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Jeremy
USA
27 Posts |
 Posted - 02/05/2008 : 13:56:52
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I've done a bit of searching here on the subject of stiffness; if I'm causing too much of a repeat discussion, feel free to refer me to a previous thread.
My symptoms have always involved a lot of stiffness and/or weakness in both the lower back and the right hip. I'm someone who until May spent the better part of the previous seven years doing yoga regularly; now I can't bend at the waist, keep my knees straight, and touch my fingers anywhere near the ground. (I used to be able to get the top joints of my fingers down on the ground without bending my legs.)
I completely understand and accept TMS. I know all too well that my physical pain and discomfort is rooted in emotional pain (both conscious and unconscious). I have resumed normal physical activity, and am feeling stronger as a result. When I feel some odd twinge in my hip or back, I can push through it; sometimes, simply stopping to remind myself that it's psychological at that point will cause it to vanish on the spot.
The stiffness is another matter. The stiffness in my lower back and deep in my hips does not vanish. If it's not wrong to put it this way, it feels more "real" than the pain and twinges. I can't "push through it" and pretend it doesn't exist. It literally prevents me from having my full range of motion. It's not even a question of pain as much as a question of just not being possible.
If I choose simply to continue with my basic TMS treatment and figure that the stiffness is simply a particularly stubborn manifestation that will eventually recede, the problem is, as noted, that with stiffness, the "ignore and do it anyway" approach is literally impossible.
Another option would be to look at the stiffness as perhaps at least in part a side effect of my being so careful and relatively immobilized for so many months. In which case some gentle stretching would seem to be in order. This would in no way be denying the emotional root of the situation, but once the emotions have taken this course, have created this crazy stiffness, it does become an actual physical condition that (I would think) might be dealt with directly even while continuing otherwise with the "think psychological, not physical" approach.
I understand this discussion can veer into areas where people get kind of, oh, let's say, zealous. If you do feel like responding, I'm hoping that the overall tone of discourse will remain reasonably gentle and encouraging.
Thank you all yet again for your time...
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qso
USA
52 Posts |
Posted - 02/05/2008 : 16:37:51
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| I can relate to the stiffness and not being able to push through it. I couldn't either at times. I read books, listened to books, watched movies, worked in a zero-g chair, tried some meditation etc. etc. (i.e. took a break from trying to physically challenge the stifness and kept myself occupied in other ways). The stiffness went away with all the other TMS symptoms so in my case at least, it was TMS. |
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swmr1
USA
118 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2008 : 06:06:45
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| Could "stiffness" be just tense muscles? Tension from stress in your life? My lower back is still tight sometimes but I try to go about my business as usual without obsessing over it and (so far) that takes care of the problem for me. |
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campbell28
80 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2008 : 07:26:39
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I had the same kind of experience with stiffness - it is about 80 / 90 % better now. I also found it more difficult to deal with than the pain because the osteopath or whoever would look at my back and go 'oh my god what have you been doing, your muscles are going insane they are really tight / inflamed' and i could physically feel the restriction in movement. I stopped doing kung fu because doing the stretches was too painful: my muscles just wouldn't stretch.
I don't think it needs any different treatment to the pain though. It may be harder to get rid of but it responds to the same treatment. Even though you may consciously accept and believe in TMS, your subconscious may not quite be there yet, especially because the stiffness is so physically limiting and convincing.
One thing that helped me was noticing how random the stiffness could be. I used to do all kinds of stretches etc but they had no real effect on the tightness. Then suddenly for no reason my muscles would be less tight. Or they would tighten for no reason. One day I just spent sitting at the till in a bookshop, reading, and when I came home my shoulders were a total snarled-up mess.
Other times I would do things that should have made them tighten - like getting drunk and going dancing in high-ish heels - and they would be absolutely fine.
I did some research into muscle tension / stiffness and discovered that your nervous system controls how tight your muscles are - it can make them tighten in anticipation of action, and it can then make them relax again. Or it can just keep them tight.
