Hip Pain Update

There have been a lot of ups and downs since I started the TMS education. When I can convince myself that the real diagnosis is TMS I do feel much better for awhile. But when I talk to my doctor or a friend (especially those in the medical profession) I can lose ground rapidly and fall into believing the MRI and Xray diagnosis. Then I do feel worse and feel depression along with the pain. I wish I could just trust my experience alone and not need validation. There are no TMS trained doctors in my state. I may try a doctor who uses skype just to help me stop doubting. I also struggle with feeling like a nut case when I try to talk to friends about this. For now I've stopped trying because it seems to set me back. Most think I'm nuts for not wanting to have both of my hips replaced. It can feel lonely processing all this stuff in a world that doesn't get it.

I'm in the middle of doing the Presence Process. It has been very helpful for getting in touch with my feelings. I realized when I journaled that I was writing about feelings without feeling them. Also been doing things to calm my nervous system- tai chi chih, acupuncture - not for the pain but for stress and calming my nervous system.

The hardest part of the hip pain is that I can't walk for pleasure or stress relief. All my life walking was how I de-stressed and processed things. I'm trying to find other ways but I so miss walking. I've been able to resume most activities, I can bike, do various exercises and garden, I can walk around at work, home and my yard. But most of the time when I try to go for a walk after a few minutes every step hurts and something in my hips locks up. I feel like I've forgotten how to walk normally but I know that's not possible.

But I am hopeful and I'm learning to be patient with this process.

 

Hi Jane2. I really empathize with your struggle. I too am dealing with hip pain that keeps me from walking - which, like you, I used for stress relief. In my case I have an x-ray showing severe osteoarthritis in my hip. The thought of hip replacement totally freaks me out so I am desperate to deal with the pain Sarno's way. I do recall a story in The Divided Mind (I think it was a section written by Dr. Sopher) where he was treating a man with serious hip pain due to OA and Dr. Sopher had him get his "good" hip x-rayed, only to find that both hips were equally damaged, even thought the patient felt pain only in the one hip. That has given me hope - and I read and re-read it! However, I am still in great pain after 6 months of following the TMS techniques.

If you find something that works for you would you please share? Thanks!

 

I'm a hippy too. I can walk with no problem. My imaging shows arthritis. I was told by two Sarno trained MD's that it wasn't TMS and to get a THR sooner then later--that was over 15 years ago. Try walking through it, when I first started walking through it, it would take 20 minutes to break through the pain barrier, now I'm good out of the box and lost my fear of doing "damage"--I don't believe everything docs say--even TMS docs--I've played tennis with too many docs to believe all their calls.

Just Do It!
tt/lsmft

 

Thanks Tennis Tom - your words are very encouraging! I do go to the gym regularly and do the stair climber or elliptical - some days the pain eases a bit, some days not so much. The thought of a THR horrifies me so I'm continuing to stay the TMS course - luckily my nurse practitioner is open, although she believes I will need surgery to rectify the pain. Love your last line about docs and their calls!!

 

I agree with Tennis Tom about even TMS docs having debate about what is TMS pain and what isn't...I think you can question everything! Lots of people are walking around out there with arthritis in various joints and don't know it. Severity of pain isn't necessarily correlated with imaging for anything! I really believe that and have seen it many times with patients. It's an ongoing question for many TMS docs and the answers aren't always clear.

 

Thank you all - you've given me hope when I desperately needed it.

 

Tennis Tom,
Thanks for sharing your story.

I too have a hip issue, little or no cartilage, etc., which appeared about 10 years ago after walking on my treadmill. It has been debilitating at times where I have had to use a stick to walk. I got through that year and was walking ok, but since late last year I have been in much pain, including sciatica, knee and some shoulder pains. I re-read HBP and both of SteveO's books and a few others, and have been applying the TMS principles, for the last four months. The last few years have been tumultuous for me emotionally and I got the why of the pain. After the first month of applying the TMS protocols as outlined by Sarno, my sciatica just disappeared, overnight. Yeah! My knee pain comes and goes, but the pain is mostly at bay. When it appears I just do self talk with my brain, and it wanes. My hip pain has mostly been present, but the degree of pain varies. I have had a few incidences of no pain, that were short-lived, but nevertheless encouraging.

It is good to hear your story. I appreciate the comments about the docs and that even TMS trained docs fall back to the surgery option in light of seeing an MRI, X-ray, etc. I did know one woman who was advised at age 75 or so to have a hip replacement. She said NO WAY, and lived another 30 years, to 104. This was in the earlier days of hip replacement procedures. She just negated what the docs said and got on with her life! You and she are my role models!

Lainey

 

Thank you Lainey! Although all one hears about THR's is how great they are, I think they are over-kill to replace a little bit of worn cartilage--if that is really the problem and not TMS. If the issue is structural, and not TMS, then I think in the near future, with the advances in arthroscopic surgery--and, the scientific light shed on the hip joint due to the law suits, as seen on TV, there will be breakthroughs--I don't mind undergoing a root canal every so often, but an amputation of my femur and acetabulum is going a bit too far.

