Hello All, I hope this story helps you on this forum. Chronic pain conditions are an awakening, your body telling you something. Of course, I didn't know that at the time. I went from fit and healthy to desperate and disabled in a matter of months, but started my recovery in less than 4 weeks and built the foundations to transform my life. Sorry this is so long but wanted to provide all my learnings - will work up a summary version too!
Age: 45
Pain first started: January 2015
Diagnoses received: Herniated pics
MRI's or tests taken: 2 x MRI's
Time to recovery from first hearing about TMS: 4 weeks to get pain to manageable level, then approx 6 months to get fully back to normal
Any relapses: Pain moved - knee, ankle.
Specific things that helped your recovery: Follow the TMS recovery programme on this Wiki. Healing back pain. Steve O's book. TMS therapist if needed to confirm diagnosis.
My story: Monday and Tuesday I went to the gym as normal. Wednesday was a rest day. Thursday came and went and so did the start of what became 18 months of living hell. If you have ever experienced sciatica and back pain relentlessly then you know your life becomes the pain, and the pain becomes you. My pain that felt like a bunsen burner being applied to my left leg. My back and leg were very sore for a few weeks, the local GP said I had pulled a muscle with possible disc damage and recommended a local PT. The local PT said it was unlikely to be disc damage, but then changed her mind after second treatment!
I was already getting different views. The third person I saw a Mctimminey specialist said she thought my hips were as much as 2 inches out of alignment! This had a lasting effect on me, and whether all these years of training had messed up my body alignment. You can see how these diagnoses can strike fear that something is structurally wrong with you. I had private health care so decided to get a professional specialist opinion. I got referred to a leading back specialist who to be fair didn't think too much was wrong. However, my pain escalated significantly over the next few weeks.
I remember being sent for my first MRI and getting the dreaded diagnosis of a "moderate" l5/S1 disc herniation or disc bulge. It was what I had deep down suspected. I had injured myself badly in the gym and now my back was falling apart, and the MRI confirmed this!
I finally had a physical diagnosis and a reason for the pain. With this knowledge and the need to continue day to day activity, things were getting worse daily, such that I was eating my breakfast lying on tummy like a dog from a bowl as I couldn't sit down or stand up!! With a few weeks, I couldn't walk, stand or sit and I'd spend long hours lying on my back on the lounge floor – it was the position that gave any level of relief. By November 2015, I'd lost most of my confidence and ability to play with my kids, or carry out day to day activities. So my days were spent lying on my back on the floor, and I spend most of my nights wishing I could sleep.
I had reached despair, I was on so many painkillers I wasn't sure if I was me, or the pain had become me. At it's worst, I couldn't walk more than about 10 metres without stopping, I couldn't sit for more than 2 minutes and getting out of bed in the morning became a military exercise in rolling, breath and swear word control. Meanwhile, my boss, who was very understanding, let me work from home. I would lay on my stomach on the floor with my laptop in front of me, trying to write emails, take phone calls, but my conversations with work colleagues were consumed with my ailments.
Over the period from February to December 2015, I saw 9 different medical experts including those at the top of their profession. This included an ex England world cup sports team doctor. I tried everything from chiropractors, physiotherapy, Mctiminey, pilates, acupuncture, stretching, anti inflammatories, epidurals, complete rest, and even medical weed. I had been to over 100 medical appointments and couldn't understand why I wasn't getting any better, and why I was getting different diagnosis and opinions from experts at the top of their field. Someone just tell me what is wrong and how I fix it.
I continued with various treatments, including seeing a Spine and Wellness practitioner I actually liked his methods and gradually the pain starter to reduce. However, he then suggested we worked out gently in the gym as I was ready to commence my re-rehabilitation. But boy, this was a mistake. The following day, I couldn't hardly walk, I literally cried relentlessly. The pain radiated down my leg like lava from a volcano. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't sit and my life become laying on the floor in between high doses of pain killers. I had a second MRI scan in November 2015 under a new specialist, that showed a marked worsening according to the Doctor, although it looked the same to me. This fuelled my over whelming concern that I would never mend. I'd gone from small disc protrusion to a moderate one, and moderate sounded awfully big to me. He recommended I now go for an Epidural injection to get the pain under control so that I could start the re-habilitation. However, it just made my pain worse! I was stuck on the sofa for nearly a week and spent further time as an emotional wreck, crying and telling my wife I'd lost the will to go on living in this much pain and needed desperate help.
