22 year old male unsure of what to do to fully cure symptoms

pretty long story and sometimes i go off tangent so bear with me

year 2019:
around the middle/late 2019 i had a lot of traumatic events in my life all happening at the same time (diving into specifics wobt really do much)

at the beginning i felt a twibge of weird sensation in my index finger (i have jammed it quite severely a few yrs before playing bball but i didnt go to a doc to fix it). the twinge wasnt pain but a weird laxity/ weakness in the tendon/ligament of my index finger

while i was going thru a rough patch in my life i slept on my left side in a fetal position with knees tucked up as high as i can possibly go probably tucked higher on the right leg since i slept on my left side. i did this while listening to very depressing song on repeat (life's a mess by juice,wrld n halsey) and i slept for hours on end in this sleeping position

anyways few months past n not only do i hve the twinge of weird laxity in my index finger, i had a tightness in my hip that caused me to have weird walking (my classmate commented that when i walk it looked like was waddling and that was few years before this limp even began so im not sure if its strictly tms). it looks like i had a lateral pelvic tilt/ pelvic rotation and im missing a chunk of meat. i'll even attach some pictures here of what it looks like. i also want to mention around everyday as my limp got more severe i had this loud clunk in my hip that is not like typically bone clicking/popping, it felt like the bones were literally snapping in and out of place. but it usually feels good and like a relief and not painful.


traditional Chinese medicine:

okay fast forward few months coming back from vacation i went to acupuncture, chinese cupping (the ones that makes pepperoni red marks on ur skin) , guasha (the one that makes your skin look like red bruises) , and also chinese herbal medicine but none of that really had a lasting effect

western medicine/allopathy:
i did an xray of my hip and there were no anomalies, i even went to a MD and thought i had scoliosis or something but he said my spine is quite straight

physiotherapy/occupational therapy:

i then did physiotherapy and occupational therapy and i did those exercises HOURS (im not exaggerating) everyday to no avail. the phyio even abandoned me (it was a public hospital) before i even fully recovered. foamrolling tfl, strengthening gluteus medius. my hip was literally so tight and no physical exercises could fix it but one thing that i do remember is that physiotherapist telling me to not walk like i did, saying it would be really hard to change. i think she was making a remark on how i walked with a limp but I CANT HELP IT, literally it feels like my hip is stuck in its socket and the pelvis wont budge.

trying to fix issues my own, physical approach:

anyways, so having lost faith in this all i came across PRI, somatic movement, and feldenkrais. somatic movement and feldenkrais were pretty good but then again they didnt really do much of anything lasting for me, most gains were temporary.


okay this is the WEIRDDDD part,
so like after all this "work" to get rid of it i kinda gave up on it all.

so one day i went to eat at the harbor of my city and there was a light show. i just was chilling and sitting on some rockhard surface and watching a lightshow (lighting of buildings that flashed along to the rhythm of music ). i got lost in the moment n just delved deep into the present moment. then i felt this energy come through me and leave my head and when the light show was over i lost my limp and somehow could walk again. it was like a miracle. and it was proof that my mind was the one creating my hip issues in the first place

return of the issues:


anyways, for some reason my mind just brought back the hip issue and my hip issues came back with a vengeance. to imagine what my hip feels like, imagine like those kindgardem toys where you place shapes into certain slots that fit that shape. now you put a cylinder through a cylindrical slot now that cylinder slot is now a triangular slot. now imagine that whole slot and cylinder is my hip. that has been my hip for the past few years.

pain starts, not just crookedness:

fast forward a couple of months, i was sitting on the train once and this pain on the ligament of my right knee came and it was soooo painful and this speaks volumes because i naturally have a high pain tolerance in general. it was so painful i couldnt yell or do anything i couldnt even move. this pain followed me a lot when i walked, especially for distances that are far. also i have this same exact pain but in my back occasionally as well.


sick of the pain, under the advice of my NP relative he told me to go to chiropractor since i wouldnt want an invasive surgery done anyways. so i did. and man that first adjustment felt SOOOO goood for my back. my back used have so much presssure when i bent back (as in extending my spine) and leaned to my left side i would stop cuz there would be a sharp pain there.

first chiropractor:

but this chiropractor was nice gave me exercises to help me adjustments stick. he only told me to go once a week and said i could get fixed in 3 months. a few months after (3-4 months )then he said you can come once a month now. he emphasized that fixing my anterior pelvic tilt will get rid of my lateral pelvic tilt and pelvic rotation. he also taught me this belly button manuever to activate my transverse abdominal muscles and told me to hold it throughout the entire day. i also used this to religiously do the birddog and deadbug exercises he prescribed to me. i even felt improvements after each time i did them. but for some reason my pelvis rotation still wasnt fixed after 3 months.

