Could this be TMS myofascial pain syndrome?

Hello everybody!

I will tell my story in hopes that others who have more knowledge and experience can hopefully help out!

It began a little over a year ago. In may 2019, I went on my first 10 day meditation retreat and had life changing insight that turned my life around. From that point on I got really into meditation and was sitting a lot and was the happiest I had ever been. Then in about October 2019, I started to experience a sort of existential crisis. This insight I previously had took a shift into a realization of the meaninglessness of everything in the world and I went through a six month period which is called in the meditative world (The dark night of the soul). Basically, all I wanted to do at this point was go to a monastery and live as a monk and meditate. Needless to say I quit my job and went on a 1 month retreat in March. However, because of Covid it only went 2 weeks and they sent us home. At this point, I figured I have a lot of time and I'll wait out this virus (So I thought lol). So I continued practiced intensively at home, sitting anywhere from 5-7 hours a day. I was also really pushing my sits practicing what is called "strong determination sitting", where I would sit for 2 hours without moving and putting up with the pain. I did a lot of these. By May 2020, I started to feel pain in my right pectoralis major with a tender lump but ignored it. It wasn't so bad. I continued practicing a lot and kept forcing sits through the summer. Then in July 2020, I went on another 10 day retreat that opened up for registration. This is when things got BAD. About half way into the retreat the pain in the right pec got so bad. Unbelievably painful, as if something was going to burst out of my chest. I thought I was going to have to leave the retreat but ended up finishing it. At this point I knew something was wrong. In September 2020, I went to the doctor and got X-rays and Ultrasounds but they showed nothing. Everything looked fine, except for the hard marble under my skin and constant nagging pain. I then learned about trigger points and realized that this was a muscle knot that had developed. I have seen every doctor under the sun. I got acupuncture, massage, dry needling, trigger point injections, I have been seeing a physical therapist, cupping. Nothing has done anything except add temporary relief. I have consistently had these large muscle knots under the skin on the right side of my chest. This is the only place where I have deep, aching, nagging, shooting pain on my body and I can physically feel these marbles in there. I have been left hopeless reading so many cases of people saying what I believe this to be Myofascial pain syndrome, to have no cure and people just suffer through it. Originally I thought it was my breathing that caused it. All of this meditation focusing on the breath, perhaps I was overworking certain muscles, especially because it got so much worse at a meditation retreat, so I thought for sure it was connected to something with meditation. I soon rejected that as it didn't seem to hold true. Then I figured it must be the posture that did it. I heard slouching causes the chest muscles to tighten, so I have stopped sitting meditation and now meditate lying down in fear that my posture is the cause. I have been doing this for some but not much has changed. I have felt defeated and upset and then today I ran across Dr. Sarno and this TMS community. After reading a little bit about it and reflecting on my experience to how it developed; I am wondering if this is the cause.

I ask anyone on this forum who took the time to read my story, if this sounds like it could be the reason for this myofascial pain syndrome that has developed? Is it consistent with what TMS says? Thank you so much!!

 

Everything you describe is TMS...conditioned response to triggers (certain movements or activities), onset of pain linked to an emotional event (dark night of the soul), the fact that doctors see nothing catastrophic going on physically. The latent undercurrent of your post is that there's a history of anxiety (and possibly trauma). I'm assuming that the spiritual/meditative quest you embarked on was spurred on by emotional reasons (existential crisis) to begin with. There's nothing wrong with meditation and it's a great mindfulness practice, but when taken to the extreme that you describe, (even considering joining a monastery and becoming a monk), I have to question whether there is something you are avoiding?? Your life? Your self? What is the REAL issue underneath all of this? If you are spending most of your waking hours in a blissed out meditative trance, what time is left over for interpersonal connection and other activities?? Some people choose the contemplative/spiritual life (monks and cloistered nuns for example) because they feel the call and usually they are praying for others and working in a community. Is that your true path or simply a distraction from life? The pain is learned pain, and serves as a distraction of the brain that is trying to "protect" you from threatening emotions.

 

Hi thank you for your response!

Yes, I do have a call for the contemplative life. The quest was spurred by insight into the nature of reality. So the motivation is joy and meaning. However, during that dark night period, a meditator is prone to unpleasant phenomena and this caused a sense of exaggerated spiritual urgency. Currently, I have reached a sense of balance and been living a normal lay life with a job, however I still have aspirations to ordain sometime in the future when the time is right. However during that period last year, I was certainly overdoing it and felt an xtreme feeling of repulsion to the societal life. I don't feel that way anymore but I do find the most meaning in the contemplative lifestyle. I think now I'm dealing with the aftermath of that period of forcing and overdoing. What would you suggest for my current moves on this pain?

