| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| art |
Posted - 06/07/2005 : 14:09:24
I understand the TMS basics, but lately I'm wondering if the essential element isn't so much anger (I hate that word "rage") but fear, at least insofar as it being the emotion that keeps the pain alive.
Over the last few days I've had a recurrence of the patellar tendinitis that sidelined me 6 or 8 weeks ago. This was pre-TMS thinking for me, so I went the usual route of first seeing an orthopod and then getting a prescription for physical therapy. After a couple of weeks the tendonitis seemed pretty much on the wane and I was back to running.
For me, these are the very hardest injuries to believe are TMS because they're just so "logical" in their genesis. I'd been increasing my mileage at the time I got hurt, and was wearing a different kind of running shoe which the orthopod also felt might have contributed because of the way it shifted my weight slightly forward, thus stressing the knee.
This morning the knee was pretty painful though I was determined not to let it get in the way of today's run. Aside from everything else, it's a steamy hot day here in MA and I just live for these kind of days. To me there's almost no greater pleasure than to run four or five miles (except maybe running nine or ten miles... though at the age of 54 those days may be over) under a blazing hot sun. Don't know why, maybe my Mediterranian heritage.
But I was having a very hard time, TMS-wise. I've got two other semi-major ailments going on currently, and it seemed like it was just too much to ask of my poor, struggling, fragile psyche to fully accept that the knee was also TMS. So I cheated and worse a brace "just in case."
The thing is, when I put the brace on it just felt so good somehow, as if it was in exactly the right place holding just the right things in that my fear just went away. I wasn't thinking about it in TMS terms at all, but just had the sense that the brace would protect the knee so that there was nothing to worry about.
The knee was just fine. More than fine. In fact, it's much better now, despite the fact that I ran four miles plus took the doggies for a couple of walks. It's pretty clear then that the patellar tendinitis is in fact TMS, which is great of course. But it also seems maybe that fear is the engine that keeps it all going, which makes sense I guess because if you're not "afraid" of the pain, then it has no use with respect to distracting you from Dr. Sarno's theorized underlying rage...
No great thoughts here, but it was helpful to me to kind of sort out my thoughts. And of course I'd be very intererested in any comments...I'm thinking that even if someone has no clue about TMS, if they somehow stopped being afraid, the pain would in many cases go away.
Many thanks,
A
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| 6 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| bhbauman |
Posted - 06/09/2005 : 15:16:28
Art you bring up a great point. During the past week, after recovering about 70%, I have had a little relapse. The pain came on the other day and I my first thought was 'OH NO! I don't want to go back to walking around all hunched over and having difficulty standing for any amount of time!' FEAR
So I just ignored it. Or so I thought, and what I realize now is that I've REALLY just been dreading and dreading and today has been the worst day!
Fear. I guess that I just must try to walk around straight up and deal with the pain - I JUST HAVE A HARD TIME IGNORING PAIN! I'm a WHIMP! But I don't want to take drugs or get acupuncture cause that will give it validity.
I guess that's a new topic. I'm gonna try to avoid being afraid. And Art? How 'bout you?
~ Ben |
| molomaf |
Posted - 06/08/2005 : 06:27:50
When I was having extreme anxiety and panic, fear was a major factor. I finally realized that the reason I was so fearful of an anxiety attack was that I was afraid that no one would help me. And I felt that way because no one in my family did help me when I was growing up. So it was logical to assume that if your family didn't help you, then strangers wouldn't either. I think that this has translated into fear of back issues as well, for me. I have less fear than I used to but it is still there to some degree.
Michele |
| n/a |
Posted - 06/08/2005 : 02:51:18
I've found these posts really interesting - overcoming the fear was crucial in my recovery.
Reading these posts jogged my memory of my late father's take on illnesses and doctors. He 'didn't believe in them', - doctors that is. If he had pain anywhere he just ignored it and it went away. As far as I can remember, he didn't see a doctor once, until his final illness. I wish I had taken after him, in that respect.
Another thing - Art asks if we are a self-selecting group and find our own way to Dr Sarno and that most people never do, or do and reject the ideas.
I wonder if the timing of when we find out about TMS is important. I notice that most of us who post here have had years and years of problems and have explored many conventional medical solutions - with no, or little, success.
I'm pretty sure that if anyone had introduced me to the idea of TMS when I first suffered from back pain, I would have rejected it. I was receptive to it because I suspected by the time I read MBP that psychology was playing a part in my back pain.
