Stuck about how to move forward after climbing accident

I've had, and got rid of lots of TMS in the past. But right now I have what started as a real injury. I sprained my wrist badly in a climbing accident on December 4th - tore the ligaments and had multiple contusions. The problem is now, I am coming to that difficult period where I can start doing things again. I tried to climb and the pain got much worse, plus it was before the doctor gave me the go ahead.

So now I am stuck: am I still injured and need to rest, or is TMS taking over what with the fear of reinjury, (and a host of other fears). It still feels like real pain and I did try and use it before I should. But I know from other injuries that TMS can mean it takes months longer to recover than it should.

Any advice anyone?

 

Did you rehab your wrist? Start back with baby steps. A very very slow start back is the way. No need to go all in after your full rehabilitation either. I would take at least a month or two just doing progressive overloads, and then pyramids. I used to reinjure myself a lot after a weight lifting injury by going right back to the same weight I was using pre injury.

Baby steps.

Yes and yes. If you reinjure yourself always take at least 2 weeks for recovery before the easing back into your workout continues. Remember to enjoy the recovery too.
And the fear of reinjury is the focus on that thought or worry itself plus the focus on that body part to heal faster is tmsing so be patient, do the rehab, lose the fear and the focus on that part of your body and soon you will be fine.

 

Thanks. This has really clarified a few things for me. I think the injury and fear are two separate things: obvious, I know, but it me they seem one and the same. So on the injury front, I need to be rational and not in such a hurry to get back. I just need to take it slowly, really slowly. I started off lifting small dumbbells, did some light weights, some hangs and used it to support my right arm while I did pull ups. Then went to the climbing gym and did a couple of easy routes. But that was in the last two weeks and I think was too much at once. I need to let go of my time expectations around getting better and just let it take as long as it takes.

But then at the same time, I think I need to work on the fears because they are numerous and rampant. I'm going to write down all my fears, and then work on them. Because they could definitely be making this worse. So my take away is: baby steps back and work on the fears. I almost don't need to worry myself with the "Is this TMS or not?" yet.

And enjoy the recovery! I never thought of that. I do need to do that. I've been so busy being angry with the accident and putting pressure on myself to do that.

Thank you, Eric!

 

This was so helpful to read! I had a real injury last Friday, thrown from my spooked horse and landed hard on coccyx, had neuro shock of instant aura, nausea, migraine and crying. I got back on my horse and rode a few miles back to the ranch, debriefing and crying, allowing and assessing. I got ibuprofen and ice pack and drove home. As I got clearer, I called my Doc and went to urgent care for an X-ray.
Nothing obvious was broken. Inner bruising and contusions. Never had pain like this tho had a fall similar but not from 4-5 feet high. ...maybe I need an MRI?

Rested all weekend. Did bits of yoga. Have not seen my regular Doc, have avoided orthopedic Doc since diagnosis of arthritis in hip a few years ago...and did my TMS work instead of hip surgery. ...I am fine. Zero pain!

Now I am in terrible fear. Supposed to leave for Austria on Sunday. Am afraid of more pain.
As I write, I recall one of my worst flare ups of TMS was in France, so far from home and in such awful pain. Didn't have the skills then that that episode brought. TMS wiki wasn't even around, likely, just Sarno's books. I read them during that episode, so fearing being far from home and hurting is a very real memory for me.
I can feel the fear instead of making extra pain.
For now, I get that the real pain is just that: real. The trauma of falling a few miles from anyone to help me is real. I ride there alone all the time. Accidents happen. I don't feel like a victim. It was an innocent spook. At a walk!
Just processing out loud, forgive me if I ramble. Going to my Rolfer on Thursday, but perhaps I should see a regular Doc before leaving? I mistrust them, generally, now.
I could call Schecter! He's local.
I will.
Thanks for letting me debrief.
I have every faith I will be back to riding in a couple weeks, once I am home and over the jet lag (-:
I know my unconscious is a grumpy motherf---er, full of rage and grit. But I have a spiritual essence, a psyche, that is greater. And I have all you guys, as well.
No extra pain necessary,
All best wishes,
Bg

 

Good luck! I learned a lot from this accident. It too, took me weeks to see a doctor because of my previous TMS experiences. But then, eventually when I did, it proved right to go and I wish I had done it earlier. Then my goal was not to layer real injury with TMS. I had so much anger around getting injured and fear about the outcome and frustration at it taking so long. It could have so easily taken forever with those feelings. I used EFT or tapping to work on those feelings. I now still have some pain but am back climbing. It really just took time. But the best thing was that I removed all the emotion from the injury so I can make accurate judgements about how to recover, what pace, how instense to exercise etc. I've learned I can't force my body to heal through willpower - it was a real injury, not TMS. Discovering TMS was such a gift and I have ample opportunity to practice what I have learned (I have another TMS injury right now - not serious, but there) but trying to use those principles to force a real injury better was a misuse of what I have learned.

