| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| pan |
Posted - 03/26/2008 : 15:37:18
The longer my condition has continued the more I have come to think that it may be to do with me somatising emotional and stress related factors. I am no expert on TMS but what I do know seems to strike a chord. I would be grateful if you could take a couple of minutes to read my history and offer some comments.
This all started for me last July. Basically I had a health scare and a friend died of cancer as well....whilst all this was going on I also turned 40 and was going through a stressful period. The health scare turned out to be fine and I assumed that all would return to normal.
Think again!!.....about a week after the all clear I woke up one morning to a feeling of being spaced out and also not quite being with my body, I also had a few vague aches and pains mainly in my muscles and my hip. Went to the GP who advised me was anxiety and was a classic thing as a result of a health scare. Being a quite clued up person I bought books on anxiety and came to see that it was obvious I had been suffering from Generalized Anxiety Disorder for years and that I had been using many negative thought patterns to get through life....I also suffered from elements of OCD i.e constantly worrying about what ifs and thinking what may happen as if it had actually happened etc etc. My GP also though I could be suffering from some depression as I was/am unhappy with various aspects of my life and turning 40 brought these into focus.
After about a month to six weeks, the spaced out feeling subsided but this was replaced with various new weird sensations. I would have all over vague aches and pains, these mainly seemed around my joints and muscles and I would generally just feel fatigued...I would also get some patches of burning skin for short periods. I would also get some internal tremors and also a strange 'buzzing' sensation which mainly seemed to be in my legs but which could strike also anywhere...I also developed a twitch in my left eyelid which has persisted to this day. The main pain as such seemed to be in my hands...mainly thumbs and pinkies and also my lower arms.
It was at this point I did a silly thing and Googled my symptoms. Before too long I convinced myself I had MS. I went to see various GP's who did clinical tests etc and all advised me the tests where A1 and there was no need for an MRI etc as this was all classic anxiety stuff and MS was not a realistic concern. At this time I then found out about ALS and about a week later, you've guessed it, the twitching started.
Before too long I was in a right state and had full blown health anxiety...I was convinced that all these symptoms where proof I had MS or ALS. I went to see a neurologist who did all the tests and who advised me that no need for an MRI or EMG as he was certain that it was a combination of anxiety and somatisation and that I should address this.
I am now at the point where I am able to put most of these fears to bed. Whereas I was constantly checking and monitoring myself I am much better now but these sensations still annoy me and I wish that I could just eradicate them.
The main issues I seem to have now are the weird buzzing sensation and also the vague all over aches and pains which mainly seem to be worse in my hands...I also seem to get quite tender spots to crop up in muscles but these only seem to last a short while...I also tend to feel more fatigued than before all this started.
I do think my lifestyle is not really helping. I am a stressed and very very pesimistic person and have both relationship and financial issues going on through all this, I have a poor diet, I excercise little and also think I probably do not as much sleep as I should. As mentioned, I'm not in a really good place in my life as I feel I should have achieved more than I have and I do feel a failure
somewhat, I also only have a very small number of friends as many moved away after university.
So, I'm just wondering if this seems to fit a TMS profile. I suppose I am diagnosis chasing a bit...I no longer worry about ALS and MS does haunt me occasionaly but I have figured that when I look how all this started and where I am in life there are probably far more 'emotional' reasons as to why I should be experiencing these issues. Yep, I would go so far as to say that my mind is in pain and that it is screaming at me to do something about it and I suppose it is natural for these issues to be expressed as physical pain at some point.
Anyway, thanks if you got this far. At suggestions much appreciated. |
| 20 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| RageSootheRatio |
Posted - 07/02/2013 : 20:48:42
Thanks very much chickenbone! I am already very familiar with Gendlin's "Focusing" but will check out all the other resources you've mentioned. ~RSR |
| chickenbone |
Posted - 07/02/2013 : 18:57:25
Hi Pan and RSR,
I am including a link to a really good discussion of this topic on the TMSwiki. There are some excellent videos. Be sure to see the one on how to deal with a panic attack using this method.
http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/the-right-way-of-focusing-on-bodily-sensations.2183/
Also here is a feeble attempt on my part to describe what little I know about it:
http://www.tmshelp.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8634
I began using this after reading Claire Weekes' Hope and Help for Your Nerves and Peter Levine's In an Unspoken Voice.