Also, I think I read somewhere that oxygen deprivation to your muscles (sarno's theory of how the pain is caused) can eventually make them stiff / tight because of a build-up of toxins.
SO basically your brain is using the same mechanism for causing stiffness as causing pain, and for the same reason.
i'm not an expert and i do think all individual cases are different but I know that in my case the stretching didn't help; it just perpetuated the idea that I had a physical problem. It is really really frustrating but it may just be that your subconscious hasn't quite got there yet and you will have to keep working until something clicks.
I had my worst flare-up not long after I had accepted the TMS diagnosis: all my muscles pulled horrendously tight, back, shoulders. legs, hips, everything. I went back to doing physical therapy for a month or so, then read something on the forum that just made something click in my brain, and I felt the stiffness / tension in my shoulders literally melt away. |
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Dave
USA
1864 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2008 : 07:54:27
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If you try to treat symptoms selectively as TMS then you may fall into its traps.
TMS is clever and will sieze any opportunity you give it to convince you that a symptom is "real" and not psychogenic.
Pain, stiffness ... it's all the same as far as TMS is concerned. According to Dr. Sarno it is caused by oxygen deprivation. Even if the exact mechanism is not so simple it doesn't matter.
Focusing on the symptoms is contrary to TMS treatment. |
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Jeremy
USA
27 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2008 : 18:18:39
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave
If you try to treat symptoms selectively as TMS then you may fall into its traps.
TMS is clever and will sieze any opportunity you give it to convince you that a symptom is "real" and not psychogenic.
Pain, stiffness ... it's all the same as far as TMS is concerned. According to Dr. Sarno it is caused by oxygen deprivation. Even if the exact mechanism is not so simple it doesn't matter.
Focusing on the symptoms is contrary to TMS treatment.
Gotcha. I hear exactly what you're saying and I'm doing my level best to work with this.
Brief clarification, leading perhaps to a better question: I know that the stiffness I'm feeling is psychogenic. I am completely convinced of it (consciously, at least!). It seems solid advice indeed to avoid treating symptoms selectively-- I understand how the TMS would use this to set traps.
My quandary is that the stiffness, however psychogenically based, offers me a physical reality that cannot (it seems) be dealt with in the same manner as the equally psychogenically-based pain. If I want to get into my car and I experience a jolt of pain, I can push through it--I remind myself that what I'm feeling is rooted in my emotional reality and I get in the car without the overly careful, gingerly attempted movement I used to use to mitigate the pain.
If, on the other hand, I want to touch my fingertips to the floor without bending my legs, no amount of "pushing through" will get me there. It cannot be done. I am not seeking to separate symptoms and handle them selectively, I'm just saying one simply cannot "push past" stiffness the way one can "push past" pain.
Here's another thing, and I don't want to rankle anyone, and I only bring this up because I'm genuinely curious, but isn't it true that an ongoing physical condition--however psychogenically it has been induced--can become its own sort of reality? Say your TMS has been so painful for so long, before you even knew what it was, and your back so tight, that you basically didn't move it very much. Wouldn't keeping your back so rigid and immobile for a long time create an actual condition that would be a sort of side effect of the TMS? And that would therefore be resistant to the sort of "melting away" of symptoms that can happen with successful TMS treatment?
I go back to my broken thumb analogy, from a different thread. Once my thumb was healed, it was still very stiff, from having been immobilized for so long. A straightforward regimen of exercises was required to return normal mobility to it.
Maybe this analogy is offbase; I'm definitely eager to be educated on the matter! I'm just trying to get a grip on what's really going on, just like everybody else. Thanks again for everyone's time and responses. |
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 02/06/2008 : 18:52:36
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quote:
I am completely convinced of it (consciously, at least!).
