| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| hope808 |
Posted - 06/21/2005 : 16:00:23
I have been a patient of Dr. Sarno's for nearly 1.5 years and have been seeing one of his psychotherapists for 1 year. I have made some improvement during this time, but I still suffer from terrible pain, primarily in both of my legs and sometimes in my lower back. I would describe the pain as intense soreness. I believe that it is TMS, but I have not been able to get the kind of relief that so many of Dr. Sarno's other patients have achieved despite (1) fully believing that TMS is my problem, (2) rigorously following Dr. Sarno's program, (3) working with one of Dr. Sarno's therapists, and (4) doing all physical activities without fear of injury. I have been told that I am doing everything right by both Dr. Sarno and the therapist yet my pain persists.
I posted here for the first time a couple of months ago during a particularly bad flare-up. Fredarm recommended trying Dr. Siegel's book, which I found somewhat helpful in that it provided another perspective on the Sarno approach. Although my pain settled down a bit over the last couple of months, it has flared up again during the last few weeks with no obvious cause (I have been searching.)
At the 1.5 years mark of following Sarno and still having horrible leg pain, I cannot help but become enormously frustrated that the pain continues even though I am doing everything possible to "float through it" as Dave would advise. However, since I believe that Sarno is correct, I do not have any viable alternative. Has anyone else experienced resolution of their pain even when they fully understood and rigorously followed Sarno's approach without much success for this length of time? Any advice on how to avoid the pitfalls of frustration under these circumstances?
Thanks.
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| 11 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| hope808 |
Posted - 06/23/2005 : 19:42:39
Fredarm, Miehnesor, Dave, others:
Thanks for your thoughtful words of encouragement. If you are curious, I posted some more information about my situation a few months ago during a prior flare-up. I find that this forum is particularly helpful during the more difficult periods.
I will do my best to keep plowing through the pain until I eventually get to the root of the emotions. I have to believe that this is TMS and that eventually I will triumph over the pain.
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| miehnesor |
Posted - 06/23/2005 : 18:02:16
quote:
Originally posted by hope808
Miehnesor,
I have uncovered rage over certain issues, but obviously there is still a lot more work to do -- there must still be some hidden source of rage that has to be uncovered (or felt) before I can improve.
You mentioned that it took you a long time to connect with your rage despite working intensively for years. How were you able to make that progress after such a long time? Any suggestions for someone who has worked hard at this for over a year and still has not made sufficient progress?
Hope808- Actually my wife came up with the observation that I was not able to get angry at my parents when I should have gotten really angry at them. When she said that a light bulb went off in my head and I started to realize that she might be right. So I started to test the theory that I was unconsciously angry with my mother even though I felt no conscious anger. In group therapy I started to express disappointment towards my mom about what happened to me in infancy and early childhood. When I did this I was surprised at the reaction of my body- it registered fear in the form of shortness of breath, shaking etc. Along side that emotion I also noticed the symptoms suddenly lessened in my arm. When I came out of the emotion the symptom came right back. So this was confirmation that I was indeed afraid of expressing disappointment and anger towards my mom.
After that I just kept practicing displaying the disappointment and anger. Eventually I actually experienced the rage underneath the fear. It took some time to solidify in my understanding that the fear was indeed the fear of the rage itself- just what Sarno says in MBP.
So in short I have in a way the perfect senario for TMS. No conscious anger but a mountain of unconscious repressed rage. I practice feeling this rage almost every day as the symptoms are by no means gone- but I think I am improving slowly.
WRT your situation- It's hard to really comment since I know nothing about your background. I would say that its probably likely that you also have a mountain of rage also but you haven't discovered it. You may have to experiment as I did and practice anger if you have an idea about who you may be angry at. I have posted on this site about inner child stuff so you can search for that and read that. I've found it very helpful to write to my inner child as an adult and validate the hurt and pain he has gone through. That is very effective at triggering my repressed rage.
One idea that may be helpful is to go back further in time and work with earlier time periods in your life- even if you don't have a lot of knowledge about those times. My case has taught me that the earlier stuff is far more powerful -wrt the emotions- than the times when I was older.
It might be a useful exercise for you to talk about your emotional life on this forum and see if anyone has any suggestions. Also the act of writing like that may trigger some ideas of where you need to go.
I can empathize with what you are going through. Just hang in there and have faith that you will discover what is going on inside. |
| hope808 |
Posted - 06/23/2005 : 13:05:06
Miehnesor,
I have uncovered rage over certain issues, but obviously there is still a lot more work to do -- there must still be some hidden source of rage that has to be uncovered (or felt) before I can improve.
You mentioned that it took you a long time to connect with your rage despite working intensively for years. How were you able to make that progress after such a long time? Any suggestions for someone who has worked hard at this for over a year and still has not made sufficient progress? |
| Scottydog |
Posted - 06/22/2005 : 14:41:38
Hope,
You write of recent changes in you life which might cause rage but Dr Sarno describes rage as cumulative - starting from a young age.
My family were very reserved and undemonstrative and most of my rage probably originated from childhood - emotions were controlled and nothing discussed openly.