I am finally experiencing some relief from my health anxiety using these methods. My TMS has responded well to this. I found that before I have a symptom, almost always, there is a warning sign in the form of a physical sensation. For example, I can literally feel the oxygen leaving the muscles and nerves in my lower back before a sciatic attack happens. I always have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach before a hot flash or panic attack. I always feel a strange hyped-up feeling before having trouble sleeping. By going toward these when they are happening, meditating on them, I have gotten to know a lot about them. By challenging them (only in a friendly way) I have learned that they are not so scary. Often I am able to renegotiate with them successfully to head off or shorten a panic attack or an episode of sciatica or insomnia. First comes getting to know them, fully accepting them. Then comes inviting them full expression in my body with my conscious mind participating in the experience. Third comes the renegotiation stage where you find out what they want and take steps to alleviate them before they progress to pain or other symptoms. I have slowly but surely made progress.
I think this also relates to what Dr. James Alexander talks about when he describes EMDR. I think that, to get over our TMS symptoms, that can often involve traumatic experience, we need to find a way to discover the language of our unconscious and get to know it. Discovering the wisdom of the body is one way to do this. In EMDR therapy, this process is called "re-consolidation", in somatic experiencing, it is called "renegotiation". I believe it is the same thing. It is some kind of physic shift that fundamentally changes the way your mind processes information and experience. EMDR and Somatic Experiencing are possibly 2 ways of accomplishing this, there certainly are more. Sometimes it can occur spontaneously as Eric Watson experienced. I really think this is the key, but there are several ways to accomplish the same thing.
|
| pan |
Posted - 07/02/2013 : 12:48:17
Yep, I'm intrigued to know more about the somatic experiencing concept as well. |
| RageSootheRatio |
Posted - 07/02/2013 : 12:15:19
chickenbone, I'm not pan, but I'd be VERY interested in hearing more about your somatic experiencing experiences! ~RSR |
| chickenbone |
Posted - 07/02/2013 : 11:25:53
Pan, you sound an awful lot like me. I go through the same thing with the TMS and hypochondria that you do. I have always known that imagining all sorts of diseases and being hyper-suggestive was silly, but I just could never change. I first read Sarno's books about 5 years ago. I got almost total relief from my sciatic pain for almost 2 years because of the "knowledge cure". However, this turned out to be pretty much placebo. My symptoms eventually came back along with the hypochondria which never left. However, now I am doing much better since I have been practicing "somatic experiencing". This has gotten me in touch with my unconscious bodily processes and sensations in a whole new way and made me intimately familiar with them, so they don't so much freak me out and get me to start fearing them and imagining all sorts of physical problems. Let me know if you want to hear more about this. |
| pan |
Posted - 07/01/2013 : 07:31:18
Crikey, that OP was over 5 years ago....do I get a T Shirt?  |
| Back2-It |
Posted - 06/30/2013 : 13:16:49
quote:
Originally posted by pan
The longer my condition has continued the more I have come to think that it may be to do with me somatising emotional and stress related factors. I am no expert on TMS but what I do know seems to strike a chord. I would be grateful if you could take a couple of minutes to read my history and offer some comments.
This all started for me last July. Basically I had a health scare and a friend died of cancer as well....whilst all this was going on I also turned 40 and was going through a stressful period. The health scare turned out to be fine and I assumed that all would return to normal.
