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dgreen97
122 Posts |
 Posted - 12/04/2011 : 11:55:39
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My first chronic pain condition started in 2005 with foot pain which doctors deemed as plantar fasciitis. I did all of the physical treatments until the only thing left they could recommend was surgery and they seemed clueless on why I wasn't getting better. Still to this day if I walk on my feet for a prolonged period of time the symptoms start coming back. I quit my job that involved standing (I previously had a job standing at Menards which was about 32 hours a week and had no symptoms of foot pain) but then I started a job at Fedex which was only 12 hours a week and then the severe foot pain started. I was doing less work on my feet but getting way worse symptoms it didn't make sense at all. In August of 2008 I finally got out of standing up jobs and began working as a web designer part time about 20 hours per week.
I've been working on computers for around 17 years and I only started getting eye strain problems 3 years ago which became chronic and have had them ever since. I too went through the entire list of physical treatments for this as well (vision therapy, a ton of different glasses prescriptions, home vision therapy, eye exercises, etc) and still have the same symptoms as when I started. The doctors are also kind of baffled as to why I'm having symptoms. The vision therapy doctor I see found a visual space perception problem but said it was mild to moderate. I don't have any eye turns or anything and my pain seems really out of proportion to why my diagnosis was structurally. I'm really thinking this pain is psychosomatically generated. I have a history of dealing with somebody with chronic pain (my dad has had chronic back pain since 1993) so I grew up with somebody who was in pain all the time. I also think this has something to do with my condition.
So I've heard of chronic pain being generated by the mind but have you heard of chronic eye strain being generated by the mind? I started getting pain when I was 18 years old (I'm 24 now) and I think it has to do with stressful events of some kind of some type of psychologically generated problem. There's just no way that doing all of these physical treatments would produce barely any results at all. Any type of pain relief I did get from treatments was very much short lived. I appreciate any feedback you may have.
Thank you
Alex
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Wavy Soul
USA
779 Posts |
Posted - 12/04/2011 : 20:09:08
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I'm dealing with this - in my last few very stressful years I have developed double vision and now dry eyes.
Am interested in anyone's experience about this being TMS.
Love is the answer, whatever the question |
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JulesJ
9 Posts |
Posted - 12/06/2011 : 11:00:44
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I have had all kinds of TMS experiences over the years. Eventually cured them around 2000, but they started coming back 3-4 years, undiagnosed by me until a big back blow up 18 months ago.
The reason I say that is because at the start of this latest cycle I became convinced I was losing my sight. I've always had perfect vision (now into my late 30s) but I decided that all the work I'd done for a start-up I'd now had to leave (12 hour days etc in front of a screen) had ruined my eyes.
I can still remember my doleful trudge to the opticians, and my internal despair at what I thought were tests I was flunking.
The doctor came out and said he had rarely seen such good eyesight in someone my age, that it was near perfect. And of course the problems vanished.
In retrospect I now see the utterly ignored/repressed stress/anger at the end of the start-up (I thought I was immune on the surface) was beginning to manifest itself as TMS. If only I'd caught it then!
Obviously persistent pain in the head in an important thing to check out, but if you've done that multiple times and you have this sort of personality, I can easily imagine it being TMS.
Fred Amir also talks about eye changes in his book (though not pain) and FWIW I once had an eyelid that twitched non-stop for about a week (before the start-up stopped!)
Our bodies are emotional beings, no doubt.
J. |
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dgreen97
122 Posts |
Posted - 04/18/2013 : 14:36:26
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| just wondering if anybody else has experienced this? would love to hear your thoughts on it |
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icelikeaninja
USA
316 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2013 : 06:37:40
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I had this about a year ago. I even posted on here. I went to a regular eye doctor who said I had pink eye, even though it wasn't pink.
He said I had viral pink eye which is harder to treat but still gave me drops. After a day the dry achy feeling went away with the drops but not completely.
After about a month of taking drops my eye still looked normal but I was still in alot of pain.(my only symptom) Went to my gp who looked at my eye and said there is nothing wrong. After a month!
