Beat TMS before but has come back or maybe injury?

Hello,

I am a 24 year old bodybuilder. I was diagnosed with "Degenerative Disc Disease" When I was 19 and for 4 years I was doing all types of physio, had epidural injection and kept being offered surgery etc. I was in complete agony on a daily basis, couldn't sit down for long periods, had to stretch/use roller all the time, waking up through the night in pain etc.

This year I was able to be completely pain free by reading DR Sarno's book "Healing Back Pain" and this lasted for around 6 months. Unfortunately my pain has come back in the exact same way it used to be and I am in agony my back has gone into spasm (left side lower back) I cannot sit still and even walking around is hard. It started last Saturday when I was squatting heavy I felt a really tight/ inflammatory pain in my lower back whilst at the bottom of the movement.

A couple of things that I remember last week that makes me believe this is TMS are:

- Injured my shin bone playing football last Friday (which may of caused some anxiety and TMS snuck back in?)

- I do remember being stressed out last weekend as I had a stressful week and another busy work week ahead of me.

My issue is that I believe I can beat this again but I feel that I need to know FIRST if this is an injury from squatting or TMS? I am struggling to find a TMS physician in the UK at the moment.

Could anyone please give me some advice?

Thank you.

 

Sweetheart, we all have this need for reassurance in the early days. Given that it is impossible to determine what is an injury from what is TMS via the internet, my best advice is to embrace a bit of healing from both camps in the short term.

Favour the RICE protocol for a few days to allow the possibility of injury to pass and simultaneously do whatever form of TMS healing that works for you, be that journaling or whatever. It really is ok to embrace both methods because in doing so you are caring for yourself and self-soothing. This is profoundly healing for the nervous system.

If you are still concerned in a few days, have it checked out by a regular doctor. The only TMS practitioner in the UK I know of is Georgie Oldfield who is based in the Yorkshire area. She has a background in physiotherapy as opposed to medicine but she did meet with Sarno some time before be died so she has some semblance of lineage.

You may like to read some posts by @MindBodyPT and @Baseball65 who in their different ways may gift you with some more insights.

You've beaten this before and you will do again. You just need a boost of faith and confidence and hopefully being here will help you garner that.

Plum x

 

Hi Jason,

Like plum said above, it's impossible to know 100% whether the return of the pain is TMS, though it sounds likely to be. But here's the thing-even if it was a "real" injury like a pulled muscle, this will clear up relatively quickly. Muscle pulls/strains like this one should heal up in a couple weeks tops, the RICE advice is good And even if it is "just" TMS, still go easy if you're in pain! Honor your body, don't worry too much about it and either way you should be feeling ok soon. Any doctor you go, even a TMS one, will tell you to RICE and not worry at this stage.

 

Hi Plum,

Thank you for the reply. I like the idea of embracing healing from both camps for the short term. The only annoying thing is that part of my healing process what to not see myself as "delicate" so last time I would be in pain but continue anyway an it worked. So it feels impossible right now to treat it as TMS when I don't know for sure.

The issue with seeing a regular doctor is that they will send me for a scan and the scan will again say like before I have degenerative discs so just an awkward place to be at the moment.

Will take your advice for the short term though thanks again.

 

Hi MindBodyPT,

Thanks for the reply, yes hopefully it will clear up quick, I just wish there was a way to be more certain what has actually happened.

Thanks

 

Gotcha. This sounds like the typical medical catch-22 but you can bypass it without being reckless. Be mindful, look after yourself (which is very different to viewing yourself as delicate), and focus on the more relaxing aspects of TMS healing. Sometimes we are served by being gung-ho, sometimes by being more zen.

Give things a few days while doing your best not to over-analyse every sensation and then touch base here. An injury will have calmed somewhat by then and you should be clearer what you are dealing with.

I'd also add that TMS tends to get craftier the more familiar we become with it and this is partly why a more watchful approach can help to weed it out.

 

It's hard to be certain...work on letting go of this fear, that is part of TMS healing. If you were squatting in the way you normally do with no real mechanism of injury it is likely to be TMS. I used to have this same thing happen to be before I knew about TMS, my back would "go out" while i was working out occasionally. Looking back, there were only 1-2 instances I believe I truly pulled a muscle, the first time the pain occurred in my back where I did a more extreme movement that would truly have caused the spasm. All the times after that I believe it was just TMS bringing back old injury pain.