Think again!!.....about a week after the all clear I woke up one morning to a feeling of being spaced out and also not quite being with my body, I also had a few vague aches and pains mainly in my muscles and my hip. Went to the GP who advised me was anxiety and was a classic thing as a result of a health scare. Being a quite clued up person I bought books on anxiety and came to see that it was obvious I had been suffering from Generalized Anxiety Disorder for years and that I had been using many negative thought patterns to get through life....I also suffered from elements of OCD i.e constantly worrying about what ifs and thinking what may happen as if it had actually happened etc etc. My GP also though I could be suffering from some depression as I was/am unhappy with various aspects of my life and turning 40 brought these into focus.
After about a month to six weeks, the spaced out feeling subsided but this was replaced with various new weird sensations. I would have all over vague aches and pains, these mainly seemed around my joints and muscles and I would generally just feel fatigued...I would also get some patches of burning skin for short periods. I would also get some internal tremors and also a strange 'buzzing' sensation which mainly seemed to be in my legs but which could strike also anywhere...I also developed a twitch in my left eyelid which has persisted to this day. The main pain as such seemed to be in my hands...mainly thumbs and pinkies and also my lower arms.
It was at this point I did a silly thing and Googled my symptoms. Before too long I convinced myself I had MS. I went to see various GP's who did clinical tests etc and all advised me the tests where A1 and there was no need for an MRI etc as this was all classic anxiety stuff and MS was not a realistic concern. At this time I then found out about ALS and about a week later, you've guessed it, the twitching started.
Before too long I was in a right state and had full blown health anxiety...I was convinced that all these symptoms where proof I had MS or ALS. I went to see a neurologist who did all the tests and who advised me that no need for an MRI or EMG as he was certain that it was a combination of anxiety and somatisation and that I should address this.
I am now at the point where I am able to put most of these fears to bed. Whereas I was constantly checking and monitoring myself I am much better now but these sensations still annoy me and I wish that I could just eradicate them.
The main issues I seem to have now are the weird buzzing sensation and also the vague all over aches and pains which mainly seem to be worse in my hands...I also seem to get quite tender spots to crop up in muscles but these only seem to last a short while...I also tend to feel more fatigued than before all this started.
I do think my lifestyle is not really helping. I am a stressed and very very pesimistic person and have both relationship and financial issues going on through all this, I have a poor diet, I excercise little and also think I probably do not as much sleep as I should. As mentioned, I'm not in a really good place in my life as I feel I should have achieved more than I have and I do feel a failure
somewhat, I also only have a very small number of friends as many moved away after university.
So, I'm just wondering if this seems to fit a TMS profile. I suppose I am diagnosis chasing a bit...I no longer worry about ALS and MS does haunt me occasionaly but I have figured that when I look how all this started and where I am in life there are probably far more 'emotional' reasons as to why I should be experiencing these issues. Yep, I would go so far as to say that my mind is in pain and that it is screaming at me to do something about it and I suppose it is natural for these issues to be expressed as physical pain at some point.
Anyway, thanks if you got this far. At suggestions much appreciated.
Okay, I peeked.
Still mostly the status quo?
I hear the same symphony being played, with a slightly different variation.
I hear echos of Hillbilly's advice played out in today's suggestions on your condition. His advice is right, you know. Not easy, but right.
And...maybe life needs to shaken and stirred a bit to spin a person off from the Land of Comfort.
"Bridges Freeze Before Roads" |
| pan |
Posted - 04/15/2008 : 06:46:13
quote:
Originally posted by wrldtrv
Pan--Sorry, that was "com"
Have mailed you. |
| wrldtrv |
Posted - 04/09/2008 : 19:46:03
Pan--Sorry, that was "com" |
| pan |
Posted - 04/09/2008 : 03:33:09
quote:
Originally posted by wrldtrv
Pan--There seems to be a problem receiving email at the address listed. Try rrekkcir@hotmail instead. Thanks.
