| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| positivevibes |
Posted - 01/21/2008 : 01:54:07
OK, so I'm sitting here wondering if the pain in my right buttock is from my subconscious, or some other real physical thing. I need help from you guys.
As I mentioned, I hurt my back last March. Basically it was just my lower back that hurt. About 4 months into this episode, my right buttock suddenly began to hurt. The pain got worse when I tried to stretch my right hamstring. In fact, stretching the right hamstring actually makes it worse. If I don't stretch the hamstring, I don't feel it very much and tend to forget about it. But if I try to to this "normal" stetch that I've been doing for most of my adult life, suddenly the pain comes right back. It is a pinpoint of pain smack in the middle of my buttock. The pain does not radiate, but it is very uncomfortable.
My Osteopath and the Egoscue people have told me that minor muscles have been trying to do the work of major muscles that I've been compensating and guarding...that the piriformus and other muscles are being overused. They gave me various exercises to do and I was told to avoid the stepper and other things (like walking on an incline) because they would aggrivate the condition.
OK fine. I didn't do the stepper for months and avoided walking on inclines. But the pain persists. I stopped exercising for weeks and didn't do any hamtring stretches....but the moment I tried to do them again, the pain came right back.
According to Sarno's theory, this is my mind playing a trick on me. But I hate to tell you guys that at this very moment I'm not sure. I've been paying attention to my emotions. My back actually feels fine (which makes me very happy). But this pain in the butt just seems to keep sticking around. I am not sure why it began hurting in the first place...I never had it before it began about 6 months ago. I remember that around the time it began, I felt like I couldn't remember how to stand correctly (my back muscles were really tight and I was in pain or discomfort all time).
In addition to this, my right groin begins to ache like something is irritated. That condition pre-dates this episode of my back problem. My groin began hurting about 2 months before I hurt my back. My Osteopath has told me that the muscles are all related to each other, etc etc. I understand the anatomy and am pissed off that my osteopath hasn't figured out how to make the pain in my butt and groin go away (because he did a great job helping my back).
If Sarno's theories are correct, and this pain is coming from my subconscious, how can I get this pain in my butt and the pain in my groin to stop? I want to do the elipical stepper...I love that machine and have fun on it. I live on a hill and miss walking around my neighborhood...walking up and down the hills on a nice day. I am actually worried that there *is* something quasi-structrual going on here....some nerve being irritated for some weird reason. I don't really understand it. I just want it to STOP already!
Has anyone else had a pain like I describe, deep in the middle of your buttock (not radiating), along with pain in the groin (inner hip)? If so, how did you resolve it?
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| 9 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| armchairlinguist |
Posted - 01/21/2008 : 19:09:44
quote:
Or is it just a matter of mental conditioning -- telling my braing to "cut it out" whenever my butt and groin start to hurt?
You can definitely do this. It doesn't always work, but it's always a good message to send your brain. :)
I got pretty successful now at sending blood into my arms, but I still can't send it into the upper back. Visualizing helps, and imagining the area to be particularly warm.
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It's not 100% belief that's required, but 100% commitment. |
| qso |
Posted - 01/21/2008 : 16:24:05
Dear positivevibes - the turning off of the muscles by TMS is not what your osteopath had in mind. Excercise will *not* turn them back on. I lost 3 months believing that excercise was the key. Unfortunately it is a catch 22. The TMS will automatically turn your muscles back on when you fully reject all physical possibilities including excercise and weak muscles. When that happens you won't even have to tell your brain to turn them back on -it will know already, before you realize it 'yourself' (your conscious self). I had to systematically reject all physical and structural beliefs one by one. How quickly you can do that depends on you and nobody can do it for you unfortunately. The doubt is natural and is what makes this hard. Write a list of all the things that you are assigning to physical/structral origins and that you think are *NOT* completely 100% TMS, even if it is only a slight, small 'feeling' or niggling doubt. Think about those things, do your own research, post the list on this forum, and knock down each one systematically. Remember that the TMS can make it seem like the intensity of pain is correlated with physical activity but this is another trick. |
| positivevibes |
Posted - 01/21/2008 : 13:06:07
I sent for the Sarno DVDs and workbook and should be getting them in a few days. I am eager to immerse myself in his method. As I mentioned in another thread, I have read a couple of his books, as well as a book called "Back Sense" which pays homage to Sarno.