At this time, other areas of my life were deteriorating at pace. My Father had a rare neurological disease and his condition was accelerating and my Mother couldn't cope with him being at home, even with carers coming in twice daily.We made a decision to place him in a nursing care home and I spent my time on the floor ringing around trying to find a local home that could deal with Dad's aggressive condition and high care needs. My mother was also diagnosed with cancer and needed an operation to remove a tumour. I remember lying on the hospital floor in desperation as I couldn't bear the pain and couldn't cope with all these pressures as I waiting for her to return from the operating theatre. I got angrier and angrier, everyone else seemed to pull on my time and need my support, but what about me?
Nobody seemed to care that I could barely function and was at the point of melt down. I would get calls that Dad had been hospitalised, or Mother needed something doing and what I really needed was someone to be sympathetic to my problems. I needed comforting too. This may sound selfish but that how things escalate when you are suffering with chronic pain. My wife then snapped her achilles tendon! So in addition to the issues with my parents, I now also had a sick wife to care for who couldn't walk, and the sole care of our two children.
Everywhere I went I carried my back aids which became by crutch - I wore a back brace around my waist that become as important to me as lungs for breathing. I had orthopaedic support cushions in the car, on the floor and everywhere I went became 'bespoke critical dependency unit' for nursing my back pain. The pain killers even had their own private dedicated space, and life rotating around getting my next pain fix. If you have never had chronic pain you will never truly understand what it feels like tortured 24hrs a day without respite. I was in a downward spiral and if I didn't turn a corner soon, I honestly felt life had no further value.
I was now one step away from back surgery, I could clearly see the pathway lit up but didn't feel excited about this. It didn't feel like a clear cut way to fix myself. The final mitigation before surgery was to have a nerve block directly into the impacted nerve, and I was told if this didn't work I would need certainly need the obtruding disc material cutting out of my back .This was something I'd seen first hand had worsened a friends back condition due to apparent scar tissue build up post operation. Also, I wondered what stops the disc material continuing to leak post operation? I could visualise 'toothpaste' still leaking out of the tube - won't this toothpaste still leak onto the nerve? No one could answer these questions!
I was also told the nerve block came with its own dangers, and was paranoid about anything that would make the pain worse or permanent. I was in a self fulfilling spin, not knowing who to turn to for advice. Surely someone has the answers? I can't be the first to walk this path? One of my reflective observations that niggled at me was that I couldn't understand how somedays the pain was worse than others, and certain things made the pain worse which were counter intuitive. For example, daily swimming which I undertook for an hour improved the pain whilst in the pool but straight after I was in agony. But, I tried not to think too much, and generally popping pills and gradually extracting myself from work, play and family life consumed my time just fine.
Desperation provided a much needed break through – remember the law of attraction? I was just googling about surgery options, peoples experiences, recommended surgeons etc when I discovered some frightening research that generally pointed towards poor results from back surgery. Apparently, 99% of back surgeries fail according to the US Department of Health. Why did my doctor not mention this? I also read about further risks from scar tissue post operation. This didn't sound like a silver bullet solution. It sounded fraught with risks and limited chance of enduring success. A number of forums also conveyed negative views, I found myself yet again in a spin of what to do.
Starting to recover
This next moment that then literally changed my life. I don't overplay this. Do you believe in fate? My life took a totally different pathway by what could be described as a fluke, or if you believe in the law of attraction, then the answer finally came at my bidding. By chance, I discovered a link on an internet Forum where a group were discussing back pain. Linked forums and threads also contained conversations a flood with similar desperate people, and those who claimed to have come through the other side. Someone pointed to a chap called Dr. Sarno MD and his healing back pain book written in the 1980's. My initial reaction was anything form 30 years ago was probably now so dated that it wasn't worth looking at, but my instincts drew me in. I looked on Amazon and it was a couple of pounds and had great reviews. Perhaps at the moment you are at your most needing you will look at anything that will bring some structure to the chaos. After all, what did I have to lose? I thought for a while but kept being pulled towards Sarno's book and the reviews.
