the not-too-distant past about this very topic.....
Member
These articles were great - thank you
As timelinex already pointed out, he doesn't say every single case of it is just psychological-only.
Mind sharing some of them?
This is really cool to hear. I've told people who have had back pain about the concepts in this book and they didn't really believe me either.
I have a very annoying pain that lingers throughout the entire day in my scalene/sternocleidomastoid muscles (feels tight). I've attributed this to sitting at a computer for many hours a day with bad posture (computer science major), and also sleeping on my stomach with my head in awkward positions. After reading Austin's article - perhaps I'm totally off.
On a scale from 1 to 10 this pain is a 2, but I can feel it all down my arms, shoulders, and neck all day. It's mostly just annoying, it kind of gnaws at me all day. Stretching and massaging it for a long time has seemed to help, but it usually comes right back. I'm not particularly stressed out or anything like that - if anything this annoying pain causes me some stress.
If anyone has any helpful advice for me I'd really like to hear it.
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