SI joint dysfunction, ligament laxity, TMS

in 2014 only 4 short months after getting married I had a debilitating life injury. I herniated a disc in my back and was diagnosed with sacroiliac joint dysfunction and ligament laxity. I have been getting adjustments 2- 3 times a month from an osteopath for nearly 4 years. I have done pure PRP 7 times, prolotherapy 3 times, physical therapy 4 times (in my fourth stint now), worn an SI belt and even consulted for surgery.

My osteopath recommended I read Sarno's book The mind body connection and I feel like I've been given the greatest gift. After reading the mind body connection I truly feel I have TMS.

When I acquired my "injury" it was in one of the most emotionally chaotic times of my life. I had recently been diagnosed with severe depression and realized a lot of things about my childhood that are hard to digest. All I did was sit down and stand up and my back went completely out and has never recovered since.

My hip tends to go out of place anytime I get emotionally stressed. My back hurts for the same reason. Just recently I have just started to have some relief and progress, when I decided I should seek therapy and try clinical hypnosis. I discussed very serious upsetting material with my therapist and 1 day later my back went completely out and same with my hip. I haven't been this bad in months.

I'd also like to note that when my back started to feel better, I started having random shoulder pain which I never experienced my entire life. I also started having chronic migraine.

I want to beat TMS and go on with my life, but I'm a bit afraid to give up adjustments and such especially since my hip pops out of place... Although I feel I know I have to. I had no light at the end of the tunnel, but now I see that there is a light.

I just want to know if anyone has had a similar story and a successful outcome. I appreciate it!

 

Sarno is truly a gift. Knowledge is the cure. Let go of the idea that your pain has a physical cause. Do you really need the adjustments any more than you think you do? I gave up chiros, inversion, physical therapy, injections, pills, etc. No regrets!

 

Hi ng88,

I’ve been there too ;
Si joint missery, started after a silly sliding on a floor. In a highly stressfull period of my life.
I cannot speak for you medically : but It sounds the same as the stuff i had.
I went to orthopedic surgeon, had xray , mri. Had pt , Chiro.
It felt as my hip popped out of place : exact as you discribed and like my si joint was totally stuck. For a long time i believed all the : twisted pelvis’ , leg lenght stuff’ some of them told me.
It made me so scared.
Now i know its nothing like that.
In my option its stress and tide muscles.

I stopped adjustments and all the strenghting your back ‘ stuff right after i
found the website painsience.com
Only thing i did when it felt off’ : was do the basic si joint exersizes you can find on the internet.
It went away without adjustents
but with relaxing and walking and putting my mind of it


Sadly i developed different pain in another place. But its good to Remember this. Hope it helps you

 

I have also been diagnosed with SI joint dysfunction and lax joints. I had lots of back pain, tingling down my legs, numbness in one leg and both feet. I found a good PT who helped me with the SI joint stabilization and also wore SI belt for a few months. But I still had the issues with the leg pain, etc. [For what its worth My PT and doctors all advised me not to get adjusted because I have lax joints - they said I needed to get more stability and adjustments would only serve to loosen things up! So I would stop the adjustments and work on stability…]
My PT also gave me Sarno's book to read and within 3 days all the leg pain, numbness, and tingling was gone! I also noticed that around the same time, I forgot about the SI problem, stopped wearing the belt, and have never had that problem since...
But just when I thought I was 'cured,' the neck and shoulder pain kicked in! For a few months the pain would move back and forth from the back the neck, etc. A few times I also got some ankle/foot pain. Now after a few more months it feels like the TMS is actually 'giving up' and the bouts with pain are less frequent and less severe. I try ignore them as best I can and I'm also beginning to recognize the triggers for pain. I personally would give up the adjustments.
I hope some of this helps! I think your symptoms are very normal for TMS and yo are on the right track! You are getting closer to the end of the tunnel for sure!​

 

