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Victoria008
USA
26 Posts |
 Posted - 02/07/2007 : 16:02:03
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My pain started 3 years ago. At the time it really freaked me out (it still does sometimes). I am a bit of a hypochondriac and am very sensitive to any feeling my body has. I have also suffered from panic disorder since I was 18. So I have always had a lot of strange symptoms, they would scare me until I figured out they were just "nerves". I had all kinds of crazy symptoms, a long list. But there was never pain. I did hurt my back years ago and every so often it would go "out", but I wasn't scared cuz if I just stretched and took it easy for a few days, it would return to normal. Anyway, I noticed my legs felt "funny" sort of achy and shaky. Then I got a pain in the middle of my upper back, like a kink. My lower back started bothering me, I became achy etc. But what really scared me a pain around my chest area. It was hard to pinpoint where the pain was, lower, like in my sternum or ribs. Then it would travel around to my upper back. It would come and go and feel differently, sometimes a pressure like gas, sometimes like a band around my body squeezing me, sometimes sharp, sometimes dull. It was hard to explain to the Dr. I also had periods of my heart pounding. Very uncomfortable and scary. I ended up at the ER twice. I went to the Dr. many times and was told different things and had several tests and ended up with a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. My legs bothered me a lot too, it seemed to affect my walking, they would feel heavy and ache, and then I would feel off balance and became afraid. I still have a hard time, like going to the mall, etc. This was an extremely scary time for me. I have read two of Dr Sarno's books and I will write more later about my progress. I am grateful for this forum and for the support.
Victoria
Victoria |
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Littlebird
USA
391 Posts |
Posted - 02/08/2007 : 01:14:17
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Hi Victoria,
One of several diagnoses I was given over the years was fibro. It's great to know it's TMS. I haven't beat all the symptoms yet, but I have overcome several of them, and I know it's just a matter of time until I get rid of the rest. There are a couple of issues that I'm finding myself a bit resistant about digging into, so I'm sure that's why I'm still having some symptoms.
I'll be looking forward to hearing about your progress. It's great that you are using the forum--it's been a big help to me.
Take care, Corey |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 02/08/2007 : 04:38:44
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quote:
Originally posted by Littlebird
There are a couple of issues that I'm finding myself a bit resistant about digging into, so I'm sure that's why I'm still having some symptoms.
Hi Corey,
You don't need to keep digging into the past and resolving "issues", life will replace them with new issues as subsitutes to keep fueling your symptom imperative.
To be "healed" of TMS all you need to do is acknowledge that the symptoms are psychosomatic in origin and HARMLESS. It is more important to BREAKTHROUGH them and return to NORMAL activity.
What are the activities that your symptoms are stopping you from performing?
Regards,
tt |
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Victoria008
USA
26 Posts |
Posted - 02/08/2007 : 05:19:12
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Talk about digging into issues! I don't know where to start is my problem. I don't know if what's going on is current or past or both. Indeed there are lots of both. So I guess I have two things that are slowing my progress, one I still have a lot of fear about my symptoms being harmless and two, I have a great deal of unresolved problems and grief.
When this first started I kept thinking it was related to my panic disorder, as I said I had many weird symptoms for years and I wondered if they had just morphed into these other more painful symptoms. When I read Sarno, it validated what I was already suspecting so that was very comforting. But the deep fear is still there and I'm having a hard time with that. I still have pain that moves around and I still am afraid of doing too much, especially shopping. I worry my legs will fail me!
Thanks for the response.
Victoria
Victoria |
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Littlebird
USA
391 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2007 : 01:08:51
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Tom, thanks for that input. I've said that myself, but I guess, now that you point it out, that maybe I've been thinking that I could be in that group that doesn't get full improvement without psychotherapy, but I should stop thinking that and see how much of a difference that will make.
I still have major fatigue and "fuzzy" thinking or "brain fog," but I recently realized that it may be more due to the insomnia, which has returned with a vengeance, than anything else, because when I do get a good night's sleep I am much more functional the next day, with energy to do housework and errands and clear enough thinking to handle business oriented tasks.
That statement about life replacing the issues with new ones really clicked too, because I hadn't realized how much I've fallen into the habit of thinking that the ongoing stresses of life are going to keep creating new anger and holding me back in getting the symptoms to go away. Not a very productive attitude, so thanks for that light-bulb moment.
Victoria, since you support yourself, you probably feel like I do about being afraid to push too hard and overdo it, thinking that you may end up not being able to function at all. I think a number of people here have gradually increased their activity level out of concern for overdoing it, and that seems to have worked for them. I can't remember if you've mentioned whether you are journaling, but if you haven't been doing that, it's a great way to start acknowledging feelings.