Sorry, is that hotmail.co.uk (or) .com?? |
| wrldtrv |
Posted - 04/08/2008 : 18:43:51
Pan--There seems to be a problem receiving email at the address listed. Try rrekkcir@hotmail instead. Thanks. |
| pan |
Posted - 04/07/2008 : 06:31:19
Thank you for the advice. I have mailed you to discuss this further. |
| wrldtrv |
Posted - 04/04/2008 : 19:55:29
Pan,
I haven't been on this site for quite awhile, but I'm glad I did today because you and your story could have been written by me. When the symptoms go on longer than you think they should, you begin to doubt the stress-somatization theory your docs told you and begin to think it MUST be physical. For me, it was (and sometimes still is) a daily struggle. On a good day I would agree with everyone else and say, it must be psychogenic. On a bad day, I would look for and find plenty of reasons why it had to be MS. Of course, like my psych said, "MS is the perfect disease for a hypochondriac (me) because the symptoms are so vague, so strange; anything can be blamed on the disease and meanwhile, there is no ABSOLUTE way to rule it out, though MRI's and all the rest can give pretty solid evidence against.
So, what's the answer? Well, I think for highly stressed, sensitive, pessimistic personalities, like mine and probably yours, it's not easy. I've been dealing with this issue for several years now and the thing that seems to work best for me is challenging the symptoms with exercise. Not routine everyday exercise, but instead, running marathons and hiking 14-ers--any sort of extreme physical challenge will do. During and after such events I usually feel strong and completely normal until the next time. For me, babying myself or refraining to do something because I'm afraid is exactly the wrong thing to do.
I've got to go now, but if you have any questions or want more input, let me know. |
| pan |
Posted - 04/03/2008 : 09:18:37
Cheers for taking the time to reply all..Hillbilly, I totally understand what you are saying and 100% agree with it but when you get those bad moments of doubt it is awfully hard to ‘float’ through it….sure you know what I mean if you have had the same concerns in the past.
I will download the suggested book when I get home tonight. Have lost track of the books I’ve read about anxiety, somatisation etc yet I still find it incredibly hard to accept and let go.
As I said in my original post this all started for me following a health scare that really freaked me out…..you are spot on in that for years before this I had lived at a very high stress threshold and whilst this was never a physical problem there where some issues with negative thinking etc….it is only since the health scare and other stressors that this all took a physical turn. From your experience is this quite common?, meaning that a stressor can turn a high working level of stress into physical sensations…I can see why this could happen but when you suffer from both GAD and elements of Pure O you sort of feel ‘responsible’ that you need to constantly monitor and check these sensations in order to ensure nothing serious is missed.
I suppose one of my major worries is that I’m being fobbed off by my GP’s etc with the anxiety explanation as it seems the easy explanation bearing in mind it all began after an easily identifiable stressor.
Anyway, thanks very much for your replies. I know what you are saying makes perfect sense as it is what I would say to others but it is the age old thing of putting the words into action.
edit: downloaded the book you suggested. There are some interesting facts and observations in there....strange to think how long ago it was written as we tend to think this is a modern thing. |
| Hillbilly |
Posted - 04/03/2008 : 08:17:17
Pan,
Here is something that you can do that will help, I think. Go to google and download the free ebook The Freedom of Life by Annie Payson Call. This was written over 100 years ago. It is a very good primer on nervous health and how it gets interrupted. Read especially the sections on how to deal with discomfort.
Then after reading it, keep track of the amount of time that you are spending thinking about your body and what it is doing, what you are restricting yourself from. You will find that you are living in a state of constant fear, which sets up vicious cycles of fight or flight responses. This is not terribly difficult to understand. The trick is to stop the cycles. The body in this state is never at rest, and your constant focus upon it makes it remain so. When you accept the diagnosis as TMS or anxiety or whatever benign condition, there should be a conscious effort then made to accept or ignore the pain and related sensations as transient, normal stress responses that will resolve when you no longer react to them fearfully. This will take some effort. Be patient with yourself. If you are impatient, that will trigger the stress response. If you get upset because you can't do something and want to, that will trigger it as well. Problem is most if not all of us have lived so stressfully and so reliant upon adrenaline to get through the day for so long that we think that is normal.