 

I think there may be some inner conflicts regarding the decision to join that kind of life. It's a huge decision that requires a lot of self inquiry. Usually it entails renouncing worldly things and relationships. There is a great deal of sacrifice involved. My advice would be to not rush and take your time before committing to anything. Figure out the reasons why you want to go in this direction and how it gives you meaning. Only you can decide what is right for you but usually monasteries and convents and other groups have a whole process of "discernment". The fact that you are experiencing physical symptoms is an indicator that there are still unprocessed emotions, as well as fears and doubts. The pain and TMS is merely a symptom. This is an emotional journey and in your case possibly a spiritual one as well. Maybe sitting for 7 hours a day is not you cup of tea and there are religious orders (groups) that are structured differently. If you look at nuns for ex., some are cloistered and mostly pray behind closed gates, whereas others are teachers, nurses, missionaries and baseball coaches or whatever. You'll have to figure out where you belong and that involves being true to yourself.

 

Hi Pectoralis! I had one 10 day retreat back in 2018 and actually just signed up for another in May of this year.

I had an extremely beneficial experience during my first ever “strong determination sit” when they first teach you the scanning technique. I took the meditation and all directions very seriously and sat perfectly still through that first session. It was about 45-50 minutes into that session in which I started getting extremely frustrated. My back was beginning to ache from sitting still. I felt like I was doing something wrong or that I wasn’t ‘good’ enough at meditating. I started to doubt why I was there, started doubting the technique. I remember thinking “I don’t get it! Okay!! Left arm- nothing! Left hand- nothing! Yep! My back still hurts! Still feels like there’s a knife digging into it. I don’t get this! Am I doing this wrong?!” But THEN!!!

I suddenly realized I was doing exactly what Goenka says NOT to do. I was metaphorically running around in my brain like a chicken with its head cut off. Screaming in my brain about the pain in my back. I took note of that and I said. Well hold on. What… even IS pain? What am I even really feeling there, in my lower back? And at that moment my eyes fluttered like they do during rem sleep. I suddenly had piercingly loud ringing in my ears. In my mind’s eye I saw my body explode into a cloud of impossibly fast moving little blue cells or “bubbles”. How I remember it is like those old style TVs with the ‘snowy’ screens. It was like my body became this cloud of atoms or bubbles. They were growing, dividing, and “dying” at an incredible speed. And in that moment I realized there was no longer separation between myself and the meditation hall. There was no separation between anything. I was a cloud within a cloud. I was energy within energy. All of these spiritual concepts I had heard throughout my life suddenly made sense. Countless realizations came pouring in. Everything is energy. My entire… experience was buzzing with elation. It was the most beautiful, most pure orgasmic type feeling. Suddenly— “Aniccaaaaaaaaa”. Goenka’s voice booms over the speakers. Tears began streaming down my face. The chanting brings me back into my body and physical experience. The chanting finishes and people start to file out of the meditation hall. I look around, expecting EVERYONE felt what I just felt. No one looked happy. They looked tired. I was floored. How did they not FEEL that?! No one else had that experience?

All this to say that reading your post made me realize something. You were given this myofascial pain as a vehicle for freeing yourself. It got extremely “loud” for you so that you’d confront it. So that you’d feel into it. Listen to Goenka’s lessons. He mentions that if there is an unpleasant sensation, for you to observe it. That’s the key. Equanimous observation. Having said that, I found this thread because I’m experiencing extremely intense body-wide myofascial pain and numbness in parts of my body. The pain has been so intense and to this point, I haven’t fully accepted it’s TMS or why I’m experiencing it. But I feel like it makes sense now. You have the ability to overcome it. And so do I. That’s why you’re experiencing the pain in this way. You have the tools, so you’ve been given the challenge. You just need to approach the pain during your scans. If I had to guess, you’ve been either skipping over those painful parts of your body or you’ve been spending a brief moment there and telling yourself the story “Yes, pain. Still pain. Still pain there. Ok- Next section.”

The only way out is through.

 

@pectoralismyofascial and
@MidSizeLebowski (cool username, btw): what @miffybunny said here is the key to it all. You guys are pretty focused on your spiritual journeys, but I see absolutely nothing about any emotional introspection into the deeper human conflicts that cause the kind of repressed rage that Dr Sarno explains so well. No one is immune, my friends. You must acknowledge, face, and accept the truths of your emotional pain before you can expect to transcend it.

I don't know about MSL, but pectoralis definitely needs to read at least one book by Dr Sarno in order to get grounded in the theory behind TMS - either Healing Back Pain, or perhaps his last one, The Divided Mind. My library carries all of his books in multiple formats.
I might also recommend The Great Pain Deception, by Steve Ozanich, for a more in-depth examination of the Freudian basis for Sarno's theories, and especially for his personal take on the rage phenomenon.

For the latest neuroscience about pain, emotions, and brain retraining, there's The Way Out by Alan Gordon, but IMO it should only be read AFTER Sarno and/or Ozanich.

Yup. But you gotta take a journey through the emotional sh** first.

 

I’ve read Dr Sarno’s Mindbody Prescription and I’m almost finished with The Way Out. I understand the emotional factor of our pain. But emotions don’t exist in a vacuum and were not at all separate from my experience or any “spiritual” experience. There are several ways and modalities used to address emotions. Some people are attracted more to journaling. Some meditation. Some psychotherapy. I’ve been in therapy for some time now and have been discussing my emotions with a therapist, good and bad.

This was a thread I had a connection with because I had a shared experience with the user. I just wanted to offer my perspective on it.