If you are having some doubts about the TMS diagnosis...

Uhhhhhh. Okay. How do you separate "real" from TMS pain?

I see a PT I greatly respect - she's a yoga teacher who sees our bodies as one unified system, not as bits and pieces separated from other bits and pieces.

I excitedly discussed with her the discovery of Dr. Sarno - who she immediately recognized as, in her words, "the father of mind/body work." I told her how my low back pain stopped almost immediately upon processing and identifying its source. We talked more, and then she cautioned that I shouldn't let anyone tell me that I don't have legitimate pain from the structural misalignments I experience, mostly in my neck and shoulders.

She said something I processed as, "This isn't caused by your mind; it's caused by the reality of your physical situation." And that reminded me of a legal theory which is too complicated to recount, but bolstered the validity of what she was saying (of course - because it's LEGAL, not subjective).

So I'm trying to parse and process her statement in conjunction with TMS.

We could say that, yes, I have actual structural abnormalities from a C5-6-7 fusion, but that it is the tension caused by 50 years of unexpressed rage, hurt, disappointment, fear, anxiety, etc., which is causing the muscle spasms which pull my carriage out of whack?

I totally accept the TMS concept, mostly because it worked, but I guess I can't buy that EVERY pain which isn't caused by a broken bone or a torn ligament or some other tissue damage, can be explained away so easily.

Good God. I'm so overwhelmed by all of this. I keep remembering more and more things, and I'm beginning to wonder if I can do this on my own. I just want to cry.

 

Take your time, you've had evidence it works
Now let it sink into your subconscious over time through habit
You will stay with the program and soon you will have a shift in
your mind from wanting to believe to believing.

So lighten up you just got started a long way to go

Maybe you love your Yoga teacher but that doesn't mean she's right about every thought she has ya know
You will have lots of folks to doubt what your doing. That's the tms mind trickery to make you doubt its psychological

If it does that then you have longer to heal, you can and will eventually believe because your already putting emotions to pain
You need write that in a journal Cherylie like an evidence sheet in the Tms recovery program

Be patient with yourself and others, your yoga teacher means you no harm
cause she believes differently, she still believes structurally that's all, it seems most all America does ya know

So you have to look here and wonder are these guys for real,
We have the cure- your pain is caused by uncontrolled emotions
A lacking of happiness and a feeling of tension wrapped into 1
We release this pain by knowing its wiles, its trickery.

Its ultimate trick is to keep you focused on the body
so make sure your ready to smile cause you found the truth.
Its your decision to believe the truth, whatever that might be
I believe the truth is exactly as the DR. Said, its emotionally oriented and to get to the cure
I have to learn its trickery then I will heal after I believe 100%

It takes time to heal the whole mindbody, you rid a pain a few days ago - now you know how it works
keep working it ok and smile- be happy at life for this is the same side of the coin, your coming back to wholeness now.

 

A thought occurs to me that goes beyond the various ways we diagnose our pain and gets to a more fundamental question: What is the nature of reality, and specifically, what is the true relationship of matter and mind? (Or body and spirit if you prefer.) You may have to dive into this question head first to find a definitive answer to your question.

There are actually three viewpoints that compete for our attention.

1. Matter and physical forces are the foundation of reality, and mind or consciousness is simply a happy by-product of those forces. In short, matter creates mind in something called the brain. This is the prevailing view of modern medical science and biology. But it has some problems. For example, if matter creates mind, how can mind turn around and manipulate matter? Wouldn't that be like the clay manipulating the potter?
   
   
2. Matter and mind (or body and spirit) are two separate, dissimilar realms that somehow manage to interact in a coherent fashion. This is known as the "Cartesian Split" having been first postulated by DeCartes some 500 years ago. Decartes argued that matter and mind cannot be understood as a whole. One was the realm of science, while the other was the realm of theology, and the two disciplines have used that as an excuse to avoid any meaningful contact ever since! It is probably the most widely held belief among the general population, and it appears to be your yoga instructor's viewpoint. But it, too, has problems. For example, how can energy be transferred between these two realms to do even the simplest of tasks, like deciding to move your arm, if matter and mind have nothing in common?
   
