Customer Reviews

Rapid Recovery from Back and Neck Pain: A Nine-Step Recovery Plan

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Before starting my review, let me say that I am a particle physicist and a quite skeptical guy. Nonetheless, I think it is important to be open to new ideas. In my opinion, the work of Dr. Sarno and his followers is great science. Like most important and revolutionary scientific ideas, it takes a while (one generation, Planck said) before they are generally accepted by the scientific community. But we can profit from their insight inmediatly!

This book, together with the ones by Sarno and some info on the web, has made my life worth living again. It is amazing how many different manifestation this TMS thing seems to have. My problem was not back pain, but a condition urologists classify as non-bacterial prostatitis, neurologists as pudendal nerve entrapment, musculo-skeletal therapists as coccydynia, physiotherapists as piriformis syndrome, ... (by the way, many of these doctors suggested surgery was the only solution, even if they did not really know what was going on!). At any rate, the physical symptons were real and the pain excruciating. And the worst was that I could hardly work or lead a normal life.

When I started reading Sarno's books, I found them very interesting and even believed that his ideas could help other people... but not me. It took me three months to accept that my (unconcious) mind could be doing these nasty things to me. But suddenly there was a click inside me and I felt strongly that the answer was inside my brain. And I also felt that my (concious) mind could control it. In three weeks I was 90% better. But I found it hard to progress to a 100% recovery.

It was here that Fred Amir's simple psychological techniques were extremely helpful. Before I had finished the book, I was 99% OK!
I should add that I love the way the book is written: it is very enjoyable and creates a lot of empathy, which is also helpful.

Now I can say I am "cured" of this protatitispudendalnerve... horrible thing. Furthermore, I have also recovered from my "lazy stomach" problem, which apparently had the same origin. And last but not least, I have a great feeling of power and control over my life and my health.

I am convinced that TMS (and equivalents) is, as Dr. Sarno claims, a very widespread problem, and that many people could benefit a lot from getting a correct diagnosis. Amir's book describes the practical side of Sarno's theory.

I was diagnosed with a herniated disc (L5 S1)and my Orthopedist said I would never be the same. At the time I was lifting weights and running 3 times a week. The Dr. told me that those activities will have to be significantly modified due the the herniation.He scheduled me for Cortisone shots in my back to eliminate the swelling thus reduce the pain. Just one caveat, I could very easily irritate it once again If I return to my vigorous lifestyle. The day before I was scheduled for my treatment I was told about Dr. Sarno's book, and after doing some research discovered Fred Amir's book as well, so I bought them both. I pushed off the treatment to give these books a shot. I first read Dr. Sarno's book which gave me an understanding of his theory, then proceeded to read Fred Amir's book which helped turn theory into reality. I had read another review which said that the person experienced relief as he was reading the book and I laughed, but I did too. The next morning I went back to my old routine of running outside and in the beginning there was pain (Nobody says the pain is not real) but I fought thru it and within a few days I was pain free. I do have occasional flare ups but if you go back to the principals of the book the pain disappears. Give the book a chance, and don't be so skeptical.Thank You Fred!

Fred Amir has drawn on Dr John E Sarno's principles of chronic pain management (see: "Healing Back Pain - The Mind-Body Connection") which, combined with the experience of his personal ordeal and research into natural healing techniques, forms a potent recovery formula. I had chronic back pain for 15 months and painful feet for 5 months. I was disabled. The back progressed well over six weeks under the Sarno principles but plateaued. Fred Amir's book gave me more tangible strategies to work with and I have achieved significant improvement in two weeks, for both back and feet. Like Sarno..it works,only better..get both!

The nine-step recovery plan helped me recover very rapidly from my lower back, neck and occasional leg and knees pain. Like others with chronic back pain, I had tried several treatments over the years, but after few months of recovery, the pain used to return. Being a finance professional, the extra stress related with day to day work added to this pain. Reading this book and applying its simple yet effective techniques assisted me in improving immediately and recovering from my back pain in just couple of weeks, and I feel much better than before.

I recommend this book to all those who have suffered with back and other body pain over the months/years. This book will help one to be strong not just physically, but also mentally, which in turn will have a positive effect in all aspects of the their lives.

After reading an article about Dr. Sarno, I saw a link to this book. At first I felt all these people were crazy if they thought they could "think away" back pain. However, as a formerly athletic, active person who was more and more debilitated every day, I decided I had nothing to lose. Result of doing the exercizes in the book - I can walk, run, jump, kneel, do yoga, play with my grandchildren. I recommend this book and the forum on Fred Amir's website to anyone suffering any type of pain.