I had foot pain for eighteen months; tried everything, including wrapping it in clingfilm with turmeric oil suppposedly attacking the inflammation underneath. Anyway, I eventually had an MRI after lots of specialists said that they had no idea what it was and guess what...? It came back clear. And when it did, all the pain went away. Anyway, here I am about a year on with alleged SI joint dysfunction (which a lot of doctors don't actually believe in, by the way) and a twisted pelvis and I genuinely believe that it's TMS (again - we have to be fierce in our understanding that if we don't beat it on the head, it will pop back up again). A brief history - depressed, absent father, poor bonding with my mother which continues to this day (am almost 40), a stammer, bullying at school from an early age where I learnt to 'freeze' my emotions (see Steve O's book, The Great Pain Deception), sexual assault, rape, poor achievements, huge anger, frustration, tendency to procrastinate, inability to feel my emotions in the main - I consider myself functioning at a 'benign neutral,' most of the time, while this silent ocean of black anger goes untended to. And oh, my symptoms - shoulder issues which two arthroscopies didn't solve, the foot pain, allergies, upset stomach as a child, frequent urination, neck gets 'stuck' sometimes, TMJ...

I'm not going to diagnose you over t'interweb, but it sounds very possible and the fact it's moving around, as it did with me, sounds both familiar and very 'TMS.' Once it finds a place that you give medical credence to, and a twisted pelvis (ditto) and SI joint dysfunction sound very 'mechanical,' it's not going to let go easily...

 

Oh, also - I was having an osteopath appointment and she told me the left side of the SI joint had jammed completely, so did a manipulation. I went back the next week and she said, 'oh, the right side's jammed,' but the pain was still on the left. I asked her for an explanation and she couldn't really give me one. I can remember lying there, with my arms through my legs as she did something else, thinking, 'well, if the right side is jammed and NOT causing pain, then the left side shouldn't cause pain when it's jammed, so maybe it's not that at all....' Interesting

 

Had a very similar thing with the hip, incidentally 4 months after getting married to a wrong guy. Hip got better after we split up, but upper back started hurting. But here is the fun part. I love backpacking. So, I get on the trail with a heavy pack on and burning pain in the hip. 20 miles on the trail and couple nights sleeping on the rocks - pain is gone. I go back to the city life and my comfy bed - pain is back. Sarno fixed my hip. It hurts occasionally, but I no longer go to chiropractors - I meditate.

 

The ‘twisted pelvis ‘ ‘thing ‘ hold me hostage for 2 years thanks to a chiroptactor (i was a painvirgin’ in the beginning : believed everybody and everything thought they where all specialist) finally had an xray and mri done by a very friendly helpfull female orthopedic sergeon : who told me : your Si joint and hips are fine : and by the way : ‘there is no such thing as a twisted ‘ pelvis ‘
She could not explain my pain !

Also my foot mri was clear : sadly and strangly this never helped me.
Crazy isn’t it ? Too me the whole mess in diagnoses made it worse .. all this contradictions

 

Did Prolotherapy hurt? I actually have lax ligaments and am unstable post partum and it’s been recommended but I’m nervous...

 

That your condition developed during a highly stressful period in your life is an important clue pointing toward a TMS diagnosis. Also, the way the pain symptoms migrated to a new area is very characteristic of TMS and is called by the term, "symptom substitution". But thanks to Dr Sarno's book, you do seem to be making the important connections that will let you work your way out of your condition.

 

Yes it hurt extremely bad, i'm not going to lie. Most painful thing i've ever done, and it also didn't help me considering I have TMS. I did it 7 times!!!

 

Oh man that’s not good news. I have ‘other’ tms but unfortunately pregnancy wreaked havoc on my pelvic ligaments. Was the pain long lasting?

 

One more question for you - did your SI problems affect your gait at all? My right leg basically feels disconnected from my body and I feel unstable and twisted when I walk. It’s hard to explain. Was told it’s due to complications from a condition I had in pregnancy.

