I had a 1 on 1 session with you at the beginning of the year, and I promised you an update.

My challenge was to simply go up on the chairlift this winter and ski down a blue run (I couldn't walk because of back and left pain most of 2020) so this seemed like an ambitious challenge for me.

But, I did way better than that in the end. I went ski touring 15 times this winter. That means I climbed up mountains 15 times on skis (no chairlifts needed, thank you very much) and then skied down them again. I started off with altitude differences of 400m, then went to 500m and eventually ended up at 1000m.

Am I completely better? No. I get flares that still kick my butt. I have a general level of back/leg or neck pain every day, but it's generally less painful than it was before. Flares also don't last as long and I'm not afraid of them anymore because I know what they are now. I practice my indifference and I think that, while it's slow-going, I'm learning to calm my nervous system down more and more and am getting better at it. It's also getting easier to believe that one day I'll be pain-free and back to my old self before this all started in 2015.

Here are some photos of ski touring... Thank you for everything!

Hi Dan,

February 26, 2013, I woke up with an extra heart palpitation. I was in great shape and that morning changed my life. While waiting 2 weeks to have heart tests, I became OCD, imagining all sorts of terrible things wrong with me. My anxiety was epic. I was freaking out every day and extremely nervous when I had the heart tests at the hospital. They came back & my heart was perfect. I was relieved but I had no idea there would be physical effects from the anxiety I'd put myself through.

April 1, 2013, my left big toe began to itch. Then, I felt a sensation along the inside of my lower left leg. Never in my life had I experienced something this strange. Sensations moved all over my body and it frightened me very much. Pins and needles, burning, and itching. I worried night and day about it. I had night sweats and couldn't sleep. I kept my husband awake. I cried in public, because I hurt so much. I was horrified to go to see my doctor because I worried something was really wrong with me. After a few weeks of hurting, I went to see my doctor. She said I had anxiety.

At that time, I had no idea how to self-soothe myself. I didn't know my brain was protecting & distracting me with pain. I was given medications which helped but the pain would come back if I was stressed. When the pain would reoccur, I reacted with tremendous fear. I stopped exercising even though I had no injuries. I stopped wearing makeup and became a hermit. For 7 years, I allowed the pain to control my life.

Finally, last summer I'd had enough and decided to do something about it. I didn't want to take medication the rest of my life. And I wanted to LIVE my life. I'd heard of Dr. Sarno's books so I read Mindbody Prescription. I did journaling for a short time. But, it was when I found your videos Dan that I finally understood. Your calm manner plus your own experience with pain changed me. It was so simple. I was not broken! So I let go of my own internal negativity. I became indifferent to any sensations. I didn't stop living when I had a few pins and needles. I didn't put myself down anymore. I'd always been hard on myself. In a few days my pain was down a good bit. I started exercising again.

By the end of the year, the pain was down 95%. My doctor is very happy for me. She's agreed to easing me off the medications. I get dressed in the morning and wear makeup. Your videos have helped me get my life back, Dan.

Anybody can get better. It's doing the work and calming down.

Just wanted to share my little success with you all. My TMS probably started when I was 16 years but didn’t find that out till I was 34yrs. I had many things going on but I just blamed it on the stress of my medical school. Becoming a doctor wasn’t easy and to top it off I felt every single disease that I’d learn about.

In 2012 I had a debilitating back pain, multi ER visits, meet with 4 neurosurgeons in DC. One of them even operated on a Redskins player (don’t know why it mattered). One suggested complete fusion of L4-5, the other 3 suggested microdiscectomy. Was also referred to pain management and got at least 8 steroid shots (without any anesthesia which still haunts me).

In 2017 I had almost become bed ridden when I decided to go ahead with the surgery. By 2018 I felt better but then I had the worst plantar fasciitis, I was baffled at this point, got custom made orthotics, physio, dry needling you name it. Somehow that resolved and in June 2018 I had the worst pelvic pain you can imagine!! Was single, no kids no history of trauma so it just shocked me as to why (now i can relate all the mind body).

Went to see an Ob/Gyn who told me I had pudendal neuralgia, I had never ever seen or even heard of a patient with this condition till then. This was the lowest point for me, I was to get married in 2019 April and thought about calling off the wedding.

I somehow found out about Dr Sarno and the rest was history. Never as a doctor myself was I taught in med school about the beauty of how mind and body was connected but was taught to label it as a mental disease.

While on this journey I discovered many many TMS coaches but there is no one like Dan. I started to listen to him (at this point I had spent a lot of money on many expensive programs by other TMS coaches) it was only through Dan’s approach, knowledge and understanding I was able to heal.

Dan is not there to make money off of people he is absolutely sincere with what he does. If it wasn’t for him I would not have been able to recover. Dan thank you for all that you do.

