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Nor
152 Posts |
 Posted - 07/07/2006 : 20:00:25
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What's going on w/this forum? Why is everyone so sensitive? Sean, Tennis Tom likes to use sarcastic humor, its not personal! If you get over feeling attacked about how you are approaching TMS, you could actually learn from him and others on this forum. I believe nobody is trying to be critical or harsh on this forum - its just that advice is coming without sugar-coating. Its okay, haven't we all wasted enough time w/our pains that we can handle some directness?
Regarding the time factor, I have to jump on the wagon w/the others. The book "cures" are a "results not typical" situation....I've been getting better slowly and my shrink believes that TMS is a lifelong journey.
Nor |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 07/07/2006 : 21:57:13
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quote:
Originally posted by Sean
I never once mentioned my butt hurting... you did. Frankly what you do in your personal life is non of my business.
You must have a very unsatisfying life you spend your day (all day) on this forum.
See that's the thing, you know nothing about me...you just assume I'm fat and lazy and you pass judgment. You can't give tough love to someone who you have no background information on. In my book that's called rudeness.
Tell you what Tom, as long as you stay out of my posts I'll stay out of yours. I don't appreciate you assuming right off the bat that I am too stupid to understand the concepts of TMS. If you disagree that's fine, you don't have to post. Posting just to make ignorant comments to me is not helping anyone.
NO DEAL
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Jim1999
USA
210 Posts |
Posted - 07/07/2006 : 23:13:03
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quote:
Originally posted by Sean
In the past many have questioned the fact that they did not have tender points in the 3 locations Dr. Sarno mentions. There were replies written that these tender points do not have to exist and maybe someone even quoted a TMS doctor to that fact. So until recently I was ok with these responses. Well, as many of you know The Divided Mind has many chapters written by others doctors that treat TMS patients, most of which mention they look for tender points on physical examination. They explaining that tender points are “universal” or occur in “virtually all” cases of TMS patients.
So question #1 is, what is the truth? Do you need these tender points or not? I would think that if they were not needed to prove a patient has TMS someone would at least mention that in the book.
...
Question #4. All of my pain comes from what is considered a conditioned response. My back never hurts out of the blue. It hurts from sitting too long or standing more than 10 minutes. So should I think psychologically during a conditioned response and push through it? I tried that this weekend and am really paying the price for it.
Sean,
Your first and last questions made me think of a chronic pain patient I met on the Internet before coming to TMSHelp. He had none of the 18 fibromyalgia tender points. (He hadn't seen a TMS doctor, so I don't know if this patient had any of Dr. Sarno's tender points, but there is some overlap between the two sets of tender points.) This made me wonder whether he had TMS, but he was convinced that he had TMS.
He was first drawn to Dr. Sarno's approach by the concept of conditioning. He tried pushing through pain, although that backfired sometimes. He had to accept that there was more to his pain than conditioning and deal with unconscious emotions.
He did eventually make a full recovery, but it took him several months. (I guess that touches on your second question.)
I hope this example helps,
Jim
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 07/08/2006 : 03:23:10
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Sean,
Sorry, but I have to tell you I have no way of knowing if you need to find a specific problem or not, especially since you did not give any details about psychology. When I say the real problem, I'm referring to a constellation of real emotional issues (vs the fake ones of the pain) that have come up for me, mainly to do with the typical perfectionism and goodism. Not that exciting on the TMS scale! There's quite a bit in TDM, as you probably know, about how for different people, the contributions of the different factors is different. For some, it's more about childhood, some more about real life pressures, and some more the internal pressures of p&gisms. If you covered all that stuff, then you've exhausted the sources Sarno mentions.
It sounds like you would be better off seeking advice from a TMS doctor or therapist, perhaps one of those who will answer email or do phone consults if you can't see one in person. It could lessen your doubts, since the forum does not seem to.
If you stop the TMS stuff, will you have other options? If you don't have other options, besides just being in pain, then maybe trying to think TMS is the best course even if you remain unsure...
--
Wherever you go, there you are. |
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Scottydog
United Kingdom
330 Posts |
Posted - 07/08/2006 : 14:24:59
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I have the 3 tender points despite back ache not being my main tms problem.
Probably many of Sarno's patients ARE cured in a matter of weeks but they're the ones who never get as far as using this messageboard and of those that do appear here many many must have moved on - look at the total number of names of users.
Thinking psychologically may not be reaching your true feelings. Remember the anger/emotions causing your back problems are suppressed, so being annoyed that your wife makes demands on you or that you don't have enough time to play with your child are probaby not it.
Try journalling every day - things that upset you in the past, childhood etc etc. That way you can go back over stuff until you have really got to the truth of the matter.
Anne |
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HilaryN
United Kingdom
879 Posts |
Posted - 07/09/2006 : 09:25:59
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Hi Sean,
Sorry you’re not making the progress you’d like.