Since you've had a lot of testing done, does that help you in addressing your fear of the symptoms, or do you still worry that the tests missed something? When you get a diagnosis of Fibro, it's usually kind of reassuring that someone is acknowledging your pain as real, but the diagnosis can also open the door to a lot of worry. I've always thought of Fibro type symptoms as being psychosomatic in origin, but I thought that the psychological stresses were leading to physical damage, so learning about TMS really eliminated a lot of fear for me. |
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Victoria008
USA
26 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2007 : 05:33:25
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Yes, I am somewhat reassured about being told I have fibro, and by finding out about TMS. But my fear is strong, it has been a strong thread throughout my life and so I think, well they haven't done "every" test. I believe my fear will really have to be dealt with because it is hindering my progress. This forum helps to reassure me as well. I have always journaled, it is helpful, but I think bringing my feelings out in the open with people will help too, as I have been pretty secretive about what is going on with me. One thing I want some input about is, Can anyone here talk about having several different symptoms at the same time? I have a lot of chest, back and leg pain, sometimes together, sometimes separately, it just doesn't make sense, have any of you been through this? Thanks!
Victoria
Victoria |
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mizlorinj
USA
490 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2007 : 07:21:45
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Dr. Sarno clearly says in order to be healed of TMS you must believe the symptoms are 100% due to TMS. Your brain is accomplishing its purpose if there is any doubt—to distract you from emotional issues and make you think there is a physical problem.
-Lori |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2007 : 07:28:50
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Hi Vic8,
First off, you must change your vocabulary. For the purposes of this board and for your purposes of returning to NORMAL activity, banish the F-word (fibro) from your vocabulary. You have TMS.
You've had all the tests done, been to ER twice and they couldn't DX you with anything quantifiable. Modern medicine is very good at DX'ing conditions usually. Having multiple symptoms just means your TMS reservoir is at flood stage and going over the dam.
Psychosomatic "dis-ease" epedemics are like hat styles. They come and go. It used to be ulcers until it was found out that they were stress related. MVP, RSI, now Fibro. Sadly, even the government recently took a wrong turn, when the head of our nation's health dept gave it official gov impramature. Fibro/TMS is all the rage right now. It's interesting that mostly women get it (a clue to where the stess is in our society). Many books are flooding the market about it, TV commercials are mentioning it for pain products. You are in good company, it's among the current top "dis-eases" today. Many people will be talking about it and making money off it with snake-oil cures. In TMS terms a GREAT DISTRACTION!
The "F" is in vogue. The sad part is that, due to it's severity, with the multiplicity of symptoms, this epedemic is a symptom of what a nervous-wreck state our society is in. I blame this in great part on our gov since it has created much of the stress that has created this epedemic of TMS--but that's a tangent I will restrain myself from expanding on right now.
As stated in TDM (have you read it?--if not buy it now!) fibro is just conventional medicine's term for a more severe form of TMS.
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"I still am afraid of doing too much, especially shopping. I worry my legs will fail me!"
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From a practical perspective of dealing with this fear, every major store today has electric wheel-chair type shopping carts for the disabled. You can use one of those. But that is just dealing with the symptom. If you are 50 years old and the docs can't find a specific cause for your muscle weakness then you have TMS.
The best reccomendation I can make is buy TDM and read it because it will have ALL the answers to your issues, you need to re-organize your brain and how it thinks about your symptoms.
Good Luck ! |
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JohnO
USA
63 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2007 : 08:54:12
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| But how can you get your mind to believe 100% that it is TMS? I have tried so hard over and over telling myslef that and am not getting better. I think my brain won't let go of that tiny little reservation of it being physical because that was what I was told so long before I re-discovered Sarno's theories. How exactly do you get to the 100% thinking? It is frustrating. |
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alexis
USA
596 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2007 : 11:14:51
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| I have never believed 100% and neither have quite a lot of the people here. We don't have a scientific analysis comparing success rates to percent beleif, but it is certainly possible to recover without 100% belief, and moreso without 100% belief at the outset. I'm going to guess you might want to target something over 50%, though, and the amount of belief needed will be different for different people. |
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Littlebird
USA
391 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2007 : 11:55:19
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Victoria,
You asked about multiple symptoms; I've had so many symptoms that I found it embarrassing to list them all for doctors, because I knew they'd think I was nuts. I had a book on Fibro which listed over a hundred symptoms that are supposedly associated, and I had over 90. That was before I started having neurological type symptoms, which were thought to possibly be Multiple Sclerosis. As Tom has suggested, I think of Fibro as TMS now, but it was an easy change for me to make because when I first got sick I was under tremendous physical and emotional stress. As I said, I believed it was psychosomatic all along, but I used to fear that my stress was damaging my immune system or some such thing and causing the physical symptoms. When I was first told of CFS and later of Fibro, it made me feel like I was being validated as having real symptoms, rather than imagined ones, but it also created that fear that my emotions were damaging my body, so learning about TMS has been the most reassuring thing. I know that stress/fear/anger does affect the body, because of the effects of stress chemicals, but now I don't have that fear that it's causing me severe, irreversible damage.
