There may well be (probably is) a psychological component to many cases of TOS - the workings of pain and the mind body connection are simply not fully understood. But I find Dr. Sarno's reasoning - essentially that "it's all in your head" - limiting and paternalistic. The notion that TOS symptoms/pain is the brain's way of dealing with compulsiveness, perfectionism, anger (Dr. S's theory), does not apply to me. But we are all differently constituted and Dr. S's theory may resonate with others. I'm glad it helped you.[/QUOTE]

Well... most people will reject the notion that there is an emotional root to their pain, which is totally understandable. In fact, I did for several years. In retrospect, I had seen and heard about Dr Sarno's work several times on various postings, etc., but skipped over or ignored them. Actually, i saw an osteopath 5 years ago when I started having back pain who very, very adamantly insisted that I consider the emotional aspect of my pain and read dr Sarno's work, but I completely ignored that suggestion in favor of the "physical" remedies he suggested: TENS (didn't help), neuromuscular therapy (helped temporarily), accupuncture (never tried this), PT (didn't help), MRI... which showed a small disk herniation (in retrospect, my pain got much worse after seeing that MRI). In fact, I was really insulted and never went back to him. I figured he was suggesting I was overemotional/hysterical because I was a woman.

Please consider to yourself whether there are any inconsistencies/holes in the structural theory for your pain: for example, I had terrible pain in my back as well, which Dr. Jordan said was a separate condition and not part of the TOS(?) I also had occasional low back/SI joint pain and had a history of stomach problems. I tended to have pain in one place at a time: either hands or back, almost never both. Why would this be??

I will get off my bandwagon now, but if this has sparked some interest for any of you, please look online for other people's recovery stories (there are plenty) and read about tension myositis syndrome, which Dr. Sarno contends is the basis for most chronic pain conditions.