The medical profession is very slow to adapt new procedures and be creative due to fear of going outside the box and having their asses sued--and I don't blame them. The best example is TMS and Dr. Sarno, his method would help 80% of chronic pain sufferers yet he is majorly ignored due to docs practicing defensive medicine in fear of being sued.

I will comment more later but have to go off to my tennis practice and hobble around with the youngins.

Cheers,
tt

 

It was so good to see all these responses. I am still struggling with my hips. Turns out I have a tear in my hip that gets caught and is really painful when that happens. But when it comes unstuck I do fairly well. I think I fall between structure and TMS so I am addressing both. I started working with a physical therapist because I want to be active but I have set myself back by trying to work through the pain. The PT is helping and I'm walking better and getting stronger. I really do not want THR. It's good to hear that people can live well without THR.

How are you doing Sprocket?

 

I'm with you, whatever works, as the naysayers say, "not everything is TMS"--BTW, I've never heard anyone say "every thing is TMS"--though a hell of a lot IS. I've been getting some google alerts recently for a new medical breakthrough for artificial cartilage made of the material that contact lens are made up called Cartiva. It sounds promising if it is a real structural issue, it's being used for big toes, can't lose too many patients starting there I guess :

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171113005085/en/Cartiva-Receives-Promising-New-Product-Award-24th (Cartiva Receives Most Promising New Product Award at 24th Annual Phoenix Conference)

 

Jane, Tennis Tom, Sprocket,

I do so appreciate reading and then again re-reading the entries above.

My current pain level is high and I too am unable to walk, using a stick for some support and stability. Yet, I have noticed other pains, seemingly popping up out of nowhere and for no particular reason. Knees, calves, sciatica (but not as severe as last winter), and now shoulders and neck. "Good grief. " These random pains stay around for a while (weeks or months) and then will dissipate, for no apparent reason, but, the hip pain has been constant (yet has changed in that it only hurts when I am walking). Somehow my hip pain is the constant, most present, obviously the body part of choice that my brain uses for TMS reminders.

Decided to return to pool walking, and pool exercises. This at least gives me some much needed muscle workouts. Walking in the water also gives me a sense of movement that I crave. Today met a woman at the pool who was not walking at all in June, but is doing fine now. She said she gave up on the docs and PT and decided it was all in her head, in spite of some very real body injuries and surgeries, that had left her unable to walk! I said it sounds like something I call TMS. She had not heard of this, but went on to say "it is in my mind, and I am capable of changing what my mind is doing!" I was delighted to hear the rest of her story.

So, because of her and because of all of these good people who visit this site and have life changing healing occur, I too, have not given up hope.

Thanks for listening.

Lainey

 

I run in the pool's deep end using a flotation belt almost everyday for thirty minutes and it doesn't hurt.
I listen to a waterproof FM radio and the time goes by real fast. I follow up with some backstroke to stretch it out. You got lucky meeting the woman today who figured it out on her own--a case of parallel development to Dr. Sarno.

 

My hip pain began receding as I moved closer and closer to selling my late parents' house on the San Francisco Peninsula (where I had been residing for the past 20 years, ever since my father died and I started taking care of my mother for 5 years till she passed too). Gradually got easier and easier to walk from my car in the parking lot and into the gym each night. Only now, since I sold the house and moved up here to Sonora in the Sierra foothills, I've been experiencing huge gaps in the hip pain. Funny thing though is I don't notice the pain going away so much as experiencing pain-free motion as I walk up and down stairs in the new gym up here. You can tell the pain is something learned because its disappearance is like a form of forgetting, something not so much physical as cerebral. A demonstration of what Alan Gordon has to say about programmed pain pathways. Taking care of my parents' house must have been a terrible emotional burden for me because I had to continually support the legacy of my conflicted but dependent relationship with them during childhood, adolescence and long afterwards, the tremendous pressure they placed on me to be good, perfect and constantly overachieving. Too much to bear! Odd though that I'm still nostalgic for the old home situation even though it was so self-defeating if productive.

 

Interesting how we become addicted to self-destructive situations and relationships, isn't it? I guess we're always nostalgic about the dependency on our parents that existed in childhood before we knew any better? Reminds me of some of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience. You don't understand what Blake was talking about till you've been through the mill.

 

Hello folks on this thread. Thank you for posting in the past. Are any of you still seeing this? I can relate to a lot of what is being discussed here regarding hip pain and maybe having both structural and mind-body components. I am starting the mind-body work as I await an MRI and ortho follow up in upcoming weeks. I'm having a hard time forgiving myself for not acting on this sooner and am worried that I missed the window to repair what might be a labral tear, now starting to feel like arthritis pan. I guess I'll have more answers soon from a western med standpoint. I'm not excited to navigate this. Personally, I hope it is TMS all the way, because I feel like I am up for that challenge of dealing with suppressed anger, which I know is there. Let me know if anyone is reading this who is also dealign with hip stuff, especially isolated hip stuff without back. My back is okay, knock on wood. Sending positive vibes to you all. I think hope is important.