Sarno
I decided I had nothing to lose and downloaded Dr Sarno's e-book and was pleased it was so short (less than 150 pages) and I read it that afternoon laying on my lounge floor. I can picture it to this day, and something I will never forget. His thesis was chronic pain was triggered by built up anger and everyday stresses – ok not quite that simple, but that headline will work for now. He made a very strong case that herniated discs could not cause this chronic pain. He pointed to a study where MRI scans were carried out on nearly 100 people with a mixture of back pain and no history of pain. The results were amazing – almost everyone had degenerated discs as it is just part of the normal ageing process (Sarno calls the grey hair of the spine). Importantly, there were some people with dramatically herniated discs with no back pain, and people with no visible nerve inflection with a history of chronic pain! How can this be so!
For me, this had always puzzled me how the most benign of activities could cause a pain reaction, but he linked this to triggers such as stress, anger and tension. That was late November. I read myself on every page of this book– he talked about how perfectionists, people pleasers, people with a high level of anxiety will usually suffer from chronic and recurring pain.Did I have stress in my life at the time? Let's summarise - I had started a new job, 2 young children, wife snapped her achilles tendon, terminally ill father, mother with cancer and of course this my bad back. Add to that a dosage of perfectionism and people pleasing plus anxiety, rage and you have someone who has been cooking on gas mark 6 and ready to explode!!
When I reflected on what I had read in the book, I could see everything Dr. Sarno had said could have an element of truth. But, could it really be mental and not physical? Could this be me? Could this back pain all be self induced and be easily switched off like a switch? Surely not? But there was enough in there that resonated that pricked my conscious. In the back of my mind, I could still see that herniated disc leaking spinal fluid on my nerve like the toothpaste tube. However, I had a glimmer of hope, a glimmer of something from what I had read that resonated with me. I needed more knowledge fast and I became excited to read more.
If you recall from earlier, I had a nerve block injection booked for January and now I had a key decision to make. Should I go "all in" to TMS healing and treat myself as a collective mind-body rather than as physical diagnosis? This would mean cancelling my nerve block and going to the back of the queue, or should I continue the physical route of treatment. This is a key point of everyone's journey – it's hard to take someones word for , so my approach was to give myself 6 weeks following the TMS recovery path. If it didn't work for me, then I felt I had nothing to lose and I would take the nerve block. I needed to cancel 1-2 weeks before the procedure so I had 6 weeks pressure free period to explore this pathway without having to add extra pressure on myself. This proved to be a 100% correct strategy and as it turned out I cancelled the procedure just before Christmas and never looked back. I then expecting a response of amplified pain as the worry kicked in (and boy did I get it), but that just made me smile as this was my first prediction of a defence trigger. Those next 6 weeks changed my life.
Within a week I was running albeit a 25 minute mile, by week 2, I was running 3 miles every morning and by week 4 I was running 10 minute miles. I had made a clear decision to take no more pain killers and literally went cold turkey. This was hugely motivating that I had taken the power back. People started noticing the new me. No longer miserable and limping but smiling and literally bouncing through the day. By the 6th week I had gone back to the gym and completed all exercises except chin-ups where I still had a mental block (chin-ups had been part of last work out at the gym before the back pain started in January).I wasn't 100% healed, but I knew by pain had dropped by perhaps 80% and I had my life back. Steady as she goes. Take your time. I started finding the pleasures in life again. It is here I then started following the TMS wiki recovery programme (42 days?) which brought the structure I needed to my recovery. I cannot thank you enough.
I felt like Neo in the Matrix film when he started to believe. I found it useful to imagine I was Neo growing in strength and fighting back.
As it turned out, I had stumbled across a very useful healing aid in Visualisation. Now I just needed to structure my recovery, but first I needed to understanding what was going on within my mind-body. I took the time out each day, usually 45 mins to take some 'me time' to reflect and build my understanding of TMS, my current life/emotional triggers and my personality type. Building my knowledge, more than anything re-reading Sarno's Healing back pain and listening to the audio book repeatedly helped re-enforce the science. By the end of the 6 weeks, my pain level had dropped (perhaps by 90 per cent) and my entire outlook had changed. I was more outgoing, I started socialising, I injected enthusiasm for what I was discovering into my family, work and friends.
The pain remained there but more of a dull background pain that continued to fluctuate with intensity, but I had a personal plan and I was going to stick to it. I had nothing to lose and everything to win back. It's important when you heal to not pressure yourself or keep a regular diary of pain levels as this just adds pressure to your recovery. I was happy with the way I was progressing and kept hitting short term milestones. I still couldn't sit down for long periods and this remained the thorn in my side. Sarno calls this 'learnt behaviour' or 'Pavlovian conditioning' as its similar to how Pavlov conditioned his laboratory dogs to drool at the sound of a bell without the proper stimulus, ie food.