Good luck!

 

Traumatic injuries are not TMS, all TMS books and this site, warn to rule out serious injury that should be treated. If you're in fear that it's serious, see a doctor or go to the ER. TMS is more about chronic pain that develops after injuries should have healed in due course. Dr. Sarno cites the example of a broken femur, the largest bone in the body, healing completely from a break after a month or two. If it's something new and caused by a trauma/accident, and you're in fear of it being serious, go to the doc. They may not be TMS savvy, but they aren't there to provide you with chronic pain either--that's what our TMS sub-conscious wants to provide for you as "protection" from feeling emotional pain.

The ER is the great part of modern medicine--we don't want to go back a hundred years in that department. Having been a marathon runner and a tournament tennis player, I've had my share of real injuries. You R.I.C.E. them, and test them judiciously. If they are still excruciatingly painful, give them some more time to heal. If you are addicted to exercising, like I am, there are usually other activities that you can perform working around the injury, working out in the water is a great alternative when weight bearing is painful.

After 2, 4, 6, or 8 weeks, the natural healing processes for "most" routine daily or sports injuries from traumas, should heal depending on their severity. If they become chronic, see your doc again--preferably a TMS one for objectivity. Our own bodies are our best source of healing, and we are ultimately responsible for making the right mindbody decisions, with the knowledge we gather.

 

Cut yourself a break ... and give yourself time to heal.

I know what you mean though. It is hard sometimes to find that dividing line between when something is a legitimate injury or illness ... and when it's just turned into TMS. Eventually it becomes apparent.

 

I totally agree with Tennis Tom on this one. I have a question for the group though:

When you have an injury, not caused by an accident, how quickly do you self diagnose with TMS?

While my wrist and hand was splinted up, I did tonnes of running and I now have a very sore knee that makes it hard to walk or run. My immediate instinct is that this is TMS. I've started treating it as TMS which for me is talking to it, writing out stressors and negative feelings and just trying to exercise anyway. I feel comfortable doing this usually and it works. After my hand and wrist accident though, which definitely now I see weren't TMS, I'm a little more unsure though.

The obvious answer is to go and see a doctor, but that has never worked for me in the past. They diagnose me with something serious straight away, I get caught in the fear cycle, anger and frustration at the endless rounds of PT. I'm kind of allergic to doctors now having been through that process SO many times, only to find out I have TMS and then it goes.

Just interested in other people's perspectives here.

I have another question too, but I should start a separate thread for that...

 

"Injuries" not caused by an accident are usually TMS. If something is just randomly hurting with no precipitating force or accident it's the most likely thing. Random knee pain is usually in that category. Best to consult with a TMS practitioner (even over skype if needed) if you really need peace of mind...or get imaging from your regular doc if you have to. In the likely case they don't find anything you can relax and work on TMS healing.

 

Been there, done that many times, even after hernia surgery!

With such injuries got to follow the established medical protocol. They may not work for TMS but sure do work for actual injuries. You may also consider some acupuncture treatment to speed up your recovery.

 

Thanks Mindbody PT. I haven't found imaging a good way forward in the past. I have found two surgeons recommend shoulder surgery based on my MRI results, then a third, who is supposedly one of the best in the country tell me that anyone of my age, who'd done that much climbing would have all those tears but that wasn't cause for surgery. Six months later, I was just fine. So that, in a way, is what I am scared of.

And, when I got my recent Xrays and MRIs for my wrist accident the doctor spent so long telling me about a weird abnormality he'd seen in my hand that was serious but not caused by the accident. He was quite fascinated by it but the truth was, before I had the accident, my hand felt just fine. So I honestly think they'll find something wrong. I'm so grateful for the treatment regarding my accident but I am doctor phobic otherwise. It is enough to give me TMS!

