| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Carol |
Posted - 11/10/2004 : 08:15:23
I hope someone out there can help me with this. I am scared right now, and don't know what to do. My pain has decreased slowly over the last four years, but now the nature of it has changed in a way that has me scared. My back feels like someone is in there teasing the nerves. It is a very odd sensation that makes me feel like screaming. It is not pain as we usually experience it, but a maddening feeling of raw exposed nerves. I used to get it occasionally but it never lasted for more than a day so I didn't worry about it. Now it seems to be nearly every day. If anyone out there knows the feeling I am talking about I would sure appreciate a response. I am nearly ready to go back to a neurologist, but I feel that would undo all the good I have done for myself over the past four years. I so don't want to get back into the medical merry-go-round, but am concerned that this is something different.
HELP!!!
Carol |
| 7 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Carol |
Posted - 11/15/2004 : 17:33:38
Thanks for the responses. I do feel somewhat better since my original post. The pain has now morphed back into the familiar back and leg pain that I started with.
TT, I have reviewed the list in MBP, and I do know what the problem most likely is. In fact there are several situalions I am dealing with involving various family members, and I am sure they are all involved in the current flareup. Ironically, after a specific thing triggered my temper, I confronted one of my daughters with several things that I had gotten angry about and kept inside. Her response to me was that I was trying to make her feel guilty (maybe the truth), and now I am even madder because she did not validate my feelings. This is a very complex situation and I have very confused feelings about it. I am sure it is the major contributor to my present problems. We are presently living in an uneasy truce, and I don't really know how to get beyond it.
The urge to get back into the medical merry-go-round has subsided at least for the present. I am doing a lot of mattress beating with my trusty wiffle bat though!
erdogmush, thanks for responding. What you have sounds like a very similar sensation. I do feel better knowing there is someone else out there who knows what I am talking about. I was beginning to feel like maybe I am from another planet!!!!!!!!!
Carol |
| erdogmush |
Posted - 11/15/2004 : 17:12:57
Carol, I have been having similar sensations in my upper back and neck for more than 8 months now after a minor neck injury. Feels like pin pricks, or some rough thing crawling on my skin, or some scratchy material rubbing on an open scar -- sometimes very superficial, right on the skin and diffused, sometimes deeper and localized. When it's there, the labels in my clothes touching my skin even bother me. I am sure it's TMS, and I also find it very frigthening when it persists. I have a hard time describing it to others, since it's not exactly any other pain I have had, but a strange sensation that gives you the creeps. I have been getting better with the Sarno program though (6 weeks into it). Now it's only intermittent. I also remember having had similar sensations in my forearms, attributed to RSI (now I know better). So it may not be as uncommon or unique as you think. You are not alone. |
| tennis tom |
Posted - 11/15/2004 : 09:24:02
Dear Carol,
You should not assume that because no one here responded to you with your exact, same, symptom/sensation, that no one else has felt it. A while back, I posted about hip pain and got no responses. Recently there have been numerous posts about hips and butts.
Trust me, I'm sure you're not alone in your specific pain. If you were, you may be from a different planet. There are only about 200 registerd members to this forum. That's a miniscule number in the big scheme of things.
The TMS gremin is doing to you exactly what it was designed to do--keep you in a fear state that distacts you from having to deal with the underlying emotional cause of your TMS symptoms. FEAR is the VOLUME CONTROL for PAIN.
Carol, you are afraid that you have a symptom that no one else here has. That isolates you and being isolated can cause fear. You fear going back to doctors. I don't blame you-it can be like being thrown into the lions den. You could see the dox and have the usual battery of tests done which could alleviate your fear that it is something "real" like the infamous tumor, that so far I have never read anyone here having.
If you can find a "good" doctor, who is not cut happy, maybe much of your anxiety could be eliminated. If you surrender control of your bodily health to them, then you may experience what Polly is going through. Your mind-body health is your responsiblity. I wouldn't surrender control of it to anyone.
I have recommended earlier, that you to review page 26 of MBP, the Rahe-Holmes list of stress creating events. That would be the short-cut to figuring out what is behind your anatomical pain. Until you can go down that list and honestly say that none of those events applies to you, you are not doing your TMS homework.
The TMS gremlin is serving ITS purpose  , creating psychogenic, real pain, that serves to distract you from emotional issues. |
| Baseball65 |
Posted - 11/14/2004 : 21:34:02
quote:
It is the nature of the sensation that is freaking me out.
Than the camouflages' quality is all the more effective.If it was the same ol' symptom every time,we wouldn't be distracted by it.It has to occupy all or most of our brains focus.
People with fibromyalgia tend to describe their symptoms very similar to what your describing.I used to have a sensation that felt like broken glass floating around in my legs..I was never given that diagnosis,but I'm sure if I stuck around long enough they would have gotten to it...
To me the most frustrating and liberating part of TMS is that it constantly brings me back to the introspection.Any time a new problem arises I think "damn it!! I've already been thru this!!"
But after the resolution,I am always grateful for the episode...it's humbling,yet empowering at the same time.
marc-
Baseball65 |
| Carol |
Posted - 11/14/2004 : 20:52:58
Thanks Dave and TT. I really don't have to look very far to know what the stressor is. It is the nature of the sensation that is freaking me out. I assume that nobody who read this has experienced this, because if they had they would recognize the description. It is almost as though there is an itch, but way under the skin. Drives me absolutely wild! I'm sure the gremlin is very happy right now, but I would sure feel better to know someone else with TMS has experienced something like this!
Carol |
| Dave |
Posted - 11/10/2004 : 09:45:35
quote:
Originally posted by Carol
My back feels like someone is in there teasing the nerves. It is a very odd sensation that makes me feel like screaming.
It's tough to know exactly what you mean, but I have felt a wide variety of symptoms in my back. For example, I would feel a sharp sensation right in the middle of my back, as if someone was digging a sharp point into my skin. It wasn't excrutiatingly painful, but it was different from pain I had experienced before, in that the pain was highly localized and "closer to the skin."
Nevertheless, the details of the symptoms are irrelevant. I didn't think for a second that there was a physical cause. I simply chalked it up to the clever process of TMS, finding a new and different way to distract me.
In your case, it seems to be doing a very good job of bringing on fear and anxiety, and even giving you thoughts of going to a neurologist. Think of the TMS gremlin inside you laughing to himself and licking his chops. He will continue this symptom until you can successfully ignore it.
Instead of thinking that there is something physically wrong, think that there is something emotionally wrong. As Tom says, do your homework. Think about things that are going on in your life that you may have glossed over and not fully accepted how they are making you feel. |
| tennis tom |
Posted - 11/10/2004 : 09:18:41
Carol, get out your MBP and go to the list of life's stressors that Sarno says causes TMS pain. I believe it is on page 26. The gremlin is toying with you. You need a refresher on TMS.
Try to find a situation from the list that is causing your TMS to flare-up. |
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