BOSTON -- You're in pain, but every test shows nothing is wrong with you. What if the problem isn't physical -- but emotional?

Video

Rhonda Mann Reports On Book Resources Healing Back Pain Book

NewsCenter 5's Rhonda Mann reported Thursday that it's a theory introduced two decades ago, and it's now making a comeback. Some people find it's cured everything from their backaches to debilitating fibromyalgia.

"The pain itself was like having a knife in your back," said Janice McHugh, who experienced back pain.

For three years, Janice underwent everything from injections to physical therapy to ease her disabling back pain. Even when she ended up in a wheelchair, doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong.

"Everything showed up that I had a perfectly normal back," she said.

As a last resort, McHugh was eventually sent to the office of physiatrist Dr. Gino Martinez. He prescribed her not a new medicine, but a book.

The book, by Dr. John Sarno, explains how emotions can cause physical pain -- settling in weak areas of the body and causing migraines, joint pain and backaches. Sarno offers techniques for a cure -- including listing feelings and stressers on a piece of paper and pulling them from the back of your mind to the front.

"If you read and you say, you know, this is preposterous, then you've wasted your time and a little money, if you get better, you may have the keys to the kingdom," New England Baptist Hospital Dr. Gino Martinez said.

Martinez recommends the book four or five times a week to his own patients -- those who have no clear cause for their pain.

"There has to be another X factor involved in terms of why some people don't get better," Martinez said.

McHugh was skeptical at first, but then realized her husband and daughter's recent illnesses had caused a great deal of stress. After trying the techniques for 10 weeks, her pain was nearly gone. She went back to playing tennis and working full time.

"I'm truly amazed by it because I never thought I was a stressful person. I'm just the one who does it all and takes care of everybody," she said.

She still uses the book whenever she feels stress coming on. She hopes it will eventually close the chapter on her back pain, for good.