anyways i got tired of going to this chiropractor because i didnt really see any changes, but still that first adjustment really changed my trust in chiropractors. i actually thought they were shady at first too and super expensive but that first adjustment gave me more relief than any of the physical exercises and other approaches i tried before.

second chiro:

since then, i changed to another chiropractor, the chiropractor i originally meant to go to but didnt for some weird reason. anyways many people regard this chiropractic clinic as the best in my city, and i had a free zoom consultation with them before so why not? and honestly i was impressed with what they do, they take an extensive look at your medical history and surgeries, medications, etc. they also preach emotional, physical stress, and chemical stress as hindrances to your health. and also they advocate for good diet, sleep, and things thag a holistic healthcare provider would tell you. they take full spinal xray scans instead of only 2 like my first chiropactor did for only the affected area. they say that my neck had a misalignment, as well as my sacroiliac joint and my thoracic spine, and the misalignment in my neck alone, since it was the atlas (c1 vertebrae) could most probably affect the,vagus nerve and my body's ability to restore balance to my pelvic imbalance. also they said lacking cervical curve could also affect the,vagus nerve and my body's ability to restore balance to my pelvic imbalance. anyways, i did their care for 4 months and i actually saw physical change improvement in my xrays in my spinal curvature and neck curvature. as they also gave me a denneroll, i used that diligently everyday too.



i saw on others posts here that chiropractors did the same adjustments each time but mine was not the same, he checked each time and altered his adjustments accordingly.


now, here comes the problem, i did their chiropractic adjustments around 3 times a week, to 2 times a week and now they recommmend me to continue 1 time a week for 48 weeks to fully fix my issues. even i found this to be an exaggeration

issues with it:

having learned about tms during their care for 4 months, i have been doing the zero pain now exercise approach where i ask myself "what do i feel?" while putting my attention on my chest, neck, and belly everyday to relieve repressed emotions in the body. and i wonder if this zero pain now tms exercise has more to do with improving and changing my physical structure as seeen in my xrays and less to do with my chiropractic adjustments because i havent seen such improvement when i was going to my first chiropractors adjustment. but i went to this chiropractor more frequently so it could very well have helped? my limp when i walk is also basically gone now within these 4 months of their care and also because of this problem i'm not sure if it is because of the zero pain now exercise i did or the chiropractic adjustments.

comments on my chiropractors :

also, funny thing is according to this new chiropractic's posture analysis, my anterior pelvic tilt is basically ideal. and according to my first chiropractor, my lateral pelvic tilt should be gone by now. so who should i trust? i feel like the new chiropractor is just using me for money though once a week for 48 WEEKS. they just milking me for money.

my final thoughts and questions:

anyways, with my experience i DO know that my hip issues,are psychosomatic because they went away on their own in my light show experience, but chiropractic adjustments seem to work too since the first adjustment i did gave me so much relief that no other approach gave and my body hasnt returned to a state that bad ever since.

Anyways im at a crossroads here, i can continue doing chiropractic once a week until my issues fully resolve because i dont want to waste,anymore time in fixing my issues if it were structural. but if it was strictly tms, would i hinder my tms progress as i would still do them in the background anyways?

And if i do choose to stop chiropractic and therefore all physical intervention altogether, would i also need to stop all the physical exercises like rolling the bottom of my feet with a hard ball or lying on the denneroll to restore my cervical curve? and just focus of increasing activity n focusing on what i feel and staying calm and relieving stress the tms way? Because i think subconsciously i'm using those exercises to fix my body as if it was a structural problem.

At this point im just frustrated with everything, i'm so done with all the physical exercises, all the money i'm spending (even though i'm not the one paying). i even kind of regret going to chiropractors in the first place because they gave me so much fear about my body and brainwashed me into thinking bad posture can make me have my pelvis, hip issues and pain. when my posture was this bad before 2019 it never caused me any hip issues or severe lateral pelvic tilt issues. i just want to get back to playing basketball and being active in sports in general


but i am also SO SO confused because my limp has reduced and virtually is gone under their care, but im not sure if it's because of their adjustments or the zero pain now TMS work that i do on my own.

just wanted advice on how and what should i do now going forward, it's been almost 4 years and im tired of these issues i've done a lot of trauma and processing work that doesnt seem to help. i could take,a risk and try going without the adjustments but i dont want to waste further time in case the adjustments could really could help me

i'm not sure if it's a strictly tms problem either, it could even just be psychosomatic, not because it came from repressed emotions or stressed but more of a placebo kind of way where i just trick my body into believing i have a pelvic imbalance issue so my body manifested it. if it indeed is more of the placebo problem, how could i fix it? what approaches are there?

do you guys believe that this is strictly tms or could there actually be a physical/structural problem at the root of this because i did sleep in a terrible positions hours a day for months by sleeping in a fetal positon with kneees tucked super high while sleeping on my side?

