http://www.unlearnyourpain.com/


Dr. Howard Schubiner, MD
Providence Hospital
Department of Internal Medicine
16001 W. Nine Mile Rd.
Southfield, MI 48075
Office Phone: (248) 849-4728 [email protected]

Has anyone read this book? Is it worth purchasing?

Heya, Alyssa. I've read his book and thought it was great. It's very science based, but you should know that it focuses on chronic pain rather than acute pain. If tissue is being damaged right now, or if there is inflammation, that is acute pain. However, if a wound has appeared to heal, but it still hurts, that is more like chronic pain. His book can probably be used for acute pain, but Dr. Schubiner is more interested in what he calls "Mind-Body Syndrome" or MBS. However, if your fissure (or other condition) has already healed and there is no more inflammation, you might want to look at his book. Dr. Schubiner also has terrific results treating people with IBS and Fibromyalgia, so if that is your diagnosis, the book could be great.

I actually run a nonprofit forum like this one. It has a wiki, too. Savaici actually linked to it in another post here:
unlearn-your-pain-wiki-about-author-howard-schubiner-md-t6680.html

I was actually diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 2008 by Dr. Don Goldenberg, one of the people who created the original criteria for FMS in the 70s. It came at the end of 18 years of chronic pain of various different sorts with a whole alphabet soup of diagnoses (RSI, FMS, TOS, MPS, ETC.). Then, later that year, I discovered a mindbody approach that helped me overcome my pain. It changed my life so much that I founded a forum and wiki later on that year. We are a registered nonprofit and everything we do is free (everything is funded by donations from our visitors), so it's a great place to get information if your pain is chronic rather than acute or if you have IBS or Fibromyalgia.

If you want to check out my story in greater depth, just click here.
http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/2- ... story.127/

If you want to see stories posted by other folks, you can see them here:
http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/forums/suc ... bforum.27/

Anyway, thanks for the link, Alyssa. If you have any questions feel free to ask. Alternatively, if you want to check out our forum, it's super friendly and free like this one.

Oops, I forgot to mention that the Pain Psychology Center is great, too. I know the guy who started it and he is amazing. But, like I mentioned above, they focus on chronic pain and functional syndromes like IBS and fibro rather than acute pain that will heal on its own.

Hope this helps someone!

I hope I'm not posting too much, but I just thought of another link that people might like. It's an interview a woman with chronic pelvic pain did with Howard Schubiner, the guy who wrote unlearn your pain. The woman, named Abigail Steidley, primarily had vulvodynia and interstitial cystitis, if I remember correctly, but she wrote a lot about other types of chronic pelvic pain as well.

Here's the link:
http://abigailsteidley.com/interview-wi ... schubiner/

Again, hope it helps someone!

Forest,

Unfortunately I continue to suffer from chronic Anal pain even though my fissure healed months ago; my pain persists because I still have a tight internal sphincter. Thank you for posting on this website.. I've tried many treatment options but have limited pain relief... Don't know if this is my "cure" but I have ordered the book.

Alyssa, if you haven’t already, you might want to consider temporarily getting on some anti-anxiety medication. I did and it made a huge difference. My primary care physician said that stress and anxiety can definitely lead to a fissure because the constant tightening down there can put pressure on the area and wear it down. That’s why most of the things to fix a fissure are about easing the tightening down there. He put me on CITALOPRAM (aka CELEXA). It took a couple of weeks to build up in my system but, once it did, it made a huge difference. I hope that helps.

Hi Alyssa, I'm sorry to hear about how your pain has endured, but certainly hope the book helps you. It certainly has helped many others. If your damage has already had time to heal, that is a terrific sign that the mindbody approach could work well for you.

You might want to try emailing Dr. Schubiner as well. He can be amazingly generous with helping people given how much he has on his plate (he runs his own mind-body clinic at a hospital and is helping to run a 2 million dollar NIH research project in addition to writing books. Maybe all the meditation works. :) )

If you're interested, you're also welcome to make an account on our Mindbody support forum. Whereas Dr. Schubiner calls it MBS (Mind-Body Syndrome), we call it TMS (The Mindbody Syndrome), but it's just another name for the same thing. The forum itself is a glorious mess with a million different approaches and full of people taking a mindbody approach to medically unexplained chronic pain (and healing! Check the success stories link I posted above). You can introduce yourself in the success stories subforum and are sure to have a supportive response within 24 hours. We always encourage people to see a doctor to rule out anything structural, but if a mindbody approach is appropriate for you, it's a great group.

Here's the link if you want to give it a try:
http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/

Best of luck in your recovery! (it may take a while, but it always seems to happen eventually)

I started the SEP on the wiki page and hopefully get to the root of my problem. I am learning so much about myself and my personality traits, no wonder why my nervous system is hyper-vigilant. I wish I was one of those book cure (Sarno's) but unfortunately I'm not.