Think about when you were young, your family, school mates etc etc. Writing your thoughts down might help you think more rationally about them and make it easier to put upsetting memories behind you - at least that is what I found.
Anne
Scottydog |
| Stryder |
Posted - 06/22/2005 : 13:45:02
Waiting is tough. Time marches on. As soon as you try to put any kind of "timetable" or "expectation" on TMS recovery duration, you are possibly setting yourself up for disapointment. You can even experience regression in your progress if you "fail" to meet your "timetable".
So, just take all those quoted words I wrote above and forget them all.
TMS healing is not an event, there is no finish line, so there is no way to fail if you do the work. You have to unlearn what you have learned and banish the old meaning of the word "fail" from your thinking.
Embrace patience, don't fight the pain, let it hurt, do the TMS work as spelled out in the many related books. Journal. Post on this forum, we all suppport you 100%.
Even if you are not 100% pain free, you are certainly much better than you were when you started, so bank that as another win!
quote:
Originally posted by hope808
I have had just about every test short of an autopsy from very highly regarded doctors, so I am confident that this is not a serious disease.
Excellent, this is another win !!
Take care, -Stryder |
| miehnesor |
Posted - 06/22/2005 : 12:47:37
Hope808: I can relate to your frustration with this because it also took me a long to connect with the rage. I've been working on this stuff intensively now for over 3 years and it's only been in the last year that I stumbled onto the real source of repressed rage in my life. Once I made this discovery and started to feel the rage I noticed things changing. Actually for many months the symptoms worsened because the rage came closer to consciousness but then eventually it peaked (just about 3 months ago) and has started to ease.
Perhaps your case is similar to mine. If so you need to try and uncover that hidden source of rage in your life. |
| hope808 |
Posted - 06/22/2005 : 12:29:51
I have had just about every test short of an autopsy from very highly regarded doctors, so I am confident that this is not a serious disease. Most conventional doctors would probably call my symptoms severe myofacial pain that is present all the time to one degree or another. (They can provide a useless label, but they cannot provide a cure.) As I said, I am convinced that Dr. Sarno is correct and that this is TMS.
However, I am mystified about why the TMS pain has not subsided more by this point. After all this time following Sarno, I suppose I would try something else by now if I could -- except I do not feel that there are any reasonable options left to try. I see little choice but to keep going with Sarno even though I am not improving.
Dave, if there is some aspect of my life that is a constant source of rage, then I have not been able to identify it. (For example, I changed jobs a few months ago and am happier here than in my previous position...but still no change in my pain level.) After 1 year of seeing a good psychotherapist recommended by Dr. Sarno, I have turned over a lot of stones. I think I have grown a lot psychologically, but my pain persists.
Fredarm, your suggestions and your own example of success have been extremely encouraging to me. My favorite part about Dr. Siegel's book was the advice to not try so hard and to treat TMS pain like the weather, to just float along through it. I am doing my best to adhere to this advice, but when the pain is unremitting, it can become nearly impossible not to get very frustrated. |
| Fredarm57 |
Posted - 06/22/2005 : 08:55:47
Hope808: If it's any comfort, it took me a couple of years to really get over my first episode of TMS (1991-93). I did see significant improvement during the first year, but it was a "two steps forward, one step back" kind of progress, with recurrances along the way. I echo Dave's question as to whether you have had tests to rule out serious disease. If you have, and there's nothing serious, then perhaps you need to not try so hard. You may have noticed in Dr. Siegel's book his concept that the harder you try to make the pain go away, the more persistant it becomes. Try to view your recent increase in pain as temporary, and be encouraged that the pain "settled down" over the past few months. Keep doing your normal activites as much as possible and try not to focus on the pain and worrying when it will go away (easier said than done, I know). |
| johnnyg |
Posted - 06/22/2005 : 08:37:46
Ladyrat:
Thanks for sharing, I needed to hear that too, because I feel like even though I have notice GREAT improvement, I also feel that total resolution of symptoms is somewhere down the road. I've been doing it for about 4 months now with amazing results compared to the results I got with almost every physical treatment there is except surgery.
BTW I'm glad to hear Dr. Gwozdz is good because he's close enough for me to get to, I live in PA near Rt 78. |
| ladyrat |
Posted - 06/22/2005 : 08:03:16
I recently saw a great TMS doctor (Dr. Gwozdz) who said that one or two of his patients did take over a year to recover fully. So hang in there!! Dr. Gwozdz also suggested that I take heart in even small improvements and accomplishments and take them as a sign that the treatment is working. So even if you've had a minor reduction in pain, or perhaps found that you could do something you couldn't do before, celebrate and tell yourself that you're making progress. I know this is hard to do, considering how perfectionistic and goal-oriented we TMS sufferers can be, and especially when faced with bad pain. But believe me, it helps. |
| Dave |
Posted - 06/21/2005 : 20:42:55
Are you saying that the pain has not diminshed at all?
If it is TMS then maybe there is some aspect of your life (e.g. job, relationship) that is a constant source of rage, and nothing short of making a major life change will help.
It can take years to get significant relief, but along the way you should definitely notice improvement ... an overall reduction in chronic pain, less frequent flare-ups, etc.
I assume you've had all the medical tests needed to rule out serious disease? |
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