Called Sarno the same week he retired and he concluded it was tms and that alot of things he didn't write in the book are also TMS.
I remember that standing out him saying " There are to many conditions to list but eye pains are one of them"
Pain went away in a week. |
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Ace1
USA
1040 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2013 : 10:26:20
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| I think when the knowledge of a symptom being tms is enough to resolve the symptom, it usually works only when the person has a lot of health anxiety. |
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dgreen97
122 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2013 : 14:06:29
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ice and ace,
do you both believe then tms causes eye strain such as a tightness and pulling sensation in the eyes? my eyestrain gets better when i have feelings of hope, my anxiety is lessened. ace i know youve talked about bates in the past do you think his work is relevant to this as well as sarno's?
i would say i have high amountsof health anxiety and im completely obsesses withthe eye strain symptoms. ice i hope my eyestrain goes away in a week like yours did. ive had it for 4 1/2 years now. |
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gailnyc
USA
80 Posts |
Posted - 04/19/2013 : 14:58:02
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quote:
Originally posted by Ace1
I think when the knowledge of a symptom being tms is enough to resolve the symptom, it usually works only when the person has a lot of health anxiety.
Ace, can you explain this? It seems counter-intuitive. |
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Ace1
USA
1040 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2013 : 07:06:08
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Hi guys,
Yes dr bates' work seems to be very relevant to tms. I always thought that myopia, eye strain were tms and if so, then the cure has to be the same. In my case this is proving to be the case. I still have a ways to go with my vision but I'm much better and I no longer get the eye strain at the end of the day that I used to get. I don't think dr bates really highlights the psychological aspects as much as what may be needed but he does repeatedly mention that mental strain is the basic cause of the visual problems
Gail
Health anxiety means your afraid of really anything being wrong with you. In some people this is the thing that terrifies them. To them this is why they have tms. When they are told this is a benign type of thing it eases their hyped up state and that's enough to stop the symptom. In many on this board however, health anxiety although possibly a major problem, typically is not the major driving factor. In many on this board, their intense personality is the major culprit and even if they get rid of their health anxiety they still remain with symptoms or illness. I hope this makes sense. |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2013 : 07:25:35
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quote:
Originally posted by Ace1
...I don't think dr bates really highlights the psychological aspects as much as what may be needed but he does repeatedly mention that mental strain is the basic cause of the visual problems
The work and books by world renown eye doctor Roberto Kaplan take Dr. Bates's work to the next level and are complementary to TMS theory:
http://www.beyond2020vision.com/ |
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dgreen97
122 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2013 : 08:32:16
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thank you guys for posting this stuff. yes i definitely believe my eye strain is caused by feeling on edge all the time and obviously fear. its interesting Ace that you are having eye strain problems too. have the TMS principles been very helpful in relieving your eye strain symptoms? What really connected me to your story was in your recovery story you mentioned that the number 1 thing that was causing your TMS was the feeling of being rushed.
I look back at myself at work and realize this is something I did/still sometimes do all the time. I felt if I didn't move as fast as I could to get a project done, my boss would make me work overtime to get it done and I would have more eye pain because of it due to having to work more hours. So there is the stress of feeling constantly rushed and then the fear of having to work more hours thus making my eye pain worse.
recently i've been looking at dr bates work, dr weekes work, and anxiety in general and believe its the root cause of my symptoms. its that rushing, that fear of having to work overtime, etc. I wondered why before I started this job 4 years ago I could work on the computer for many hours a day and not have pain but when I started the job all of a sudden I had eyestrain problems. I believe it has to do with the internal stress I place on myself to get the work done quickly, the deadlines that loom over my head and how I react to them, and I never thought that just the feeling of being rushed could produce such symptoms in me.
Ace I read through your recovery story and your tips to success at the bottom and had a few questions if you don't mind. My affirmations are this right now and Im going to be adding your suggestions to them:
#1- I dont have eye strain. I am pain free. I work on the computer every day without eye strain and I can do anything without eye strain.
#2- I don't care what people think of me. The people who matter are not thinking negative thoughts about me.
#3- Fears do not control my life. I am stronger than the things I fear and I overcome them.