Since I learned of TMS, some of the symptoms that cleared up quickly were severe pain in my hands and arms that I'd been told was tendonitis, neurological pain and numbness and parasthesia (wierd sensations) from the waist to the feet, including leg weakness severe enough that I used a cane. The neuro type stuff also affected my balance, which is much better now. I do still experience aching in my feet and legs when I'm up for a while, like shopping, so I'm still controlling that with pain medication until I make more progress. But I now think of this pain as TMS, not Fibro, and possibly somewhat due to the deconditioning of my muscles from being inactive for so long (19 years). I do sometimes tell people who have no knowledge of TMS that I have Fibro, because it's a word they know is associated with pain, but I don't think of it that way myself. I also have stopped having frequent chest pain. It occasionally comes back, but I can track it to a psychological event when it does. That's not to say I would tell someone not to be concerned by chest pain, but if you've been checked out thoroughly and you can track it to psychological events, it's more likely to be TMS. I also stopped having a chronic tooth ache that I'd had for over two years and jaw pain that radiates, like TMJ. That still flares up occasionally, but I immediately think of it as a psychosomatic reaction and it goes away quickly, in minutes usually.
One of the big keys for me has been to learn to do that psychological thinking, rather than thinking about possible physical causes of symptoms. I've learned to ask myself, what could be bothering me and why. Sometimes I have to keep going with the "why's" to really get to the source. For example, I have recently been wondering why it is that I feel a strong need to suppress emotions that result from empathy when I see people suffering somehow, even on television. Each time a reason would come, then I'd ask again, why, what's behind this reason. I finally got down to the true source--the fact that my mother was very emotional and as a child I did not want to be like her. It was a surprise, because I'd long ago forgotten about that feeling on a conscious level, but it was still at work in my unconscious. This switch in thinking is also helping my depression and anxiety to not be as severe. One of the challenges for me is to remember that I can acknowledge emotions without necessarily changing my personality or situation. I tell myself that, and I tell other people that, but I still find my thinking reverting to old ways at times.
Give yourself time to overcome your fears, but don't give up on the TMS concept. Take care, Corey |
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JohnO
USA
63 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2007 : 12:11:50
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| I don't know, Alexis. Sarno seesm pretty clear that it must be 100% and I have an e-mail from Dr. Sopher who I will be seeeing soon that reads it must be 100%. I just don't know. Maybe this is good for a separate topic. |
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2007 : 13:22:15
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Do we ever believe anything 100%?
A few doubts are normal. We all wonder at the outset "Will this work?"
Working to overcome them, rather than indulging them and letting them feed on each other and us, is probably what's essential.
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
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alexis
USA
596 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2007 : 14:19:05
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quote:
Originally posted by armchairlinguist
Do we ever believe anything 100%?
A few doubts are normal. We all wonder at the outset "Will this work?"
I think some people maybe do believe things 100%. I don't think I do, but I don't want to doubt those who say they do.
John--As for what Sarno says, I think he's a smart guy, but I don't think we need to treat what he says as "biblical truth". Sure the doctors saying you have to believe 100%, and I know that there's a large faction here who want to believe Sarno and all are above the failings of other physicians. But can't you see how this possibly a-little-less-than-truth works to their (and sometimes the patients') benefit?
It is not necessarily the case that everything they say is true, or that they believe everything they say.
By the way, I think Einstein was pretty smart, but I also think God may well play dice. Smart folks who make contributions can be very wrong. Just look at all the neuroscientists who thought the brain could never grow new cells. Aristotle couldn't even count teeth.
We've gone through this before. I'm just not likely to ever be a Sarno purist. I guess I don't really do pure. |
Edited by - alexis on 02/09/2007 15:17:03 |
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h2oskier25
USA
395 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2007 : 15:13:14
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Victoria,
About believing 100%. It's a process, not an event. Remember, the lower parts of your brain are trying real hard to persist with the whole distraction mechanism.
Don't be obsessive about believing 100%. Just focus on the PROCESS of telling yourself over and over that it's 100% TMS, and you will win out. Sarno has referred to it as the battle of the wills. Your conscience will overrides the unc will with repitition, so just keep it up.
