Abdomen pain, need some advice

[Maha]

Hello all,
I''m freaking out here, hope you can offer me some reassurance
Basically, I’ve been suffering from fibromyalgia pain since one year and a half, Did all blood tests, x-rays to my shoulders elbows and neck upper abdomen ultrasound all came back normal.

After reading Dr. Sarno’s books immediately I started feeling better although my pain kept shifting from place to place.

Now it seems it’s focusing on my stomach and I find myself freaking out and I can’t manage my fear level, I keep imagining every horrible disease out there

I scheduled an appointment with a gastrologist for next week , and I will order an endoscopy just to rule out cancer since Dr. Sarno said that most gastro problems are equivalents to TMS

I Have no signs of indigestion, heartburn nor acid reflux only a dull defused stomach pain

Could it be TMS Manifestation

please help me with some advice on what to do


Excuse my English mistakes since it’s not my first language

Thanks and stay healthy

 

[Tennis Tom]

For scientific evidence that it's TMS, look at the Holmes-Rahe list for stressful life events you've experienced that may have caused your symptoms :

THE HOLMES-RAHE STRESS SCALE:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmes_and_Rahe_stress_scale (Holmes and Rahe stress scale - Wikipedia)

 

[MWsunin12]

Anxiety very, very often reacts in a person's stomach. If you are freaking out, chances are you're making your stomach pain continue. Try to distract your thinking for a while.

 

[2scottb34]

Anxiety very, very often reacts in a person's stomach. If you are freaking out, chances are you're making your stomach pain continue. Try to distract your thinking for a while.

I have had back pain for 30 years with no clinical reason for it. When that started abating and I was getting along at about 70% normal I'd say, I started getting a gnawing feeling in my stomach, which I still have a year and a half later. During this time I have also had very bad pains of and on in my stomach. I was sure besides an ulcer, I had at the very least a hernia of some kind. I've had a CAT scan, numerous blood tests and the scope done. I have very mild inflamation of the stomach lining. The doctors don't seem to be able to figure out why I seem to be in the pain I'm in, or why proton pump inhibitors don't work. So you can be in a great deal of pain and really not have much of anything wrong. It is a good idea to have the tests done to put your mind at ease about anything physical being wrong. I'm beginning to think that TMS can also greatly magnify some extremely minor thing that may be wrong, and even when that has gone away, has learned to hang on to the pain to keep the distraction going. Hope this helped a little bit..Scott

 

[Tennis Tom]

I'm beginning to think that TMS can also greatly magnify some extremely minor thing that may be wrong,...

TMS is the volume control for the pain.

I've had a CAT scan, numerous blood tests and the scope done. I have very mild inflamation of the stomach lining. The doctors don't seem to be able to figure out why I seem to be in the pain I'm in, or why proton pump inhibitors don't work.

Modern defensive medicine is very good at diagnosing real structural issues, if the white coats can't find anything physically wrong, it's a good bet that it's TMS.

 

[Shaboogie]

Ya. Sounds like TMS. I had neck, shoulder pain and headaches for year. Many doctors, acupuncturists, opioids, etc. Until I came upon mind over back pain by Dr. Sarno. Cured! Started going to the gym. I no longer worry about such pain-and it does s come back sometimes. Like for 4 months I had pain in both inner arms, so weird. Ignored it and am fine. But later in my life stomach became the thing. Reflux. Pain. I went down the same rabbit hole with doctors-I’m a bit of a hypochondria and worry “is it pancreatic cancer?’ ‘lung cancer?! Esophageal?!” Etc. Tests kept finding nothing. Then I thought ‘man this reminds me of the neck issues when I was younger. But Sarno doesn’t talk about stomach stuff does he?’ So I then found his later book The Divided Mind. Stomach becomes one of the top Tms equivalents! In fact it seems really common for people with back pain to then bounce to stomach. Treating GI as Tms helped me tremendously! I still struggle with reflux and found that nexium helped. But now I’m having serous stomach pain bouts again and wonder if prolonged nexium lead to it. It can’t be good to be on acid reducers for years. But tests aren’t showing much and the symptoms bounce. So I am certain that the heart of all this is TMS. Nonetheless, sometimes knowing this does not stop the pain. So I am journalling. I’m also seeing the benefit of rest if I use it a tool to support healing from TMS. When I rest I allow my autonomic systems like digestion to heal themselves. So my new thing is rest as an active way to support release from Tms imperatives. Rest can be doing one less meeting a day. Maybe skipping one workout on a busy morning. But otherwise living my life knowing I am fine. Hope this is helpful.

 

[TMUlrich]

I have had back pain for 30 years with no clinical reason for it. When that started abating and I was getting along at about 70% normal I'd say, I started getting a gnawing feeling in my stomach, which I still have a year and a half later. During this time I have also had very bad pains of and on in my stomach. I was sure besides an ulcer, I had at the very least a hernia of some kind. I've had a CAT scan, numerous blood tests and the scope done. I have very mild inflamation of the stomach lining. The doctors don't seem to be able to figure out why I seem to be in the pain I'm in, or why proton pump inhibitors don't work. So you can be in a great deal of pain and really not have much of anything wrong. It is a good idea to have the tests done to put your mind at ease about anything physical being wrong. I'm beginning to think that TMS can also greatly magnify some extremely minor thing that may be wrong, and even when that has gone away, has learned to hang on to the pain to keep the distraction going. Hope this helped a little bit..Scott

My experience is very similar to Scott's. If my experience is anything to go by, the best thing you can do is tell yourself that there's really nothing wrong with your digestive system. What you're experiencing is mostly if not entirely about nervous tension along your digestive tract. The best thing to do is to try your best to ignore it. As @Tennis Tom says, TMS is like a volume control on pain. There might be a little disturbance of some kind there, but focusing on it, worry about it, thinking that there is some kind of serious problem that you need to do something about -- these things all just feed the symptoms and make them worse.

Hope you're able to get a handle on your symptoms, Maha! Sometimes it's a slog and other times the symptoms just seem to resolve themselves quickly. Hope the latter happens to you.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

It's fine to revive old threads with relevant discourse, but I would suggest that a new post start out with something along the lines of "I realize this is an old thread, but I'm reviving it because ..."

In this case, it's a really old thread . Pointing this out may help any subsequent commenters to revise their response accordingly!