How often should I repeat these affirmations each day? Every time I think about my pain that could be a 1000 times a day then. You said 5 minutes for each affirmation just rereading before bed right?
quote:
I still have a ways to go with my vision but I'm much better and I no longer get the eye strain at the end of the day that I used to get.
Are there any specific techniques you're doing right now that relieved the eyestrain that you used to get? This has me pretty excited right now because you have no idea how hard it has been to find people with the same type of symptoms as me.
Right now the things I'm doing are 20 minutes of moderate exercise each day, 20 minutes of relaxation each day doing progressive muscle relaxation, deep breathing, whatever, and then incorporating affirmations.
Thanks Tom for posting that link Im going to check that out now. Anything that can help me relate eyestrain to TMS is helping me.
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dgreen97
122 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2013 : 08:37:13
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| Tom looking on Dr. Kaplan's website do you have any recommendations for what to read? Im seeing a lot of stuff about vision therapy which I already did for 6 months but I don't see the stuff pertaining to emotions and the eyes that would correlate with TMS. |
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Singer_Artist
USA
1516 Posts |
Posted - 04/20/2013 : 10:20:18
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| Wow Tom, Dr. Kaplan is very cool, fascinating!! |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
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icelikeaninja
USA
316 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2013 : 00:34:54
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Well it made sense to me because I didn't have anything pink eye. One day I thought a piece of glass went into my eye from a strong wind. The next week both eyes starting hurting.
I felt a gnawing pain and extreme dryness even though I was tearing for no reason. Had no sticky discharge just alot of watering in the morning.
By the time I spoke to Sarno I was fine. But what interests me is the things he does t list in the book can also be TMS. There are literally tons of things.
I remember the desperation when I thought I would have chronic eye pain forever. |
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Ace1
USA
1040 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2013 : 06:24:59
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Yes ice, I believe everything, but trauma and occasional infections has TMS as its basic cause and dr Sarno agreed with me on this one.
DG, your affirmations are a bit too wordy in my opinion they are hard to repeat like a broken record bc of this. Just use the ones I used, they really helped me with this rush mode I was in. Yes you may be saying it almost all day, just do your best along with the work of trying not to strain. See, it is not rocket science, just takes a lot of determination on your part (without strain). Trying to correct the vision form a negative prescription like yours and mine is harder than correcting other TMS symptom in my opinion bc its like going against the habitual strain that your glasses led to over the years. I never read work by Kaplan, so I personally cannot comment, thanks for the link though Tom as it seems to talk more about the emotional portion. The only problem I face is there are so many books recommended on here that I can't buy and read them all. I may have to consider buying the book when I have time and letting you guys know what I think. The one that seems to deal with emotions is conscious seeing. Dr. bates' work is free online on central-fixation.com under library. The thing that helped me the most with my vision is that I used worsened/blurrier vision as my TMS sign to me to lessen my mental strain. It was obvious that the vision was blurrier when I was in a rush etc, so I tried to stop the bad habit and I did not strain more to try to see better. I also stopped wearing glasses. I cannot recommend stopping glasses for everyone bc I don't want anyone at risk of hurting themselves by not being able to see. Some people start out not wearing them except when driving where they use a slightly weakened pair. I did this at first till I was better. |
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Ace1
USA
1040 Posts |
Posted - 04/21/2013 : 06:27:14
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| Btw, that rush and pressure is definitely the basic cause of your symptoms. You must change tat to really get better. |
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dgreen97
122 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2013 : 10:25:06
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Yeah I'm having that problem too so many books its too hard to keep up with all of them. I never wore any glasses before I started getting eyestrain and I worked on computers a lot. When I first began getting the eyestrain I went to the optometrist to get checked out and I had slight astigmatism and farsightedness in the my left eye and they blamed the eyestrain on that. I've worn probably 6 different lens prescriptions and none of them did anything.
I changed my affirmations you were right they were a bit wordy. I've definitely calmed myself down from rushing all the time I just consciously tell myself to slow down and not be in a hurry. Is it really as simple as using affirmations, doing deep relaxation each day, exercising, obviously acknowledging the psychological cause, to cure this problem?
