{"id":3480,"date":"2022-09-28T12:45:44","date_gmt":"2022-09-28T02:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mindbodyfoodinstitute.com\/?p=3480"},"modified":"2025-12-16T12:05:47","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T02:05:47","slug":"could-your-personality-be-contributing-to-your-chronic-pain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mindbodyfoodinstitute.com\/could-your-personality-be-contributing-to-your-chronic-pain\/","title":{"rendered":"Could Your Personality Be Contributing To Your Chronic Pain?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Almost a year ago, I developed lower back pain. At first I thought I had pulled a muscle ducking under a tree branch while out running with a friend.<\/p>

I took it easy for a few days and the pain seemed to subside. But then it came back, and with a vengeance. It remained with me on and off for a year and was often so severe that I had to hold onto pieces of furniture to support myself when rising from a chair or my bed, or when brushing my teeth.<\/p>

I\u2019m a runner and, when my pain first appeared, I was training for my first 50km ultra run. Thankfully I was able to complete this, and felt no pain during that special day (this became a very important piece of \u2018evidence\u2019 for me to refer back to once I began my healing journey).<\/p>

Thereafter, the pain became more permanent and, like most people, I followed the traditional medical model of treatment: Xrays, MRIs, osteopaths, chiropractors and physiotherapists, but nobody was able to \u2018heal\u2019 me. It was only later on that I realised I was capable of healing myself.\u00a0<\/p>

I often left an appointment feeling worse than I\u2019d felt going in. Each practitioner offered me a new nugget of negativity: I was diagnosed with hip arthritis, disc generation, flat back syndrome, lumbar sciatica, convex left inflection, discopathy of L4-L5 and L5-S1 with a trapped nerve and a 9mm pelvic imbalance, meaning that sexy wiggle wasn\u2019t so sexy after all!<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The MRI showed arthritis in the lumbar region, some swelling at the vertebral endplates and a trapped nerve around L4-L5.<\/i><\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\u00a0It all sounded pretty scary, and I\u2019ll admit to shedding tears in my car on a few occasions. I was advised to stop running by everyone I encountered, including my aerobics teacher at my once-weekly class. For a while, I listened to them. They were the experts after all, weren\u2019t they?<\/p>

Then I got fed up of not being able to run. After running for twenty years, I felt it had become part of my identity and who I was. It was a form of stress relief, gave me a sense of freedom and empowerment, was my only social activity and made me feel strong and motivated to cope with life\u2019s challenges. Besides I didn\u2019t suffer symptoms whilst I was running, something that should have been a significant clue that the cause wasn\u2019t a physical one.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Acute Pain or Chronic Pain?<\/h4>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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The body naturally heals tears, breaks and other musculoskeletal injuries in around 12 weeks or 3 months. After this point, what started as acute pain becomes what is termed \u2018chronic pain\u2019. It was frightening for me to identify with this category. I later discovered how fear would fuel the pain fire.<\/p>

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A Book That Would Change My Life<\/h4>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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After months of desperately searching for someone to \u2018fix\u2019 me, feeling frustrated and close to desperation, I came across a podcast that mentioned a book, credited with healing someone of their lower back pain. It was called,\u00a0Healing Back Pain<\/i>\u00a0by Dr. John Sarno, Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at the New York University School of Medicine and attending physician at the New York University Medical Center. I was filled with hope for the first time in months.<\/p>

I read the book, and although I didn\u2019t have a \u2018book cure\u2019 as some people have claimed to have experienced, Dr Sarno\u2019s words completely resonated with me, and I saw myself on every page.\u00a0<\/p>

Dr Sarno explained that the terrible terms I had been diagnosed with were part of the normal ageing process. They were what he termed \u2018normal abnormalities\u2019. It shocked me to learn that the spine degenerates from the age of 20 and that if anyone my age (I\u2019m 46) were to have an Xray or MRI they would almost certainly be found to have some form of degeneration in their spine too.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u00a0<\/span>The fact that these \u2018normal abnormalities\u2019 could be present in the body without causing any pain was a revelation to me! This discovery became an important part of my journey towards becoming pain free.<\/strong><\/h4>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\u00a0<\/p>

The second impactful discovery for me was the notion that certain personality traits made it more likely for some people to suffer from chronic pain.<\/p>

According to Steve Ozanich, in his book \u2018The Great Pain Deception\u2019, there is a\u00a0Type-T personality<\/i>. The T stands for Tension and is taken from \u2018Tension Myositis Syndrome\u2019 (TMS), also known as tension myoneural syndrome or mind body syndrome \u2013 the name given by Dr. John Sarno to the numerous psychosomatic (relating to the interaction of mind and body) musculoskeletal and nerve symptoms and conditions, most notably back pain, but also tendonitis, fibromyalgia, plantar fasciitis, coccydynia (pain in the coccyx), gastric conditions, neck and shoulder pain and carpal tunnel syndrome.<\/p>

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Type-T personality traits<\/h4>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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