Q1: It’s funny you should say that in The Divided Mind it says the tender points occur in all patients. I could have sworn I’d read in there that they don’t, and aren’t necessary to diagnose TMS. I don’t have the book to hand at the moment.
Q2: When I read The Mindbody Prescription, I thought everyone was cured more or less immediately and I gave up when I didn’t have an immediate cure. But if you look carefully, there are actually examples of people who take longer. Either their cure time isn’t emphasised or we gloss over it ourselves. Perhaps we only see what we want to.
Don’t take people on this forum as a representative sample. People who cure quickly are unlikely to visit this forum.
Q3: I can’t remember if you said before whether you’re having psychotherapy? Dr Sarno does say that if there is no improvement after (I think) a couple of months then it’s advisable to have psychotherapy (with a TMS psychotherapist or an analytically-trained one). I don’t think you should worry about whether it’s “normal” or not, or whether you’re “abnormal”, which you seem to be worrying about.
Q4: You might prefer to take a gradual approach to the activities which you think cause your pain. If 10 minutes cause pain, try 5 minutess, or 2 minutes, or an amount you can handle. Then increase very slowly.
Hilary N |
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FlyByNight
Canada
209 Posts |
Posted - 07/09/2006 : 09:56:08
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HillARY,
what if pain is not necessarly associated to an activity but is always present ? |
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HilaryN
United Kingdom
879 Posts |
Posted - 07/09/2006 : 10:18:39
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I think Sarno’s advice is to tackle that first (i.e. wait for an improvement) before starting the activity which you believe causes the pain or make it worse. But it’s up to the individual: whatever you think you can handle.
If I were in a lot of pain I’d be very reluctant to do anything which could make it worse, even if the connection were psychological rather than physical. Pain is exhausting and you might not have the mental energy to challenge your thoughts if you’re in pain before you start the activity.
I’m a complete coward when it comes to pain, so I took it gradually. I took 6 months to increase my typing from 5 minutes a day to stopping the voice recognition completely. I might have been able to do it more quickly, but I was happy to take it slowly. (I didn’t have pain when I kept my typing below a certain level and I was able to do my work by using voice recognition, so there was no hurry for me.)
Hilary N |
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PeterW
Canada
102 Posts |
Posted - 07/10/2006 : 08:16:07
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I'd agree with Hillary and of course Dr. Sarno about gently increasing activity, or waiting for improvement before increasing activity. Lord knows how many setbacks I've had trying to 'challenge' the pain. Fred Amir's tackle it by challenging it philosophy might work for some but it could backfire for others, and it's interesting how specific Dr Sarno is in The Divided Mind about waiting for pain to subside first. "When the pain is gone, or almost gone, start to do physical things you have been afraid to do" .
Of course this is dependant on the patient doing the TMS work diligently every day.
Regarding tender points and low back pain, from James Rochelle's chapter in TDM:
"Dr Sarno's physical examination was instructive. He did a complete musculoskeletal examination, with emphasis on findings of tenderness. I never realized how frequent the findings of tenderness on the outside of the thigh is in patients who have chronic low back pain. In Dr Sarno's experience, the correlation is approximately 80 percent. Tenderness in the gluteal and lower lumbar regions is almost universal in TMS, as is tenderness at the top of both shoulders. Many patients have paraspinal tenderness throughout the lumbar spine, extending sometimes into the thoraccic areas as well.
The tenderness people have with chronic low back pain is usually present over a very widespread area. Palpation requires a light to moderate amount of pressure in strategic locations, indicating that the pain is usually in the muscles and tendons just below the skin. This superficial tenderness indicates that deeper structures, such as invertebral disks, are not producing the pain".
I still am not sure about the tender point thing either. Even though I have severe low back pain, when I prod myself in the lumbar area, the tenderness and pain seems to come from deeper, not from the surface muscles, which is the opposite of what Dr. Rochelle says. And I've never done a friendly massage on anyone whose upper shoulder and neck areas weren't stiff or tender to some degree.
Another question, for anyone out there who has been examined by Sarno or another TMS trained doctor: Do the docs tell from their own prodding that you have the tenderness, or is it up to the patient to say 'Owch, that's tender in there'. Experienced bodyworkers can usually tell just from touching.
I know, thinking too much again . . . Mr. Objective here, just wondering how objective the tender point examination is . . . ;-)
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vegomatic
24 Posts |
Posted - 07/11/2006 : 09:14:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Sean
My second concern is all the examples of “cured” TMS cases mention that the person is healed in less than a month. Maybe there were a couple of cases where it took 2 or 3 months, but even for these examples the author mentioned “most of the pain was gone in a month and then the person was pain free within 3 months”. I know everyone says don’t put a timeline on it, but if it were common to take 6 month, a year, 2 years why is there NO examples like this given or any type of reassurance in the books?
This is from page 168 of The Divided Mind:
"Liam entered psychotherapy. It wasn't until the better part of a year had elapsed that he enjoyed any improvement in his pain symptomatology" |
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Is TMS for everyone?