The thinking you just posted will lead to more illness. I have seen countless people whose refusal to accept the symptoms as stress related suffer endlessly, going from doctor to doctor and having them find nothing at all clinically wrong or getting some nebulous diagnosis like myofascial pain or fibromyalgia or CFS, which just led to more suffering because they read lots of scary stuff on the internet and didn't follow a set program of recovery. Anxiety conditions can last a lifetime if not interrupted on the conscious level. You must understand what is happening, accept that it is the ONLY thing causing your problems, and make a constant effort to stop fearing your symptoms. Simplify everything to prevent worry and you are on your way to lasting health.
If you allow yourself to ruminate about physical explanations, you are doomed. There is nothing that you can do to set your mind at ease even for a moment. I know. I was there for two years. You have to break this habit of self-diagnosis right away to get on the way back to health. |
| pan |
Posted - 04/03/2008 : 07:48:49
quote:
Originally posted by Hillbilly
Pan, the point about the TMS tenant is precisely the point about anxiety sensations. They aren't harmful, only feel so. What Dr. Sarno is describing is not a new medical entity. It has been around a long time. Penny's post makes this clear. Anxiety hits when we are vulnerable to stress, but we have had a habit of living this way for most of our lives. The friend's death was a match thrown on a barrel of gasoline.
Soft tissue pain is common among anxiety (condition) sufferers. It is fueled entirely by attention and fear. If you learn to stop fearing and paying as little attention as possible to the symptoms, you will be fine in a short while, likely a couple of months. Every time you catch yourself thinking about MS, snap back to reality. You are fine. Your body needs to calm down, and so does your mind. Once this happens, the crazy thoughts and body feelings will go away on their own. Be patient but cut off the fear flow ASAP.
I think that this is what is concerning me most.....the timescale that this has been going on for. I know it is impossible to put a timescale on a recovery but the longer it goes on for the more concerned I get that there has to be a physical explanation for these weird sensations. I was under the impression that I had actually aceppted the sensations as benign and that I wasn't worrying about them but I suspect that under the service I was still stressing about them. |
| armchairlinguist |
Posted - 03/28/2008 : 15:16:12
quote:
if my mind is trying to distract me from anger or whatever how does it actually benefit me to then distract and worry me about these sensations.
It's not clear to me why people find this connection difficult to make. The point isn't that it's consciously beneficial to worry about symptoms. The point is it's EFFECTIVE. It works. You cannot pay attention to the underlying (dangerous) emotions if you are effectively distracted by physical symptoms. The more worried you are, the more effective the distraction. The mind wishes to avoid the powerful underlying emotions; the anxiety and pain are effective distractions. My experience with unearthing some of my repressed emotions was that indeed, they WERE almost worse than the pain, even in my conscious opinion where I knew the pain was awful and that getting to the emotions was the solution.
The less worried you are, the less the distraction works. That's why the solution to making the symptoms go away is to stop worrying about them (and you stop by believing they have no worrying physical cause).
And to answer Hillbilly's point about why you might need many (134 even, not that anyone lists that many) things to distract you -- one is not enough to distract some people. Many people experience progressive distraction, beginning with, say, minor joint pain on exercise, and progressing to chronic multiple-area pain as the distraction fails or the emotional pressure from continued repression increases.
I don't dispute anxiety as a component or equivalent of TMS, but the distraction theory is actually a very compelling one when understood, and one that I have personally found very explanatory.
--
It's not 100% belief that's required, but 100% commitment. |
| pan |
Posted - 03/28/2008 : 02:48:46
quote:
Originally posted by Wavy Soul
quote:
I'm not sure that I am totally somatising as I think my problem is more a case of a false interpretation of the sensations generated by a tired and exhausted nervous system...instead of just accepting the buzzing and twitching etc as the outcome of this I falsely see it as a sign of MS etc. This of course leads to the anxiety loop which is so hard to escape from.
YES! I have had these weird sensations for decades, and along with severe all-over pain and fatigue I was diagnosed with various things according to which doc I went to. All TMS. At this point if I die I will consider it TMS! I find it absolutely amazing - Industrial Sound and Magic Special Effects-level amazing, how the brain can produce these complex body sensations that then morph into whatever one is thinking.