So, I am treating this one as TMS for the meantime: talking to it, exerciseing moderately and writing out all my feelings.

Thank you!

 

Hi Gazelle,

If you are going the TMS route, the join me this afternoon for my free Rapid Recovery workshop. It will give you additional tools to move forward. More info at www.fredamir.com.

Take care,

 

I bruised my tailbone on the edge of a wooden arm rest of a sofa. It takes a few weeks to get better. If you fell from 5 feet, it's an actual bruise. Don't be afraid of it, even though it's really sore. I remember well. If you're going to fly, I would buy one of those temprapedic cushions with the tailbone hole cut out. Ice by day. Soak in Epson Salts bath at night. You are bruised. Don't push it. Let your body heal it.

Marcia

 

I think we TMSers are all kind of wary of doctors.

My rule is if it is an unusual symptom and not an emergency do my research online and then see my doctor. It is best to go armed with information. If not, when you are in a medical setting, it is easy to agree to tests and procedure.

Sometime after April 15, 2010, I noticed pain on the right side of my abdomen when stretching. (I am not blaming taxes for my pain!) I thought it was probably a pulled muscle and continued to do my morning stretches and exercises but avoided exercises that caused pain.

For the next few nights I woke up to the same pain but did not think much of it. It could be TMS, I thought.

I also noticed that when I coughed or sneezed I really felt it in my entire abdomen. That was unusual but not bad enough to see a doctor.

However, as I continued with my exercises and walking on the treadmill, the pain subsided—so much so that, two weeks later when my wife and I bought heavy pots of trees, I squatted and lifted them several times without hesitation.

The following day, I was fine. However, when we returned from the farmers’ market, where I had carried heavy bags filled with fresh produce for several blocks, I began to feel a lot of pain and noticed a bulge the size of a small egg in my groin.

Here is the rest of my story in as told in Mesh-Free Hernia Repair
http://rapidrecovery.net/hernia.htm (Rapid Recovery from Back and Neck Pain)

 

Wow. That was quite the journey - it makes my 3 surgeon journey to decide not to have shoulder surgery look puny by comparison. I think most doctors are well intentioned and responsible but their scope is often too narrow. They feel like they will do you a favor by finding something wrong with you to fix. And quite honestly, I am done being fixed. Except in the obvious cases i.e. my climbing accident, I seem to do a better job of fixing myself.

 

I agree with you. We can do a better job in most cases to fix ourselves.

One area I am concerned about is the push to make patients out of healthy people. Most of the screening tests are meant to do that without much proof that they actually save lives. Sometimes those cancer screening tests can do more harm than good with their side effects and false positives. Here's a post I wrote on cancer screening

http://www.fredamir.com/single-post/2016/08/28/Should-I-Be-Tested-for-Cancer-Maybe-Not-and-Heres-Why (Back Pain Workshop)

 

I agree. Without giving too much away I am a science journalist by trade. I've written a fair bit on over-screening, over-testing, and false positives. And I am an immigrant and I noticed once I came to the US I had so many more conditions here, that would have just been passed over in my home country.

 

Love to read some of your articles.

 

Sadly, they are no longer online as the newspaper didn't back date articles past three years. One of the best articles I ever read was in the Economist where a journalist visited doctors in a few different countries and got totally different treatments: in the UK next to nothing, in Germany acupuncture and chiropractic, in the US wheeled straight into the surgery route. I'll try and find it, it was fascinating. The whole TMS thing is utterly fascinating really, more so if I wasn't a victim of it. I've had a situation where my left leg was swollen to twice the size of my right leg once and too painful to run on. After I twigged it was TMS it went straight back down to normal size. I still haven't quite figured out how to stay healthy though, rather than just cure the injuries when they come up.

What really gets me is how little is written about TMS. Learning about how to diagnose it, and treat it could save millions if not billions for the countries healthcare costs, but at the same time it wouldn't make anyone any money. It's a consumer society and people are making a living selling cures for a disorder that is psychologically based. I try to teach my kid about it hoping that this won't happen to her. I have tried to sell a story on it to Discover a few years ago to no avail. So I am just "gathering string" as is said in journalism to write a story in the future.

 

Thanks for your insights Gazelle, agree with you wholeheartedly. Swelling and inflammation are often debated here as to whether they are TMS or not, your experience is one for the archives.

Cheers,
tt