This book offers a practical implementation of Dr. Sarno's theories. I read "The MindBody Prescription" as well as this book to cure Repetitive Strain Injury in my hands. Now, six weeks after first encountering this approach, I am 80% cured. I still have some symptoms in my hands but I'm no longer scared of the pain. I don't know if this book will work for everyone but it had a lot of good advice for me. Thanks Fred.

Having been greatly helped by DR. Sarno's book towards recovery from a long standing TMS syndrome my condition plateaued and started going backwards. It was then I obtained Fred Amir's book which rapidly took me to a full and lasting recovery. He gives you some simple treatment strategies based on Sarno's principles that allow you to take more positive active control of your own recovery. With just having Sarno's program I felt I was in more of a hit or miss situation. Fred Amir's strategies gave me more of a personal empowering over the TMS. It has taken away a lot of the fear of reoccurrences. I am happy for any one to email me for furthur explanation of my own experience with TMS and for support in your own recovery.

The mind-body connection can and often DOES get at the cause of chronic pain. I know that it works because I have used this approach with good results for many years in my own chiropractic practice in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Fred Amir trained under Dr. Sarno ("Healing Back Pain, The Mind-Body Connection"), then he took the work further, and designed a Nine Step Program to implement it. To really get the most out of Dr. Sarno's program, this book helps the reader to "put it all together". People may think that a chiropractor does not want people to know this information, but it is essential to get at the cause of a problem, not just treat the symptoms. I highly recommend this book, and Dr. John Sarno's as well.

I wrote this review about "Healing Back Pain" by John Sarno but feel Fred Amir deserves some praise also. However, I would recommend someone that is new to the TMS diagnosis to first read the above mentioned book, as Fred kind of expects you to know a little about the theory.
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The main reason I am writing this review is to hopefully persuade someone to read this book and get over their pain. The second reason is that I have been telling everyone I know about TMS and mind body medicine and have probably been driving them nuts! So, I figure by writing this review I can get it out of my system.

I am in my late twenties and had minor prostitus, I actually went to an authors website about healing prostitus and read a review of this book. Naturally, the people on the forums were skeptical but I am an open minded person so I gave it a whirl. To my surpise, after about a week my pain was gone!

However, the pain moved (you will understand why when you read the book)to my right shoulder and neck. I am talking about debilitating, throbing, spasms, shocks running through my shoulder. This did not go away after a week so I bought his other book Mindbody medicine. After a week my pain lessend about 70-80%, but still it was agony to try and sleep and hurt for much of the morning. This pain lasted a couple of months and I was getting anxious that it may never go away.

This is when I bought Dr. Fred Amir's book Healing back and Neck pain. I remember while I was reading this book I participated in a back yard football game and three plays into the game my hamstring popped! I was really at a low point when this happened however I stuck to reading Dr. Fred Amir's book and treated this pain as TMS. I would still run, even if it was only around the block, and I noticed the pain started to subside. One week later I was running full boar on the treadmill. TMS essentially manifest itself as a pulled hamstring and when I didn't buy into the physical injury it went away. Gosh, I will the Colts team of 2006-2007 would read this book!

I am now pain free, I can do anything I want and it feels great! There were times I wasn't sure if I would ever be 100% again and started to envy people that didn't seem to have any pain. I would think "Man, I would give anything to just be pain free again!" and looked forward to the day I could once again sleep in peace. Well, funny thing is that day is here and I almost never sit back and feel grateful that I am healed. I guess life has a funny way of keeping you focused on the next task. This is why I decided to write a review...to show a little gratitude to the author who is responsible for me living a pain free existence. Thanks Dr. Sarno and Fred Amir!

My husband was extremely athletic... hiking, running, tennis, biking, surfing. Then all of a sudden he had extreme joint pain and muscle fatigue that progressed to the point where he had trouble walking. The doctors diagnosed him with ten different illnesses but no treatments were working. He started reading Amir's book and before he had even finished half of it, he went for a one hour walk and went swimming and diving. What I've heard about people feeling better WHILE they're reading it is not a joke or exaggeration. The book is remarkable and can apply to anyone who's suffering from pain -- it's not limited to back and neck pain. In addition, it seems like it has a cliff notes version of Sarno's theory, so it probably wouldn't be necessary for someone to read both books. If you have any kind of body aches and pains, I can't recommend this book enough. I'm going to buy ten copies of them just to have one on hand in case I know anyone who could benefit from it.