| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| stiwa |
Posted - 09/23/2010 : 13:55:29
Hi everyone,
I have been one of the long-time lurkers who can never quite work up the energy to actually write. But tonight is different. It's probably because one of my problems (which I think is TMS) has come back. It scares me because so far I have been unable to get it under control. And I am afraid it won't go away. It's prostatitis and I am afraid it is going to turn into epididimytis again.
But I should start with my story.
I think I have always been a worrier and a people-pleaser. I was like that when I was a kid. And I am still like that. I never tried to be good in school. I fought to be the best and I remember being upset all the time when I did not get A+ on all my tests. I think it had something to do with making my father be proud of me and happy.
When I was in my early teens my parents got divorced. My world collapsed. My father soon found a new girl-friend who moved into our house with her daughter. My mother was sad all the time. She moved to a new appartment and my sister and I changed homes every week. My sister and I got very upset. My weight ballooned as I ate a lot of candy (I realize now I was self-medicating then, all the sugar being a perfect consolation). Finally, my father broke up with the girl-friend. He promised that he would not let another woman move into our home. Six months later a new woman moved in. I got so angry I went to my room with a hammer and started putting nails into my door in order to shut him (and her) out permanently.
I think it was around that time that some very nasty thought pattern emerged. I kept asking myself why my parents were doing this to me. Why me? Aren't they supposed to love me? To take care of me? I looked into the mirror. It dawned on me: I was fat and ugly. Too ugly to be loved.
I started dieting. I lost weight. When I was 16, I was quite skinny. Yet, I was still convinced I was ugly. I started exercising, lifting weights to put on muscle. My granny was worried. You're going to damage your joints. About half a year later, my elbows and knees hurt like hell. There was a cracking sound in them every time I moved. They felt stiff and it took some force to overcome that stiffness. I gave up exercising, feeling somehow cheated, thinking I would never be masculine, never be attractive.
It was around that time that I had to admit to myself that I was gay. Not an easy thing with nobody around to give you support or understanding. I was afraid my class mates would find out. So I postponed the decision to be gay (yeah that sounds funny but it was a way of dealing with my fear). I had a girl-friend. We broke up. I was single. I graduated from highschool. Met a guy. Came out.
I dealt with this and I feel comfortable with being homosexual now. What never left me though was the obsession with beauty and feeling inadequate all the time.
Fastforward to my early twens. I was living in America (I am from Europe) then. It was the time when Amazon started selling books over the internet and I was on their website nearly all the time. It was then that I found "Healing Back Pain". It was a big revelation to me. I loved the book and when I got back home I started to apply the principles. I went jogging frequently. At first my knees hurt, but I pushed through the pain. And then I was pain-free. That was the happiest summer I can remember. I got a tan, I felt fit, I started flirting. I met a boy. Fell in love. We became a couple and we've stayed together ever since.
The following years I focussed on my studies. I graduated from university not knowing what to do with my life. I wanted to do something adventurous. But at the same time, I worried so much that I would not find a job that I stuck to the things that are considered safe.
I found a job with an insurance company in a big city. (Looking at my life now I think it is almost insanely fitting - I have worried and felt insecure all my life and here I am working in the insurance business.)
Anyway. The city has a big gay scene. My boy-friend is really pretty. I had gotten a bit puffy by the time we moved here. I started weight-lifting again because I felt I had to keep up. I felt envious. I don't think he would leave me. I am envious of all the attention he gets - I know that. The joint pain showed up again and I started to battle with it. It went away, flared up again. I journaled, I read on this forum. Then my skin became dry. I thought: symptom imperative. Then we went on our honeymoon. I started to have a burning feeling when I went to the toilet. It got worse. Then my scrotum got swollen. It looked more like tennis balls when we got on the plane home. I went to the hospital straight from the airport. The doctor diagnosed me with epididymitis. I got an antibiotic and went to see a urologist the next day. He ordered all the tests. "You have an inflammation", he said. "But your tests are all negative. Take it easy for two weeks. You still have a good chance that this will clear up for good." I took two weeks off from work. Stayed home. Took the antibiotics. Watched TV. Got depressed. Got worried that it would become chronic.