   
3. Consciousness is the basis of reality, and matter is a product (or as some might say, a projection) of mind. This is the basic assumption of metaphysics, and it is the view I prefer. A small but growing number of physicists are also starting to think this might be the way things really are (see http://www.amitgoswami.org/ for example). If so, then TMS theory indicating that mind processes are behind the pain is quite reasonable. If anything, this view suggests that TMS theory doesn't take it far enough because TMS assumes reality is more like #2 above. This view, however, avoids the problems of 1 and 2 above, and can also account for such "unexplainable" phenomena like premonitions, near death experiences, spiritual healing, and the like. Most people, however, are reluctant to adopt this viewpoint because it completely reverses our perceptions of reality, just as Copernicus reversed our perceptions of the solar system (and people didn't believe him, either).

My apologies if this seems overwhelming. But your concept of reality will have a profound influence on your ability to find an answer to your question.

 

Cherylie, It sounds like your PT is familiar with Sarno's work but she lacks a deep understanding of it. I'm re-reading the book right now and I still get surprised at reading how many folks are without any symptoms despite structural evidence. And then there's the flip flop...there's no evidence OR the "evidence" doesn't account for the source of pain.

I first read Dr. Sarno's Healing Back Pain several years ago but I remember I dismissed it early on because of my "structural" issues. (I was in a serious car accident years ago and sustained fracture vertebrae among other serious injuries.) That has been the basis of YEARS of PT and about every other pain intervention to no avail. I no longer accept that script!

The latest "manifestation" I've had recently is a nodule over my achilles. A few years ago, it was HUGE and horribly painful. I realize now that yes, that too, was TMS. My approach now when it starts to look more swollen, I rub it a little and tell myself that my tendon is fine....my body is strong, etc.... Overall, this approach is working and I have been increasing my mileage walking, something I thought I would never ever be able to do again.

So all this to say...take a deep breath. Pace yourself. You don't have to have all the answers right now. And there's lots of great folks here to help and encourage.

Hang in there!

 

Those "actual structural abnormalities from a C5-6-7 fusion" provide an ideal site from your psyche to locate TMS pain because that seems eminently logical and probable, and conforms to our mechanistic assumptions about how the body works. That's the borderland where mindbody symptoms have operated since long before Freud's day. Also keeps you obsessing about and focusing on your symptoms. For example, my left heel sometimes hurts in the shower in the morning, the same heel I shattered in 1989. Now, that heel of mine healed 20 years ago, so there's no real physical reason it should hurt at all. But it does. Why? I'm really recalling memories of my pain way back then that are still stored in my brain, probably in the hypothalamus region where emotions and memories reside. I don't know how it happens, of course, but I've become programmed to feel pain in that old injury site and something I'm doing during my morning routine is triggering the old pain memories. In any case, my heel is not hurting because it's been re-injured. Neither is your C5-6-7 fusion. How could it? That's yesterday's papers.

It may give you some consolation to learn, Cherilie, that many TMSer going through the recovery program have had the same doubts you have expressed about the psychological diagnosis. It seems like people begin to accept the argument that repressed emotions are the reason behind TMS pain and then go through a period of doubt where they try and hedge their bet by putting half their chips on the structural diagnosis and half their chips on Dr. Sarno. You'll discover soon enough that the only way to really lick TMS is to accept the psychological diagnosis completely, otherwise doubts like you're having will continue to undermine your recovery. Of course, I'm assuming that you must have been check out by a physician to determine there aren't any real tissue issues behind your pain. The medical doctors sure must have given you a thorough going over at the time of that C5-6-7 fusion I would assume?

BruceMC