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Back2-It
USA
438 Posts |
 Posted - 08/30/2011 : 10:17:57
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thanks guys. :)
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And you're right about my anxiety. It is out of control right now. I'm not sure exactly how to get it under control and regain trust in my doctors.
Trust but verify. Nothing wrong with that. I had a neurologist and then and MRI confirm that I had a thoracic disc protrusion and that was what was causing my abdominal pain. Not an ounce of thought went into the neurologist's mind that the scar from my surgery lined up with the same nerve as the disc --BUT ON THE WRONG SIDE from the disc protrusion. I spent 1.5 years thinking I had a one in a million back problem. I got promptly worse. I am now running and lifting weights and riding my bike.
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They really aren't all bad... and some of them are even trying to help me. When they don't know what's going on, though, I'm very reluctant to let them experiment with things.
Don't let them do any harm. Keep that in mind. Sometimes it helps, even if you think you might have a structural problem, is to get the anxiety under control. Once that is done you can see what, if anything, is still bothering you.
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The problem I'm facing now is that even the ones that DO know what's going on, I am finding myself not trusting them, either. And that's sort of a hurdle that I need to get over. I don't exactly know how to, but maybe I'll figure it out.
Take a break from them. Read and re-read the Sarno books, but also work on the anxiety. I was uber-anxious when I first started, and I read the words but didn't comprehend. Anxiety won't let you.
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I think a big part of my problem is that I read about TMJ on the internet. I read about it and I see how hopeless everyone with the condition is. Instead of reading success stories, I see the stories where the person has had TMJ for 20 years and has just gotten worse and worse. And my mind focuses on that.
Google a thoracic disc protrusion...I have had doctors literally gasp when I tell them that is what the MRI says, though up to 40% of the population has asymptomatic thoracic disc protrusions. They don't tell you that and THEY DON'T READ THE MRI TRANSCRIPTS CAREFULLY, BUT, LIKE WE ALL, DO, JUST ASSUME THAT THE PAIN IS RELATED TO THE DISC. My new PCP, and DO, automatically assumed I was done for and said that if I could stand the pain, don't have the operation -- too dangerous. I asked him to read the transcript again and then consider my symptoms. He did, and retracted his first thought. Quite a thing for an OD, a structural guy.
Point is... Just as people who have had TMJ and gotten over it don't come back to the internet and broadcast it. I'm sure there are success cases with TMJ right here in the forum, for instance. Or on the Wiki.
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I used to think I had cancer when I had the "throat thing" back in college. But cancer would have killed me. While I'm still afraid of that, I'm now more afraid of illnesses that will not kill me, but instead handicap me so I cannot continue my work. And when I get under a lot of stress, my body says "okay, you want an illness that will stop you from doing your work, here it is!"...
There's a line in a song that says "That what you fear the most, will meet you halfway". I think that's what TMS is all about.
That's the worst part about all of this. Rationally I realize all of these things. It's making my emotional side BELIEVE what my rational side is telling it that is the challenge.
Exactly, we must change the way we think, and it's not easy. I'm not there yet, though I did "cure" my back problem. I am making one last trip to an allopathic doc to get a best guess about a suture in a nerve, then that's it. I would have done it long ago after the surgery if I hadn't been told I had the worse back problem a person could have.
"Bridges Freeze Before Roads" |
Edited by - Back2-It on 08/30/2011 10:35:38 |
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theghost
30 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2011 : 10:35:10
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Originally posted by tennis tom
Ghost, how far are you from the two TMS practitioners listed in PA? One's in Lancaster and the other's in Mt. Pleasant. You can easily calculate this by googling "Distances between Cities".
The mount pleasant one is really far, that's out by harriburg, so it's probably like 6 hours.
the lancaster one is ... crap, I just closed the window that said how far it was... like 179 miles.
It's not to far for me to go to once, it is a bit too far for me to keep going back. |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2011 : 11:10:42
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I strongly feel seeing a TMS doctor for a DX is one of the most valuable things one can do separate the wheat from the chaff, as it were, to better know what is TMS and what is structural. This would be for a consult and not for long term. I've driven from SF to LA and from SF to Santa Cruz on a regular basis to see TMS docs. I would drive 3000 miles across the USA to see Dr. Sarno if he accepted patients outside the Tri-States area. Given how destructive your health issues have become, I think it would be well worth it to be DX'ed by hook or by crook.
Just my two cents.