It did not. Two weeks later I was back at my job busy as ever. I got promoted. One year later, out of the blue the burning showed up again. I went to my urologist. He did an ultrasound. He said: "Your prostate is fine. I don't know why you have this problem. I think it might be related to your bladder not emptying right." He gave me antibiotics. I took them. The problem went away.
One year later, it returned. My urologist was on vacation. I went to another one. He shouted at me: "Your urine is perfectly clear. Clear as champagne." He said that I should talk to my urologist about urethroscopy because something might be wrong with the urethra. So we did that. It was a weird experience, bit painful but not too much. There was nothing. Only the sphincter of my prostate was very tight. I got cranberry powder. The problem went away.
I thought it had cleared up for good when I discovered that I might have problems digesting fructose this year when I tried to lose weight on a low-carb diet. The diet did not work but my skin problems got better when I was on it.
Last week-end the burning while urinating returned. I have thought about it. I am pretty sure it is TMS. All the tests have never been anything but negative. Plus, there are a couple of things that may have started a new cycle. First, I started lifting again two weeks ago after I had paused throughout the summer. Second, I had a bout of extreme envy and frustration the night before it started again. I felt that all my efforts were worth nothing and that I would always be fat. This was extremely annoying because I had thought that I had had a breakthrough in dealing with this two weeks before. I had read the Gabriel Method by Jon Gabriel. He says that being overweight is just the body's way of dealing with insecurity. It expects a famine so it stores calories. This can be due to low self-esteem (being hungry for love), trauma (being hungry for safety), and various other emotional issues linked to feeling threatened by the world.
For me that was so revealing. And it made me happy: For the first time in my life, I looked into a mirror and did not think "You're so ugly". I thought "I am so afraid and this is just my body protecting me". After that, I felt I could deal with being overweight. After all, what I had read meant: I am not guilty. There is nothing I can do but accpet the way I am. It was beautiful. Liberating. Unfortunately, it did not last. First, I became extremely enraged one evening. I was so envious of my boy-friend because he has so much success with exercising and I -despite having done tons of reading on correct exercise technique- did not manage to grow a bit of muscle. I got mad but instead of taking it out on him went to my room to beat up a cushion.
The next day the burning started. It has stayed. And now my testicles hurt. I am familiar with this pattern. But I am also upset with it. I don't want to take antibiotics for nothing again.
If you have stayed with me so far, I have three questions for you:
1. I am pretty convinced that this prostatitis/epididymitis thing is TMS. Do you think it was brought on by my new attitude towards my body. I have always obsessed about being ugly. To the point where I would get immersed for hours in fitness and nutrition literature. Suppose this obsession was a distraction from repressed emotions. Could my new attitude towards being overweight have brought on a new bout of prostatitis because my mind needed a new distraction?
2. What worries me is the following: The prostatitis turned into something very nasty three years ago. Epididymitis. How do you deal with the fear that your condition may turn into something nasty? Sometimes I think I won't be able to follow the Sarno program any longer because I don't know what the mind-body syndrome will come up with next.
3. Do you know of any TMS doctors in Europe?
Any answer would be greatly appreciated.
Stiwa
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| 10 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| drh7900 |
Posted - 08/31/2012 : 08:09:44
I wanted to congratulate you as well. That's great!
--
Dustin |
| bryan3000 |
Posted - 08/31/2012 : 00:43:50
Congrats Stiwa! Definitely a success! |
| stiwa |
Posted - 08/30/2012 : 11:37:31
An update: I have been free from acute non-bacterial prostatitis since my last post. Apparently, that is pretty unusual. My urologist told me that usually once it has become chronic prostatitis comes back every 3 months in most of his patients. And here I am not having had a flare-up for close to two years. I guess I may call this a success. |
| stiwa |
Posted - 09/25/2010 : 15:18:51
Thanks for your replies, everyone. Art, your comment made me laugh. I feel that way, too, sometimes. Walnut, I can see your concern and I appreciate it. Thing is and I have agonized over this question a lot: Are antibiotics going to help me against something that can't even be identified? I was given cipro every single time I had this weird thing going on down there. Every time the pain receded, that's true. But does that really mean there was an infection? or does it simply mean I believed it to help and so it did? Plus, an infection would have meant that my boy-friend should at least show some symptoms. But he is fine and always has been.