Posting this hopefully to encourage any of you who are struggling.

Today I ran my first half marathon in over three years. Two years ago, I would have never thought it would be possible to run again, much less do a half. I went from a very active, healthy person to virtually disabled.

In October of 2017 after about a year of trying every conservative treatment, I finally gave in and had a discectomy to “fix” a herniated disc that was supposedly causing my pain. I was pain free afterwards for about 3 weeks before it not only returned, but moved to other areas as well.

I got to where walking for exercise was hard, my social life was nonexistent as I was too afraid to travel or even go out to dinner because sitting was so miserable. I did PT, chiropractic, acupuncture, traction, prolotherapy, injections, posture work, etc., etc, etc. I had diagnosis’s of disc degeneration, annular tears, SI joint disfunction, piriformis syndrome. I saw countess doctors and spent thousands (stopped counting at around $25k) and continued to get worse.

I seriously was ready to give up on life when I stumbled upon Dr. Sarno’s Healing Back Pain. It not only changed my life, but gave me my life back. I can’t begin to express my gratitude for the late Dr. I then read his other books along with Steve Ozanich’s. All game changers for me. I also highly recommend Eddy Lindenstein’s podcasts and Dan Buglio's videos. So helpful to keep me on track!

I am back to being extremely active, I travel, and live my life without fear of pain or fear that I am causing harm to my body because there is something “structurally wrong”.

I was literally choking up when I crossed the finish line today!

My name is Andrei Sandovici, I am 29 years old, I live in Bucharest, Romania and I work as an IT engineer. When I was 18, I had my first herniated disk surgery. It was a huge herniation, which I consider it was not normal for that age. My recovery went slowly, but I was able to get well and have an almost normal life.

In 2017, the pain came back, but not at the same high level. However, I decided that I should take a new MRI. The doctor told me that the same disk re-herniated. Even the pain came and went periodically, I tried anything to avoid the surgery: drugs, physio, swimming. However, there were no results so in 2018 I decided that I should proceed with a new surgery, as the neurosurgeon recommended me.

After 2 weeks from the second surgery, some kind of pains came back: foot pain, tingling, not being able to stand up more than 15 minutes. That was the moment when the fear started. One weak after, when I came back in the office, I’ve seen that I was not able to stay on the chair. A big pain started in my left buttock. From then, I worked from home as I was not able to stay on chairs. And when I said “from home”, I mean from the bed. I didn’t know what happens.

Since then, the rush for finding the root cause of the pain started. From January 2019 to July 2019, I’ve seen a lot of doctors (neurosurgeons, most of them). Almost all of them wanted to proceed with a new discectomy or to fuse me, but I was not agree to do it. I said to myself that the buttock pain cannot be from the spine as it is hurting only when I sit on a chair or on a hard surface. I kept searching on the internet and finally found that I may suffer of “cluneal nerve entrapment”. This nerve, if I can say so, it’s a cousin of the pudendal nerve. This kind of conditions are very rare around the world. From what I know, there are about 5 doctors world wide which are treating this condition.

In June 2019, I have scheduled an appointment in Wien, Austria for September 2019, for a diagnostic shot into my left buttock.

One day, on a Facebook group for failed back surgery cases, a guy from Sweden informed me about TMS and Doctor Sarno. To be honest, I did not believe a word about it, but I started to read about the successful stories. And then I said to myself that I should give it a chance.

After reading one of dr. Sarno’s books, I started to watch Dan’s videos on YouTube and I understood that the fear is my biggest enemy. I believe that the hardest thing is to convince yourself that you are normal and healthy. To convince your brain that is TMS. I said to myself: “from where the hell the buttock pain? I didn’t receive any kick in the buttock”.

So I’ve continued with the TMS work. After that I understood that the anger which came from the bad result of the spine surgery provoked the pain of the buttock, which was one of the vulnerable areas of my body.

Progressively, I’ve started to walk more in the park, to stand up more, to go fishing for about one hour. In about two months, the pain from the buttock disappeared.

In September 2019, when I’ve been to Wien, I went to the doctor to discuss with him. I told him that the injection is not needed anymore. He was very surprised about my story. Being in Wien for 3 days, I’ve visited the town and walking about 15000 steps per day. It was a nice city break.

In October 2019, I was back in the office after 10 months of working from home. Since now, I consider myself a normal guy who can do almost everything: going to work in the office, going fishing, going to concerts, climbing the mountains. However, taking in consideration that I had 2 spine surgeries, I’m not lifting weights and sometimes I had a bad day of back pain. Fortunately, now I have the tools to combat it.

Dan, I want to thank you for your fantastic work on the TMS topic. You really helped me in understanding much better the TMS concept, in escaping the fear, and the most important aspect – to convince my brain that I’m normal and my body is healthy.