I *do* have a lot of doubt about this pain in my butt and groin -- wondering what is wrong physically that keeps it hurting -- but after reading what you guys have said, I will definitely keep an open mind about it and see if Sarno's methods will make it go away. This is *HARD* because all my life I've been conditioned to "think about my back" because my mother has back problems (she ruptured a disc when I was a little kid -- I have vague memories of visiting her in the hospital when she was in traction). In fact, the last time I spoke to my parents (they are far away and I call them weekly) I did *not* mention Sarno or my back. When they asked me how my back was, I said, "It's getting better and I'm back at the gym," and I left it at that. I will NOT get into any more long conversations with my mother about my back. I think it has only been reinforcing the "fact" that I have structural problems like her.
My back is a little bit sore today after being at the gym yesterday, but I expect that it would be. I'm telling myself that the slight soreness is normal and actually good (that the muscles are getting used again). I did ab crunches for the first time in months and am delighted that my abs are a little sore today, too! :-)
Last night the butt pain was so uncomfortable that I had to take some Ibuprofen. That did help a lot. A couple of hours later the pain was much more bearable.
One of you mentioned the brain turning off certain muscles. Yes, my osteopath had mentioned this! He said that my body had been conditioned to turn off certain muscles to guard my back, and that we have to re-train the muscles to turn back on. But the exercises he had me doing didn't seem to really make it happen very well. The butt pain did improve a little bit, but it didn't totally go away, and now it's back in spades.
So this tells me....if my brain is partly doing this, my brain can stop it. But how do you tell your brain to turn those muscles back on? I mean, how does that happen? Will it suddenly stop being a problem when I am into Sarno's methods and doing psychotherapy and have un-repressed certain things? Or is it just a matter of mental conditioning -- telling my braing to "cut it out" whenever my butt and groin start to hurt?
I have noticed that when I stand, sometimes I'm clenching my butt, which I think isn't a normal thing to do (I truthfully can't remember sometimes what it feels like to stand totally normally without thinking about it). So when I feel myself doing this, I slowly relax my butt muscles and stop clenching them. I have no idea WHY I am clenching them, but I think that I need to unlearn that behavior.
This is all so weird. In the past whenever I've had a back problem, it got resolved and I moved on until the next time I did something to hurt it. I've never had symptoms linger like this before. |
| mizlorinj |
Posted - 01/21/2008 : 12:42:39
ah, the butt pain--you just reminded me of my 2006 TMS episode. I had pain in the butt cheek (right only) and under the butt--top of thigh--that made it impossible to sit.
The worst was getting up off a chair (and toilet or is that TMI?). Halfway between sitting and standing I felt like someone was stabbing me deep in the middle of my right butt cheek, way deep inside and it would hurt for awhile afterward. I would roll out of bed or whatever I needed to to avoid having to get to that position between sitting and standing. It was so severe and painful.
It was TMS. It is gone. Was nothing structural even though Osteo told me it was due to my herniated disc!
Apparently not as I am pain free through my own healing (ok--Dr. Sarno started it!)!
I am a firm believer that ANY pain/ailment/condition can be mind-induced (Tms or its equivalent).
-Lori |
| armchairlinguist |
Posted - 01/21/2008 : 09:56:04
quote:
My Osteopath and the Egoscue people have told me that minor muscles have been trying to do the work of major muscles that I've been compensating and guarding...that the piriformus and other muscles are being overused. They gave me various exercises to do and I was told to avoid the stepper and other things (like walking on an incline) because they would aggrivate the condition.
OK fine. I didn't do the stepper for months and avoided walking on inclines. But the pain persists. I stopped exercising for weeks and didn't do any hamtring stretches....but the moment I tried to do them again, the pain came right back.
So, it sounds like their advice didn't work. I'd go with Sarno's if I were you. :) You're hitting conditioning when you have recurrences whenever you expect them.
It's not uncommon for a primary complaint area to resolve before secondary areas do. I had 'RSI', foot pain, knee pain, and upper-back tightness, and the RSI resolved before the rest. (I use '' to indicate it wasn't RSI but a form of TMS.) My reasoning on this is that it's the symptom that you first believed was psychosomatic, therefore it's the first battle you win. You basically need to apply the same belief to the other symptom and continue on with your work. Boring answer, but true. Don't let the doubt get you, stop thinking physical. There's more repressed emotion out there bugging you even if you're happy right now (which it's great that you are).