I've found that the same sensations can morph into bliss if I think in a different direction. I'm just working with that one now.
Pan - you are on the right track. The main thing I would need if I were you would be some loving reassurance. Don't worry. You are okay. Your life is going to be okay. You have not fallen down a crack in the universe. The very fact that you are awake and aware of what's happening inside you means you are quite awake, and that's more important than struggling against this stuff. Very often just by staying very aware of one's patterns they run out of steam.
If you believe in any Higher Power or in your own brain's higher intelligence, ask it to get you through this. My own growing faith in a mind-blowing infinite intelligence is the most healing thing of all for me.
xx
Love is the answer, whatever the question
Funny you should say that. I was thinking the other night that the spacey feeling and internal vibration could even be construed as similar to a sort of drug high....something some people are happy to shell out good money for.
That is the thing, the sensations in themselves are fine and I don't get too much pain more aches really but it is purely the THOUGHTS I attach to the sensations, that they are symptoms of something rather than just a mild annoyance at this moment in my life. I'm sure once I fully address the thoughts things will fall into place more.
TBH, I have actually been there and had a good month/6 weeks of a good outlook with it but recently just fell off it slightly and started to doubt it just a tiny bit this was mainly due to my mindset but also I has some symptom shifting which did concern me, the thing with this is that I’ve now recognised this as my mind no longer getting the desired response from me so having to invent some new fun and games.....as soon as I did this it sort of was like a house of card effects and it all tumbled down round me. I do feel much more positive reading peoples thoughts on here.
Thanks to each and every one who has taken the time to reply to my concerns.
|
| Wavy Soul |
Posted - 03/28/2008 : 01:02:11
quote:
I'm not sure that I am totally somatising as I think my problem is more a case of a false interpretation of the sensations generated by a tired and exhausted nervous system...instead of just accepting the buzzing and twitching etc as the outcome of this I falsely see it as a sign of MS etc. This of course leads to the anxiety loop which is so hard to escape from.
YES! I have had these weird sensations for decades, and along with severe all-over pain and fatigue I was diagnosed with various things according to which doc I went to. All TMS. At this point if I die I will consider it TMS! I find it absolutely amazing - Industrial Sound and Magic Special Effects-level amazing, how the brain can produce these complex body sensations that then morph into whatever one is thinking.
I've found that the same sensations can morph into bliss if I think in a different direction. I'm just working with that one now.
Pan - you are on the right track. The main thing I would need if I were you would be some loving reassurance. Don't worry. You are okay. Your life is going to be okay. You have not fallen down a crack in the universe. The very fact that you are awake and aware of what's happening inside you means you are quite awake, and that's more important than struggling against this stuff. Very often just by staying very aware of one's patterns they run out of steam.
If you believe in any Higher Power or in your own brain's higher intelligence, ask it to get you through this. My own growing faith in a mind-blowing infinite intelligence is the most healing thing of all for me.
xx
Love is the answer, whatever the question |
| Hillbilly |
Posted - 03/27/2008 : 20:32:16
Pan, the point about the TMS tenant is precisely the point about anxiety sensations. They aren't harmful, only feel so. What Dr. Sarno is describing is not a new medical entity. It has been around a long time. Penny's post makes this clear. Anxiety hits when we are vulnerable to stress, but we have had a habit of living this way for most of our lives. The friend's death was a match thrown on a barrel of gasoline.
Soft tissue pain is common among anxiety (condition) sufferers. It is fueled entirely by attention and fear. If you learn to stop fearing and paying as little attention as possible to the symptoms, you will be fine in a short while, likely a couple of months. Every time you catch yourself thinking about MS, snap back to reality. You are fine. Your body needs to calm down, and so does your mind. Once this happens, the crazy thoughts and body feelings will go away on their own. Be patient but cut off the fear flow ASAP. |
|
|