You might want to check out my thread on the difference between consciously knowing and unconsciously 'getting'. I think (based on our other conversations) this may still be an active issue for you.
quote:
Say your TMS has been so painful for so long, before you even knew what it was, and your back so tight, that you basically didn't move it very much. Wouldn't keeping your back so rigid and immobile for a long time create an actual condition that would be a sort of side effect of the TMS? And that would therefore be resistant to the sort of "melting away" of symptoms that can happen with successful TMS treatment?
Most people find that this is not the case, and that it's counterproductive to believe that the body needs this kind of coddling to get back in shape. I certainly found that once the TMS symptoms were gone they were gone, and I had very little residual, the most prominent being that some of the strength of my muscles had lessened so that intense physical effort was harder. This came back within a few weeks/months just by doing normal life stuff.
You can't necessarily push through stiffness, but you can decide to stop caring about it, worrying about it, and monitoring it. I think then one day you will look up and it will be gone.
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It's not 100% belief that's required, but 100% commitment. |
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Dave
USA
1864 Posts |
Posted - 02/07/2008 : 09:22:06
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Regarding pain and stiffness, don't forget that one of the important aspects of treating TMS is to resume physical activity.
Although the symptoms are psychogenic, clearly the human body requires exercise and good nutrition. Our bodies are designed to be used and sedentary lifestyles are all too common.
Resuming physical activity and exercise is important, to convince your mind that there is nothing physically wrong, but also to maintain overall health and well being.
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Jeremy
USA
27 Posts |
Posted - 02/07/2008 : 10:14:12
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave
Regarding pain and stiffness, don't forget that one of the important aspects of treating TMS is to resume physical activity.
Although the symptoms are psychogenic, clearly the human body requires exercise and good nutrition. Our bodies are designed to be used and sedentary lifestyles are all too common.
Resuming physical activity and exercise is important, to convince your mind that there is nothing physically wrong, but also to maintain overall health and well being.
I'm with you completely on this. The one thing I've done resolutely since embarking upon my TMS treatment is exercise. Prior to discovering Dr. Sarno, I was in physical therapy and, as you know, the advice there is to be oh-so-careful and super-duper-gentle and the end result is you feel like an invalid, and a disempowered invalid at that.
Serendipitously, my discovery of Dr. Sarno coincided almost to the day with my MRI, which showed nothing more than some arthritis of the facet joints-- what I have since learned is a perfectly normal degenerative condition for a nearly 50-year-old guy like me.
Which made it very clear to me that I had TMS, at which point I left PT without looking back. Joined a fitness club and am now exercising robustly. The PT folks made it seem that all I could basically do was walk. Now I'm on the elliptical, I'm doing a weight machine circuit, the whole thing. I feel stronger and better already.
For me, of course, the symptoms are hanging around, but I'm doing my best to work through and past them, to not be intimidated by them. I really appreciate the advice regarding the stiffness, because I can see that I was not merely separating it out but in so doing kind of insidiously getting myself back into a physical rather than psychological mode in approaching it. It's still really aggravating to deal with, but I'm using that aggravation to help me experience some long-overdue anger. Life goes on. |
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vikki
95 Posts |
Posted - 02/10/2008 : 06:46:26
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quote:
Originally posted by Jeremy
If, on the other hand, I want to touch my fingertips to the floor without bending my legs, no amount of "pushing through" will get me there. It cannot be done. I am not seeking to separate symptoms and handle them selectively, I'm just saying one simply cannot "push past" stiffness the way one can "push past" pain.
What kind of stiffness are we talking about exactly? I can't touch the floor without bending my legs -- that's probably true for a lot of people. I wouldn't consider this to be abnormal stiffness, just a lack of flexibility. That is, it's only "stiffness" in the sense that not being able to do 20 pushups is weakness. I think flexibility is something you develop through training, just like strength or endurance. |
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Jeremy
USA
27 Posts |
Posted - 02/10/2008 : 17:54:40
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quote:
Originally posted by vikki
quote:
Originally posted by Jeremy
If, on the other hand, I want to touch my fingertips to the floor without bending my legs, no amount of "pushing through" will get me there. It cannot be done. I am not seeking to separate symptoms and handle them selectively, I'm just saying one simply cannot "push past" stiffness the way one can "push past" pain.