Pain's better today. I can still feel a swollen something near my testicles but I expected that to happen. Yesterday, however, peeing was really painful. I said to myself: Well, then give it to me, baby. Give me all you can come up with. I don't give a sh... any longer. Seems to have helped a bit at least.
Wrldtrv- in my case, epididymitis was diagnosed the first time by looking at the scrotum. It was swollen and hurt. When you feel pain you think it is one of your testicles but actually they are not sensitive to touch - at least in my case. The pain originates in a structure that rests on top of the testicle. The doctor also did an ultrasound at a later flare-up but everything was fine and normal.
Hilary - thank you for the link. Seems like there are no GPs trained in diagnosing other than musculosceletal form of TMS in Europe. What a pity...
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| walnut864 |
Posted - 09/24/2010 : 22:30:48
I had an ultrasound done several times to look for epididimytis.
Many months later when I began looking at my own medical records trying to find an answer for myself I read the ultrasound findings and they said "suspect of infection". Nothing was ever 100% positive diagnosis.
The first time I went to the doc he didnt do any tests. H ejust said it was probably orchitis and gave me antibiotics. the pain never responded to antibiotics.
i had a full body ct scan with contrast done once and was told i had a hydrocele and a varicocele. but they were on the left side and my pain was on the right.
my pain testicular pain started shortly after doing some "manscaping" as i call it. i had shaved it up real nice down there b/c me and my wife were very active with each other at that time.
i rarely ever get the testicular pain anymore but when i do. my sciatic nerve will also hurt in my right leg. but only for a very short time. |
| wrldtrv |
Posted - 09/24/2010 : 21:21:08
Right you are, Art! |
| art |
Posted - 09/24/2010 : 10:33:56
There is a grim humor to be found in the stuff. Wrld, I have so many areas of varying degrees of pain and possible injury, I can barely keep track of them all...
Ignoring them all is pretty much a full time job :>) |
| wrldtrv |
Posted - 09/23/2010 : 20:01:59
Walnut, how is epidymitis diagnosed? I was recently diagnosed with a spermatocele, which is a 1.7 cm cyst on the epidydimis and ever since finding out, I have felt sensitivity on the related testicle as though my underwear is squeezing or irritating it and I am continually adjusting them. The sensitivity in that area I have had off/on for years, but nothing serious. I'm thinking the latest bout is simply that the spermatocele made me paranoid about the area and so I have been giving it too much attention.
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| walnut864 |
Posted - 09/23/2010 : 16:53:18
When I first started getting many severe symptoms of tms. my initial symptoms were back pain, sciatica, prostatitis, epididmytis, frequent urination and many other symptoms. i took antibiotics for the prostatis to no avail. the levaquin made me sick the first nite and then the doc said to take bactrm, i said no. he said that nothin else would penetrate the prostate so i just oh well. he touched my prostate and it was very sore. i left the office and didnt take another pill. two weeks later i went in to the office for my follow up and he did a digital exam and my prostate was fine, it was not sore at all.
I read once of some urologist who said that SOME cases of prostatits could be a stress related. and the doc was speaking from personal experience. i forget his name. when i had prostatitis i also had painful spasms of that muscle that runs from the anal area to the scrotum. for some reason i always tensed that muscle.
my testicular pain that was treated unsuccessfully with anti biotics and diagnosed as epididimytis later got better on its on. i still get flare ups once in awhile and it is always accompanied by sciatica.
the only thing abnormal in testing is my PSA levels in my blood. (prostate specific antigen) it has always been slightly elevated and my doctor said he doesnt know why. i am now 29 and was about 24 when all that was going on.
hope it was some help to you. when it comes to "infections" its hard to say no to treatment with antibiotics b/c you dont wanna play around with something that could cause alot of damage and be treated so easily.
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| HilaryN |
Posted - 09/23/2010 : 15:50:42
Hi Stiwa,
Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing your story.
In answer to your last question:
http://tmswiki.wetpaint.com/page/Find+a+TMS+Doctor+or+Therapist#UK
Hilary N |
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