How to Unlearn Functional Somatic Syndromes like IBS and Whiplash
Stream the whole 80-minute documentary at https://www.thismighthurtfilm.com
See the modernized, updated treatment that Dr. John Sarno pioneered. Now backed up by NIH-funded randomized controlled trials, and rooted in the latest neuroscience regarding how the brain uses predictive coding for pain and sensory information.
David Clarke, MD, Gastroenterologist:
"Amazing film. This is something that should be seen by every physician that takes care of someone with pain or functional symptoms..."
"Think about it —if a symptom isn’t caused by organ disease, or by structural abnormality, then it's caused by something. Symptoms happen for a reason. And what's left is mind-body causes. And it's a huge proportion, it's a lot of the chronic pain and functional symptoms out there."
00:00 introduction of panelists and more info about the film, This Might Hurt
15:35 How do you help people with gastrointestinal disorders that are associated with mind-body stress, or psychosocial stress, as a gastroenterologist?
07:40 How has the treatment changed and evolved since filming completed?
22:31 It is physiological-- two-thirds of my patients had gallstones and structural abnormalities. But for the other 1/3, this diagnosis is also physiological. It's real, they're not imagining, they're not mentally weak, there are real physiological changes associated with this mind-body diagnosis. The process is physiologic.
24:41 - Migraines — are those structural, or mind-body? When we say structural, we looking to see, is there a tumor, vasculitis, a bleed... migraines don't have that. They're real syndromes, but they're neural circuit syndromes. There's a genetic basis, they might have a predisposition... triggers like chocolate, red wine, caffeine, lighting, weather are activating neural circuits, which you can retrain your brain to unlearn.
26:02 - gluten sensitivity — if you're not positive for Celiac disease, could this be MBS? His answer: yes, it can. Mind-body causes are much more likely to be the cause of food sensitivities than allergies, studies have shown how this is true. If there's inconsistency, like every once in a while, you can take in the food, and not have a response, then it's unlikely this is an allergy, but rather a learned fear response, or mind-body syndrome.
28:02 - One of the "funnest" things you can do is close your eyes and imagine eating the food associated with your allergies. If you get symptoms, you can be sure it's not the allergy driving the symptoms, but rather neural circuits / mind-body syndrome.
30:01 Long Covid - we don't have good data yet. The symptoms are exactly the same as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, post-EBV [ Epstein-Barr ]virus, Chronic Lyme Disease, which we can treat successfully. Check out the work of Paul Garner.
34:58 - Do you always need the emotional component of the treatment?
40:10 Can you use this work for cancer or structural diseases? There are some success stories for auto-immune disorders like Lupus, MS, psoriasis? There's some hopeful success stories, but the data is not clear, and there aren't many studies. We tend to focus on people without structural damage because that's where the data points.