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yowire
USA
70 Posts |
 Posted - 10/19/2005 : 16:55:22
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Quote from hooray on another thread:
quote:
I also had a bee sting from earlier that day. The sting started to itch intensely and continued to itch for about a minute. At which point I realized...my back felt fine
I had a similar experience recently. One of my symptoms which still hasn't responded completely (about 50% improved) is neck pain and stiffness. A few weeks ago I got stung by a bee. During the height of the pain, I had the presence of mind to check my neck knowing that I might be distracted by the bee pain. Sure enough, my neck was completely painless. It was so loose it felt like rubber.
This got me to thinking that it might be possible to devise a test for some forms of TMS. While producing great pain in a patient might be impractical, I thought there could be a distraction developed that would perform the same function. Something like a really annoyingly bright light which would be intense enough to cause a distraction but leave the eyes without damage.
I feel that something along these lines could be used by doctors to convince patients that their symptoms are caused by TMS and not due to some structural problem. Of course this probably wouldn't work for some TMS equivalents such as depression, but it may be applicable to many forms.
Any thoughts?
Yowire |
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johnnyg
USA
138 Posts |
Posted - 10/20/2005 : 08:28:58
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| This sounds like a good idea, but I think that most people accept the idea that if they suffer from some kind of chronic pain like back or neck pain and then hit their head really hard, all of their attention will focus on the head temporarily. Everyone at some point or another has had this happen prior to learning about TMS, but we never said, "oh, my back pain must be psychosomatic since i didn't feel it for a few minutes after smashing my skull!" In other words people accept that the mind plays some role in pain perception, but not to the extent of accepting TMS theory. But still is a good way to turn people on the power of the mind. |
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yowire
USA
70 Posts |
Posted - 10/20/2005 : 20:01:46
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Hi Johnnyg,
You're probably right. Most people would not be convinced anyway. However, I still think that something such as this could be valuable.
Dr. Sarno mentions (HBP p.133) that in the 19th century Jean-Martin Charcot, a neurologist, demonstrated that Hysterical paralysis(TMS) could be made to disappear when the patient was hypnotized. This was undoubtedly due to the shift in focus of the patients attention that is required in hypnosis.
I would think that there must be some other painless ways to divert attention which could be used to demonstrate the mindbody connection in a way that could be applied to many patients.
As you mentioned, we have all experienced this already in some way. Before I had ever heard of DR. Sarno, I would notice that whenever I had a cold or flu virus, my symptoms would disappear only to return when the virus cleared up. I used to think that this was due to an increased immune response, but now I know the real reason. I think that Doctors should at least be trained to investigate these kinds of
clues when evaluating patient histories.
Yowire |
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test for TMS?