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It's not 100% belief that's required, but 100% commitment. |
| pericakralj |
Posted - 01/21/2008 : 09:23:39
Had pian in buttock and groins,and sovled it using TMS approach. |
| qso |
Posted - 01/21/2008 : 09:19:14
I should qualify the above a little more: it is indeed true that if some muscles are turned off by the brain via TMS the ones that aren't will try to compensate and get over-worked. However once the TMS-affected ones are turned back on the other ones recover very quickly as well. In hindsight I know precisely which muscles were switched off by TMS and the ones that were genuinely over-worked but I had no idea at the time. I also had the pain in the butt and burning sensation in the right groin/deep abdominals and I attributed the latter to an old child-hood surgery. However, the fact that it all went away and never back came is proof that I was wrong. Your conditions are classic TMS-tell your brain that you know there is nothing intrinsically wrong with your muscles or any other part of your body and that you believe at a very fundamental level that all of your symptoms are being caused by the brain and nothing else. Processing your emotional issues won't help until you believe this. Even if you don't believe it now keep saying it until one day you will and the results will be startling. |
| qso |
Posted - 01/21/2008 : 08:22:50
The doubt is part of the syndrome and yes it's impossible to tell sometimes if the pain is not due to attack by the brain. That's why it's hard. But I can tell you that I went through a similar thing: it started small in the lower back and new symptoms developed all over the place until my whole body was affected from the neck down. I could not bend hardly, could not turn my neck much and my legs felt like lead weights. We bought and sold 3 mattresses in one year because I could feel every spring and it felt like my spine was broken in many places-what a waste of money. I invented all kinds of non-TMS explanations to account for it all. That was the battle of the conscious against the subconscious. But when I recovered, *everything* went away all at once. All of the stuff the doctors told me about this muscle compensating for that was therefore absolute rubbish and was not consistent with the facts. In fact I even drew out force diagrams to see for myself which muscles should be compensating for which and, sounds silly, but I was going to buy anatomical software used by researchers to figure out which muscles I should be excercising more. Fortunately I realized I was being tricked yet again before I spent the money and stopped seeing anybody in the medical profession, after which I should say I experienced a big improvement.
QSO |
| swmr1 |
Posted - 01/21/2008 : 07:36:44
positivevibes--
Sounds like "piriformis syndrome" to me (the pain in your buttock). I started to have the same symptoms a year after my second child was born about 8 years ago. I exercise a lot and ran a lot at the time. I attributed my pain to carrying both of my kids on the same hip. The chiro I saw said my hips were "twisted" and had me coming regularly for manipulations. Some days that would help, others it wouldn't. I finally decided chiro was bunk and just did things to alleviate the pain (rolling on a tennis ball, icing, ibuprophen, ben gay).
Funny, that during my next pregnancy I had no trouble with my piriformis (though you'd think the extra stress on my back would make it worse). Then, about a year after my third child was born I started to have pain again. I cut back on activities,went to a couple different doctors, had an MRI and did physical therapy twice. Both times it helped for awhile but then things began all over again. So, again I just resolved myself to pain relief.
About a year ago I began to suspect that my pain was somehow tied in with my emotions/thoughts. I found a link to Sarno's work and just reading the book's description on Amazon made an immediate difference in my perception of my pain. I read the books and, so far, am one of those people who hasn't done a whole lot of psychological work but I gradually went from intermittent discomfort to none. I now have little episodes where some muscle starts to bother me but just being able to "challenge" it with activity helps alleviate the discomfort.
I now think that I had no pain my last pregnancy because I was busy "obsessing" over that instead of my piriformis. I may end up having to do more psychological work because I do see that I obsess about things. But, so far, just knowing my tendency to do that has made a big difference.
If you google piriformis pain and find a running site that has a description of how to massage that muscle with a tennis ball, it's a good exercise to help the muscle stop spasming. I actually found that the more I acted normally (doing normal activities) the more the pain would subside. The more I "rested" the more agitated I'd get and the pain would bother me a lot more.
Best wishes on your recovery. |
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