You said affirmations were the #1 thing that helped you and that you don't get eyestrain at the end of the day anymore. Did you use these same techniques to get rid of your eyestrain as well?
Another thing I wanted to ask is that some people believe that if you think some of your pain is psychologically caused and some isn't that you're "on the fence" and you'll never heal from TMS. I believe 100% that my pain is caused by TMS and anxiety, you do see other people however who get eyestrain on the computer it just doesn't become chronic like mine is. Mine went from only being on the computer to being 24/7 even when I wake up.
That's a big debate I see going on is that some TMS people say that if you believe that one ounce of your pain is caused by physical causes you're screwed. Could TMS be amplifying normal use of the eyes on the computer to an extent of 24/7 eyestrain or does it have to be 100% psychological and no physical component whatsoever.
For instance my wife says she gets eyestrain on the computer if shes been on there for hours but the key thing is... IT GOES AWAY! What a concept. I went for 7 days with barely using the computer around Christmas time and my pain was just as bad as if I had worked a full 40 hour workweek.
So I have definitely slowed myself down at work before I was constantly rushing to get things done in fear of having to work overtime. I've slimmed that fear down considerably. |
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Ace1
USA
1040 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2013 : 15:28:03
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| Yes what is listed in my keys to healing is what it took to resolve my my problems and help my eyesight, and but also i stopped wearing glasses for the most part and gave it the time it needs. You had symptoms even when you weren't busy because your strained habit of rushing wasn't gone, also there is an aspect of conditioning. Once agin all listed in my keys to healing. Even after changing habits, it takes a while for your body to respond to the new behavior. Straining any body part to have it try and work beyond its capability in addition to the mental strain is a recipe for disaster. To think you cannot help yourself with the TMS method in some aspect may impede your progress. |
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dgreen97
122 Posts |
Posted - 04/23/2013 : 08:29:28
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ace I printed out your keys to healing thank you for this. God its hard in the beginning when you're making these changes not to have anxiety and calendar watching. I know it sounds ridiculous but I've been consistently working out every day for the last week, doing relaxation each day for the past couple weeks, started doing affirmations each day about a week ago, and my anxiety levels increase when things aren't seeming to get better. I know this that it takes time for the body to change its very hard in the beginning to not get worried however. Its that thought "Im doing the right things but I'm not getting better, what's going on?"
Again I believe anxiety and fear, TMS equivalents, are the other root causes to my problem besides the feeling rushed all the time (like you). I never thought that feeling rushed and pushing myself to go faster could cause symptoms like this. How long did it take for your symptoms to start calming down and for you to start reversing TMS?
Another thing I realized when I was on vacation was that I could not for the life of me stop thinking about my symptoms. I remember when I was at a waterpark for 3 days and the only thing I could think of the whole time was "Ok I'm on vacation, i need to relax and use this time the best I can to get rest and not be in pain before I go back to work." I was on the lake doing kayaking and instead of viewing all of the scenery and enjoying myself I was thinking "My eyes hurt, my eyes hurt" this thought just kept repeating through my mind. It's not wonder that my eyes hurt the entire time I was on vacation. The fact that I have OCD doesn't help either. Combine the OCD with anxiety and I begin to worry that my eyes hurt, then I obsess about it creating a cycle. I'm going to be seeing a new psychotherapist next Tuesday I really hope she believes in mind body syndrome and the fact that anxiety can generate pain in the body. You would be surprised at how many psychotherapists say they believe this but when you start talking about mind body disorder they kind of shrug it off. |
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tennis tom
USA
4749 Posts |
Posted - 04/23/2013 : 10:44:50
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quote:
Originally posted by dgreen97
Yeah I'm having that problem too so many books its too hard to keep up with all of them.
It's interesting to me, that the two books that would address your vision problem directly, by Dr. Roberto Kaplan, in a Sarno MINDBODY fashion, are now a "problem" to get to. The gremlin does work in mysterious ways.
G'luck
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Chronic pain in eyes and feet generated by TMS?