could there be situations where it is TMS mixed with actual structural reasons? and i could address those,structural reasons through physical interventions while doing the tms approach as well?

as of now i've made great tms progress, i have no pain anymore but i have
• breathing diifficulty as my left lung basically doesnt get any air into it (i had covid before but its not related to covid apparently so its probably hiatal hernia due to tight muscles
• the ground feels uneven when i walk or stand even on level ground
• hip tightness but not as bad as it first was
• twinge of finger laxity in my index finger

if i manage to get rid of these i am ready to go out there and live life to the fullest because if i try to do activity in spite of those somehow i get even more scared of injuring myself in a structural way than the tms pain itself

Please if you are going to talk smack about chiropractic please don't do it in this thread. if it could potentially help me i don't want your personal biases clouding your advice. i mean i get the whole thing about it being tms and not structural because of sarno but this question is mainly asking if my issues strictly tms or there could be actually a structural component to it aka. is TMS the right approach for me to fix my issues ?

i dont trust chiropractors that much either but if they're the only ones that seem to be improving my symptoms then i have no other choice.






also, if i do have pain it's typically in the same area. either my left lower back or on my knee ligament on the medial side of my right knee


p.s. i also have tms symptons like occasional migraines, hiatal hernia, numbness around my body, my joints (ankles, knees, hips, shoulder, heel) feel out of place, numbness even on my penis glans, possible hiatal hernia, vomiting, nausea, dizziness, and etc.

my tms symptoms also are more exaggerated when i dont get enough sleep too, that is also worth mentioning. the hip issues and vomiting especially (but this usually happens if i eat n become too full /brushing my teeth so not too often)


tldr: main thing is i'm mostly leaning towards it being tms but there is evidence leaning toward it being structural (sleeping issue), and what do you think it is, tms or not? could it be both tms AND structural? what would you do if you were in my position if going to a chiro seems to improve your issues? or maybe even the combo of doing tms work AND going to chiro helps you make a lot of progress?

 

No.

Your symptoms are routine and common . You just went into them in the minutiae of your perception of 'how' they felt and occurred.
Your story is also common. Most of us tried many methods before we read Sarno, did the TMS work.

I had all of those symptoms and still do have them , at least as far as tilted hips, weird noises etc....Noe of those cause pain or discomfort. How you sleep, lift stuff, move is all what Sarno calls the "Medieval medical mythology". If we were that delicate, we never would have conquered the world to the extent we have as a species.

There is not a perception or feeling in your long list I didn't have and ALL of it went away when I read Sarno's book and applied it to my life.

 

thanks

thanks for the clarification, but how could my sudden healing out of nowhere come to be with my lightshow experience happen if its because of repressed emotions? repressed emotions cant just vanish and come back like a magician's disappearing act.

also, are sarnos concepts still applicable since its not really pain anymore?

 

It is a combination of repressed emotions and mental safety for most people.
People often report fewer or no symptoms when doing something extremely comforting or pleasurable. It is common. Why? Because they are not minutely hyper focused on every single body sensation. I know right now it seems impossible, but most people have your sensations at any given moment. Did you ever feel uneven ground beneath your feet in the past? No. Most likely because you never focused on it. It never crossed your mind. Now you fear it. This is basically the same mechanism for all your symptoms.
Learning about pain science can soften your resistance to what is happening to you - the resistance that this MUST be purely physical.




what to do about it? Start by reading a book by Dr. Sarno. The Divided Mind describes many types of neuro-plastic pain and success stories.

Know that people heal in a variety of ways, but it is always with a focus on the psychological. You must recognize there is more going on than just the sensation of symptoms.

There are two free programs on this site; you can choose to do ONE ( start slow, a little bit every day) - and they will start you on your mind/body journey.
There is lots of information on this website: success stories, the programs etc. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see the text links.
https://www.tmswiki.org/w/index.php?page=The_Tension_Myositis_Syndrome_Wiki (The Tension Myositis Syndrome Wiki)

 

Read the book. It's a combination of The Placebo effect, conditioning and the individual perceptions and experiences of each person...however, one thing is certain. If you have undealt with TMS and you are having a placebo effect, it will come back or manifest itself as a new symptom.

All of us had periods when we thought we were 'fixed'..and it either came back or moved. In fact, most people's surgical successes are powerful placebos..the proof being they go back and get them over and over. I just spoke with a friend who had his 5th back surgery....He is always certain the NEXT one will work.

..and conditioning is fast and effective.

 

This is undoubtedly TMS. one of your biggest missteps is to give this so much air-space in your life. you’re giving it SO MUCH power by obsessing over it. it will
not go away as long as you obsess over the symptoms.

 

i see, yes recently i hve shifted my focus from focusing on my symptoms, my symptoms have almost all instantaneously been gone multiple times as i did it. thanks!