What kind of stiffness are we talking about exactly? I can't touch the floor without bending my legs -- that's probably true for a lot of people. I wouldn't consider this to be abnormal stiffness, just a lack of flexibility. That is, it's only "stiffness" in the sense that not being able to do 20 pushups is weakness. I think flexibility is something you develop through training, just like strength or endurance.
It's a kind of stiffness I am definitely not used to. It's a stiffness that feels intrusive, tender, and borderline painful when approached-- unlike, I think, the more "natural" kind of stiffness you speak of. As noted, until the onset of my back/hip pain and associated symptoms, now understood as TMS, I *was* pretty flexible. I'm just talking about 9 or 10 months ago.
And so my original question was exactly about whether I am likely to be able to rid myself of this stiffness by looking at it as making an effort to increase my flexibility, in exactly the way you speak of-- developing it through training-- or whether, because it's clearly a symptom of my TMS, I should *not* be aiming to "improve" the physical symptom because if I continue to do the TMS work, the symptom will ultimately go away on its own; and whether, in fact, by my focusing on the physical symptom, I will be unnecessarily prolonging the TMS.
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vikki
95 Posts |
Posted - 02/11/2008 : 18:45:19
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quote:
Originally posted by Jeremy
And so my original question was exactly about whether I am likely to be able to rid myself of this stiffness by looking at it as making an effort to increase my flexibility, in exactly the way you speak of-- developing it through training-- or whether, because it's clearly a symptom of my TMS, I should *not* be aiming to "improve" the physical symptom because if I continue to do the TMS work, the symptom will ultimately go away on its own; and whether, in fact, by my focusing on the physical symptom, I will be unnecessarily prolonging the TMS.
Hmmm ... If you stopped doing activity for a while because of TMS pain, then it could be that you've lost flexibility. I occcasionally go to yoga class, and there are poses that others seem to do with ease that are uncomfortable and borderline painful for me. I know I've never been very flexible, though, and it sounds like you used to be before. But after thinking about it more, I'm not sure it matters whether it's TMS or physical. I think you could use the same approach in either case -- that is, try to stretch it a bit more every day, and don't spend too much time thinking about it, or even whether it's TMS or not. If it's physical, then you'll build flexibility and the stiffness will go away. If it's TMS, then you are challenging it by doing what feels uncomfortable. (That's basically the way I got rid of TMS -- just try to do a little more of the painful activities each day.) Nothing wrong with continuing to do the psychological work too. Good luck! |
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Jeremy
USA
27 Posts |
Posted - 02/13/2008 : 05:49:02
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quote:
Originally posted by vikki
Hmmm ... If you stopped doing activity for a while because of TMS pain, then it could be that you've lost flexibility. I occcasionally go to yoga class, and there are poses that others seem to do with ease that are uncomfortable and borderline painful for me. I know I've never been very flexible, though, and it sounds like you used to be before. But after thinking about it more, I'm not sure it matters whether it's TMS or physical. I think you could use the same approach in either case -- that is, try to stretch it a bit more every day, and don't spend too much time thinking about it, or even whether it's TMS or not. If it's physical, then you'll build flexibility and the stiffness will go away. If it's TMS, then you are challenging it by doing what feels uncomfortable. (That's basically the way I got rid of TMS -- just try to do a little more of the painful activities each day.) Nothing wrong with continuing to do the psychological work too. Good luck!
Vikki-- Thanks so much for the perspective on the matter. You've articulated what I've suspected and haven't quite been able to put into words as I've been absorbing the TMS material. I like the idea that the stretching itself becomes a way to challenge the TMS by doing what feels uncomfortable-- as well as your idea of trying to do a little more of the painful activities each day. That's more or less what I've been doing without quite realizing. Your input is much appreciated. |
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stiffness v. pain; different approach necessary?
