My Story
Throughout 2021 and 2022, my life was put on hold by debilitating lower back and sciatica pain.
In 2020, I started feeling a dull aching pain in my lower back and numbness to temperature in my left leg. I was working from home, and assumed it was because I was sitting in non-ergonomic chairs. I went to great lengths to create a perfectly ergonomic home setup, and it seemed to help a bit.
In May of 2021, I flew from San Francisco to New York, and was stuck in a middle seat -- every back pain sufferer’s nightmare! Throughout the flight, my pain became excruciating. I’ll never forget having the panicked thought: “something is going very wrong in my body right now.”
The Diagnosis
After finding a bulging disc in an MRI, my doctor reassured me that back pain is their “bread and butter.” But after steroids and a month of lying on ice, I was still in excruciating pain and could not sit for more than a few seconds.
I saw multiple specialists and tried physical therapy, acupuncture, massage therapy, hour-long meditations, expensive massage tools and foam rollers, dry needling, and ultimately took medical leave from work.
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Healing Back Pain
One day, my partner excitedly handed me a book that a friend had recommended called Healing Back Pain by Dr. Sarno. “Great,” I thought. “Another thing that worked for someone else that’s not going to work for me.”
But I was desperate, so I spent the next Saturday reading the whole book. Within 5 days I was in 70-80% less pain. I was so excited that I gathered my whole family to tell them the news.
A New Lease on Life
A couple months later I was on an 8-hour flight to Iceland with my family, giddy with excitement at my newfound ability to not only sit but go horseback riding, hike, spend hours in a bumpy van, sleep on different beds, and generally do every activity that I had thought I would never do again.
I had a new lease on life, and you can too.
After healing I wondered... why everyone isn't talking about this?? Well, they’re starting to. More and more research is confirming that my experience is far from anecdotal. The latest neuroscience is showing that in up to 85% of cases chronic conditions are generated by the brain, not the body. ​
Learn about neuroplastic conditions:
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Certified Chronic Pain Recovery Practitioner
Certified Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) Practitioner
International Institute for Complementary Therapists Member
200 hr YTT Certified Yoga Instructor and Yoga Alliance Member