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| art |
Posted - 06/07/2005 : 20:31:03
Thanks Mala. This is all terribly fascinating. I wonder what it is about fear exactly. Is it that it's so effective at distracting us from the hobgoblins of the mind? Speaking cross-culturally, I have a hard time picturing a third-world dollar a day laborer needing fear to distract him from the subconscious feelings of rage he's harboring toward say, his mother. I just see that as an impossible "luxury" for the vast majority in the world.
And yet at the same time, as you suggest, it's his relative freedom from fear that enables him to cope so well with all the little and not so little aches and pains of life. Which leads me back to my original question about what it is about fear that gives it such power. I'm picturing it now as the fuel that powers pain's engine. Let the fuel out of the tank and the engine sputters to a halt.
I've been thinking for a long while that fear is truly the biggest enemy in life. Especially once we're older, and have figured out things like it's not a good idea to jump out of trees, or drive 120 miles an hour, it's very rarely a useful emotion.
You're not the first person to tell me that you've never heard of anyone getting worse challenging their pain this way. I still find it hard to believe that someone, somewhere, hasn't gone out and made a legitimate injury worse after reading Sarno, but I admit to being less incredulous than I was a few weeks ago.
The unmistakeable implication is that most pain of the type we generally discuss when talking about TMS is psychosomatic. Not only most back pain, but most over-use injuries as well, just to name two. What a profound thing if true.
The only other possibility is that somehow we're a self-selecting population so that it's those with TMS that somehow find their way to Dr. Sarno's ideas (though of course the cast majority do not), while those who do not have TMS somehow don't stumble on them, or if they do they quickly reject them..
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| mala |
Posted - 06/07/2005 : 19:50:58
I'm thinking that even if someone has no clue about TMS, if they somehow stopped being afraid, the pain would in many cases go away.
Absolutely. In many countries where there is little or no medical help available and where people can't just go 'see the doctor' or in many cases when people can't afford to stop working, you will often find that their pain will stay for a while and then go away.
I guess many people don't have the luxury to 'worry' or 'fret' or even 'fear' or indulge in self analysis or pity. Their main preoccupation is working to get the next meal on the table. The pain is inconsequential to everything else. That is what occupies their thoughts and so they are able to rid themselves of their pain because of sheer necessity. There is no social security or any kind of aid available. They also do have less worries. No cars payments or mortgages. They have no concept of bulging discs or spinal stenosis or any other scary words.
WE have too many fears. For many tmsers the fear of pain is probably the thing that is holding them back the most from fully recovering. Sarno has emphasised this time and time again. He keeps telling people to keep at doing what they are afriad of and you know what- I have yet to hear of anyone who has gotten worse by following his advice .
I have dusted my old high heel shoes and bought some lovely new ones. I wear them all the time now. I wore flip flops for 2 weeks in April when I was in malaysia. We have just acquired a 4 year old 50 pound alsatian labrador mutt. She pulls and tugs when I take her for her 2 hour walk everyday and I bend to groom her everyday so my arms are a bit sore. I spend 3 hrs a week with down syndrome kids and I have to carry some of them around. Am I 100% pain free. No not really. Am I afraid. No I'm not and that is what has made all the success in this fight. Lose the fear and you will make huge progress in your fight against tms.
Good Luck & Good Health
Mala |
| marytabby |
Posted - 06/07/2005 : 16:11:03
Since getting over my lower back TMS, and now having other substitution symptoms to replace it, I think that even though I repudiate the diagnosis, and accept the basic premise of the psychological thinking, as a human, I can't help but still live in some residual fear. However, it's not fear of doing the physical activities, but fear of the sudden attacks that come out of nowhere, when I am at ease, feeling good about life, etc. That is the fear I have on a very basic, human level. I don't dwell on this knowledge that I am still afraid of my neck attacking me, but I am acutely aware of how painful and debilitating it is for me and that alone keeps me somewhat in fear, as I go along with all this learning I am doing about TMS. I don't TRY to be in fear, I try to take a day at a time, but fear is there. It's like I'm fearing my brain will bamboozle me (not the activity I'm doing) and put me in a state of pain. Again, not to be confused with fear of running, doing exercise. I am totally NOT afraid of that. I am doing EVERYTHING I used to for exercise. As an aside, my typical history is that out of nowhere my neck and trapezius muscles will lock up for no reason that I can pin point and I can't turn my head, tilt it, etc. So yes, fear is there becuase I don't want an attack. This happened to me this weekend, and then three VERY LARGE personal crises happened right after. It's weird, the locked up neck came in the morning, when I was feeling just dandy emotionally, and then all the rest of the day went down the loo. I got into a car accident, had to deal with a very sick cat who is probably a large part of my TMS, as it's like having a sick child. So my point is not about the crises that occured but about how I live in subtle fear of being locked up with my neck. |
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