I don't think your story should lead you to conclude that his theories are BS. Like clearly a lot of pain has a physical basis. Sarno's argument was that there is a fair amount of pain that does not have a physical basis, and that once structural causes are eliminated one should consider emotional/mental sources for the pain. The fact that you had pain with a structural basis doesn't really suggest that any of that is untrue.

I'm pretty skeptical of what he says, but there is definitely enough smoke that a fire is possible.

No horse in this race, by the way. I've never had chronic pain, I just think the topic is interesting.