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DR. SARNO'S 12 DAILY REMINDERS:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0dKBFwGR0g
TAKE THE HOLMES-RAHE STRESS TEST
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmes_and_Rahe_stress_scale
Some of my favorite excerpts from _THE DIVIDED MIND_ :
http://www.tmshelp.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2605
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"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Jiddu Krishnamurti
"Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional." Author Unknown
"Happy People Are Happy Putters." Frank Nobilo, Golf Analyst
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Edited by - tennis tom on 09/12/2011 08:43:52 |
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theghost
30 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2011 : 15:43:40
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When I get a little money and a little time, I think I might call that guy in lancaster. I won't be able to go until sometime in october, things are pretty insane around here right now. But I might go if I haven't seen any sort of improvement from the self help stuff i'm doing right now.
We should see how much the ones who we loved despised us, and how little the ones who loved us understood us. |
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art
1903 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2011 : 18:57:25
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Re TT,
I"m at the point now where my default assumption on just about everything that can be classified "over-use" is TMS. This has been a very long process for me as I keep having to readjust my understanding of how powerful TMS can be. For some reason, back issues seemed easy for me. After that, I fought myself at every turn...
For the chronic worriers and hypochondriacs among us, eventually the issue needs to be not whether the current symptom is real or not, but the repeating dynamics that surround all symptoms. Until we get to the place where we can say regarding XYZ symptom: "TMS or not, I'm going to keep my balance. I'm not going to to drown in fear and panic over it. It's my negative emotions that keep these symptoms coming."
True recovery begins with that recognition followed by a commitment to change..
It's a battle, but it can be done. |
Edited by - art on 08/31/2011 08:58:07 |
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Back2-It
USA
438 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2011 : 05:52:04
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Art...
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"TMS or not, I'm going to keep my balance. I'm not going to to drown in fear and panic over it. It's my negative emotions that keep these symptoms coming."
Very true, Art. I went structural, got a dx, and it is, at best, inconclusive: neuralga or nerve damage. Damaged how? By what? How can a nerve be damaged and still functioning? Why would there still be feeling? Why no pain while sleeping,etc. Sounds like, no matter what, I have more control over this than I ever would have thought.
"Bridges Freeze Before Roads" |
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art
1903 Posts |
Posted - 08/31/2011 : 09:06:39
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Hey Back, That's right. It's a process of gradually waking up. It usually can't be done in a day, week, or month. Which is understandable. There's very little in our experience that we can draw on at first. If we have pain, every instinct we have is screaming out that we're physically hurt and that we must attend to it on that basis.
I've been at this 5 years, and I'm still waking up. I just had a hamstring episode that I had a very, very hard time believing was not real...I went out and ran with it because thats' what I would have suggested to someone else given all the surrounding details. I continue to be in awe at what from a certain point of view look like small miracles of healing. |
Edited by - art on 08/31/2011 09:08:25 |
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luckyblindshot
USA
6 Posts |
Posted - 09/05/2011 : 22:04:57
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| I'm new here as well so I don't feel like I can offer good advice, but I can offer a great deal of sympathy. I'm presently struggling with really bad mid back pain and am also an artist (working on a comic, in fact) and it really takes it out of me when I want to draw. Every time I think of doing a project my mind goes to how bad it might hurt to sit down and do it. However, when I sit down and work on my projects I get caught up in the worlds I'm dreaming up and forget about the pain. So I guess what I'd suggest to you is to work on something you've had on your mind (if you're like me, there's got to be countless unrealized images and stories waiting to be put onto paper) and try not to focus on the pain and the things that might be causing it. The pain is there, so you might as well use it as motivation to do things to forget it about it. |
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theghost
30 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2011 : 06:39:31
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I am so sorry I am just replying to this now. I was evacuated from my house for the last week due to flooding. Not exactly the best thing for TMS, eh? My muscles are so tight now, but for some reason I don't feel as bad as I have. I think I'm starting to heal. :) I have a bit of negative energy going on, but I didn't lose my house, I didn't even get a drop of water in my basement (somehow!) so I'm just thanking God for that. I'm looking at this as something positive to motivate me to get better. :)
@luckyblindshot ... thank you, sincerely. It's nice to know that I'm not the only comic artist who is like this. I was out of my house because of this flood, and it's funny, because my pains didn't bother me when I was drawing when I was out of my house.... I think my house and where it is located (smack dab in a flood zone!) might be a partial cause of my stress/problem.
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Edited by - theghost on 09/12/2011 13:13:51 |
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I think I need some help. I'm new here