 

I see. Well I was told I had the loosest pelvic ligaments she'd ever seen. She is a renowned DO, and I only felt relief for about 4 weeks then I would get loose again and go "crooked." Crooked is when my right hip goes about 2 inches higher than my left hip and i walk like quasi modo, so yes it affected my gait big time. As we speak now I've gone crooked again due to stress. I even did the Placental Pure PRPs which costs over 3,000 dollars for 1 cc and it didn't do a darn thing for longer than a few weeks. Regular prolotherapy didn't do anything for me at all. Pure PRP however gave me relief for about 4 weeks at a time. I spent over 10,000 dollars on those injections with no improvement. Maybe in your situation it might help, but coming from a person with EXTREMELY lax ligaments it's the mental that did it for me.

 

Sorry, I wanted to tell you that the only thing that made me "unlax" was following Sarno's protocol. I went 4 months living PEFECTLY normal like before I got "Injured." Then recently when a very very stressful situation arose, I went crooked again. But I have been living Sarno's method and I'm getting better everyday without no adjustments for the past 4 months which hasnt happen for me in nearly 4 years. His method is the truth if you've exhausted everything else and nothing has worked.

 

Wow ok. This is interesting. Thanks for sharing. See I’m struggling because I know what I had in pregnancy was structural. It’s a well known condition and I think something like 1/5 get it. I seemed to get a bad case though and couldn’t even lift my right leg when lying down or sitting, and after an emerg c section I got out of bed and actually fell into the wall. I had no stability on my right side. I didn’t expect this as I could walk when pregnant. The thing I was told was that the baby was actually providing some stability. I guess what I’m thinking is there may be a tms component as to why I haven’t healed 7 months post partum. But due to my altered walk I rolled my ankle and it swelled right up (not tms). It’s so confusing.

I’ve never met anyone whose gait changed from tms so this is something I’ll think about. I never had any issues with walking or my pelvis prior to becoming pregnant.

But my right hip is about 2 Inches lower than my left. I honestly don’t have much pain anymore - I just can’t walk!

Have you ever corrected your hip heights using tms??

Sorry this post is all over the place. I’m holding and rocking a sleeping baby lol

 

Thanks! The thing is...I totally believe in it. I used it about 5 years ago to cure awful back and neck pain. I was on disability from work, read the book and went back a few days later. It took a while to completely recover, but it worked. This just feels different I guess. And there is something bizarre about looking at your body and seeing one hip 2 inches lower. But nothing else is working. I don’t have a lot of pain - I’m just unstable and crooked. But it affects me SO much. I’m obsessed. So that is what is making me think tms is affecting it.

 

Yes, using Sarno's method of journaling everyday and following the structural education program on the site I was able to correct my gait, lift heavy objects, run around and live like I never knew I had "ligament laxity", "Sacroiliac Joint dysfunction", "A herniated disc", and "SI joints that are double the size of a I normal persons." I was told my issues were all structural too, but when nothing worked my doctor told me to read Sarno's book and it is the only thing that healed me. Over 4 years I've spent over 40k on adjustments, procedures and scans and the only thing that worked for me was a 12 dollar book.

But ... Pure PRP can work in instances of tares and so on, as far as helping me with laxity it didn't do a damn thing.
Try it, see if it helps if it does not ... try Sarno ... or simultaneously do sarno.

 

Yeah, I look like a freak when my hip goes out of place my body literally looks like I should be in a horror film. I check the mirror every couple minutes to see if it's going to settle, and obsess over it too. I feel your pain. Feel free to talk to me anytime, it's nice to know someone else out there goes through the same thing. Bittersweet.

 

Huh, crazy. I haven’t met anyone else who has gone through anything similar. I’m convinced what happened in pregnancy is ‘real’, but I am now thinking after a traumatic birth and post partum depression, maybe tms is piggybacking onto a real injury. Or at least making it worse.

I’m amazed that Sarno corrected your gait. I’ve never had an issue with gait and instability before but I can say it’s awful. And it’s so bad that I don’t even like leaving the house. The obsession is intense. If I’m not thinking about my daughter I’m thinking about my inability to walk normally.

Keep me posted on your progress. It’s weird to hope this is tms - but I really hope it is as I’ve overcome it before. Whereas I don’t know the outlook otherwise.