PUBLISHED 02/28/2006
About a decade ago, my running was brought to a halt by lower-back pain. I went to numerous doctors, received an array of treatments, and spent months in physical therapy. But the pain wouldn't go away. Fearing that any physical activity would make my back worse, I spiraled into a depression, thinking that I'd never run again.
Then I read the book Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection, by John E. Sarno, M.D., professor of clinical rehabilitation medicine at New York University Medical Center. Dr. Sarno's theory of Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS) claims that ongoing physical pain can sometimes be caused by psychological reasons. Something must've clicked, because just reading the book made my back feel better.
Dr. Sarno believes (and somewhere in my unconscious, I agreed) that physical pain is easier to take than emotional turmoil, and that in order to end the pain, you need to confront your feelings (on your own or with help from a therapist), ignore the pain, and resume normal activities. The ache in your back (or foot or knee) can be a coping mechanism-a way to distract your mind from its own suffering. Once you are able to resolve the true source of the pain, it will disappear.
Of course runners get injured and have pain for identifiable physical reasons, but there are some cases (like mine) when underlying emotional issues are to blame. After months of hopelessness, I was ready for an alternative, even if it sounded radical to others. Over the course of a few months, I used several TMS treatment strategies (see "Get Over It," page 50), which helped me resume running and ultimately defeat the pain.
Ask your family doctor about TMS, and it's likely you'll get a clueless look or a dismissive response. There are thousands of success stories, but without randomized, controlled trials supporting TMS, it's a hard sell to the medical community.
David Schechter, M.D., hopes to change that. The Beverly Hills physician is doing research and collaborating with researchers at UCLA to conduct studies that will lend credence to the theory of TMS, or what he calls Distraction Pain Syndrome. Dr. Schechter's decision to specialize in sports medicine and mind-body medicine was no accident. He suffered from nagging knee pain while in med school, and standard treatments were of little comfort. "Running was my stress relief and when I couldn't do it, that stressed me out more, which only made my knee feel worse," he says. Learning about TMS helped him break that cycle. "Once I understood that the pain was my body's way of distracting me from the pressures of school, I could let it go and run again," he says.