Regards,
Beth |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2007 : 19:35:47
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Quoting JohnO:
" But how can you get your mind to believe 100% that it is TMS? I have tried so hard over and over telling myslef that and am not getting better. I think my brain won't let go of that tiny little reservation of it being physical because that was what I was told so long before I re-discovered Sarno's theories. How exactly do you get to the 100% thinking? It is frustrating."
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What you do is return to normal activity and do the things you were afraid to do before you learned about TMS. When you do those activities, you will gain the confidence to believe that TMS theory is correct.---------------------------------------------------------------------
From Dr. John Sarno's THE DIVIDED MIND:
Chapter 10: "A Family Doctor's Experience With Mindbody Medicine"
by Marc Soper, M.D.
Page 347:
"Why do some people, who agree they have TMS, get better more quickly, others more slowly?...
...Why do some people feel better after just reading my book or one of Dr. Sarno's books?
I have puzzled over this and concluded that the "rapid" healers are somehow better able to put aside what they have been told in the past and fully integrate the TMS information. They can undo the conditioning that is part of mainstream thought and replace it with this new understanding of how the workings of the unconscious can affect the body and physical sensation."
Dr. Sopher's website is: www.themindbodysyndrome.com |
Edited by - tennis tom on 02/09/2007 19:42:31 |
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JohnO
USA
63 Posts |
Posted - 02/10/2007 : 09:55:13
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| But Tennis Tom, I AM doing all the normal things I have always done fighting this like there is no tomorrow and the misery continues. Today I ran 8 miles in agony mostly but I won't surrender. I keep telling myslef its 100% psychological. I had neck pain and lower GI pain. The neck pain is gone but the GI continues. Tom, how do I get rid of this? I see Dr. Sopher next week becaause I live in the northeast and he is nearby. I so belive in Sarno but this isn't going away, if anything its worse, and I have this small reservation that thinks it may be physcial because the doctor explained it that way. |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 02/10/2007 : 10:14:43
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JohnO, If you're seeing Dr. Sopher next week you ARE doing everything that you can do that I would recommend. He has done numerous marathons and is a tennis player like me. In my TMS book he would be the difinitive source for a TMS answer. I wish I could see him and maybe I will.
One thing that I note is that you exhibit a great sense of impatience and frustration, understandabley. If you have TMS, that is a TMS personality trait. I would take some comfort in that you are going to see one of the foremost experts on TMS on the planet who practices what he preaches in the physical relm to the extreme.
I think he will be able to give you an accurate dx. I am not a doctor and I have my own issues with TMS and my hip. I would not look to me for your answer. I'm not a doctor, don't know anything about your psyche or physiology. Only a fool would dx such a potentialy complex "dis-ease" as TMS over what is essentialy a TV screen.
Good Luck to you at the Good Doctor Sopher's next week and I am (semi) anxiously awaiting what he has to tell you. PLEASE let us know what happens thouroughly.
Regards,
tt |
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Littlebird
USA
391 Posts |
Posted - 02/10/2007 : 11:27:27
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Wow, Kelvin, that's a great post. I think the cigarette analogy works well for pointing out the difference between believing and accepting.
I've been thinking lately about the process of re-training the unconscious mind. I've been comparing it to driving, to help myself realize that I can change my unconscious reactions as well as my conscious ones, because when we start out driving we think about each situation and action, but with repetition the unconscious mind begins to take over. When I ride with my son and find myself suddenly trying to mash on an imaginary brake, even though I'm not consciously thinking of driving, it makes me feel confident that I can change my thoughts and reactions in both parts of my brain, just like I learned to drive.
JohnO, I hope you'll let us know how your doctor visit goes and how you progress with your TMS efforts. Hope things are better for you soon. |
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JohnO
USA
63 Posts |
Posted - 02/10/2007 : 12:45:22
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| Thanks for all the encouraging posts. What I really want Dr. Sopher's opinion on is how to determine whether the lower GI stuff is structural or psychological. In Divided Mind there is a chapter on this and the distinguishment is not always easy. The medical people can try injections (Botox, believe it or not) for the misery (this is more misery than pain, I wish it was just pain)but I have held off becaause if it is really TMS, I must "repudiate the physical" as we all know so well so why I had improvement for 6 weeks and it has regressed to abject misery is beyond me but I am looking forward to my consult with Dr. Sopher and will let you all know after my Wednesday appointment if there are interesting things to share form the experiencs. |
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 02/10/2007 : 13:27:00
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Kelvin, great post. I never thought about that distinction but I think it is accurate. Accepting means you don't try to think it is anything else or take any other kind of actions for it. It's related to the idea that working at the belief is important. If you doubt mentally, but then you go and journal and keep on with your activities, and try to banish the doubt back, then you accept that it's TMS regardless of the little disbeliefs your mind will keep throwing up (probably as a defense mechanism).
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
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3 years of pain and fear