I had to unlearn this behaviour for which I used a variety of methods including visualisation and sheer will power to override. By the end of March, I was fully in control and then had the perhaps the greatest breakthrough. During recovery, Sarno talks about the pain can intensify to even greater levels than before as the brain fights back and tries to keep you focussed on a physical problem rather than the underlying emotional issues. He talks about the pain then jumping to other parts of the body.
Pain moving
I recall in March I was sleeping in the spare room as the sciatica pain was so intense – a real pain spike but I tried to remain focussed and relaxed. Then it hit me – the pain had swopped sides. I'd not noticed immediately but my left leg had stopped hurting and the pain now radiated down my right leg. I remember laughing at myself and I was overcome with laughter and joy. I had finally proven to myself 100% that this pain was self triggered and I could now control it. My brain was fighting back and trying to distract me by creating a new chronic injury that I could link back to my previous back problem. I could barely walk that night but never had I felt better in my life. I cannot explain this feeling, it's like having the greatest breakthrough in human evolution. The mind and body are one and I have the knowledge to take back control.
Over the coming weeks, I had further pain attacks in different regions; interestingly old injury sites were the target such as my right knee and both ankles. If each case, I first thought it was bad luck that I got another injury just I was coming through the sciatica/back problems. However, it soon hit me – this was my brain playing tricks again. How did I know? Well my knee issue was caused by slipping down 2 stairs, whilst it was a shock, the level of swelling and pain was not aligned to the incident. It was an over reaction. It took me a few days to realise that my brain had made another big mistake. A few weeks later I woke up in the night with a sprained ankle. How could that be? How can I sprain my ankle in my sleep laying in bed. The injury was very real, the swelling was acute and having twisted my ankle on at least 10 occasions before, it was very much the same pain, bruising and swelling. I needed to use crutches for a few days to get around and then I started wondered if this was again triggered by my brain. Surely, to sprain ones ankle I needed to go over on it whilst weight bearing.
I laughed again at my stupidity, put the crutches away, stopped taking pain killers and just got on with things. As expected, the pain and swelling subsided with a matter of a day. I now knew this was a pattern and knew how to treat. Even now, a few years after my recovery from TMS, I can still get back, knee or ankle pain but the difference is that I can now fully remove the pain in a matter of hours rather than thinking I had injured myself.
Summary
As I look back on my life to date and the large number on niggles and injuries, I stopped to wonder how much of it was physical versus TMS induced pain. It won't surprise you that I re-visited my life as part of my recovery and have been able to attribute almost every injury and pain related issue in my life to a trigger point from the time; whether work, relationship, family issues etc.
However, the camouflage was lifted I now know how to combat this disorder.
TOP TIPS -
1. re, re-read Sarnos HBP. Listen to the Audio book. I found his voice soothing. Must have listening over 100 times, literally daily!
2. Read Steve O's book, pages 120-150 really helped when stepping up my running. A great book.
3. Soothing - Meditation, Journalling, deep breathing. All explained on this site. build your knowledge of the disorder and start soothing, then I was ready to start my recovery.
4. When you are ready, use the recovery programme on this wiki. Simply amazing and brings structure to your recovery. I made 30 - 45 mins every morning to journal, meditate and then I carried out the TMS wiki daily routine.
5. Start exercising - take it easy follow the advice in Sarnos HBP book and via this wiki.
6. Think about relationships, separations - I found this to be the key.
7. Take it easy on yourself. Forgive
8. Have fun, start living again. I took up guitar, going to the cinema, seeing old friends I'd lost touch with. Re-find your life
9. Maintenance - you will have good days and bad days but keep the journalling and meditation. Simple tools, but they are cornerstones. All the guidance to do these is on this site.
10. Knowledge to understand what is happening, soothing (breathing, journalling, meditation), exercise, fun and relationships. If asked for a summary!
I also saw a TMS therapist in the Uk for an hour when I was already on the right path, just to re-confirm the diagnosis when on the right path....
THIS COMMUNITY AND WIKI IS SIMPLY AMAZING. FORREST, THE TEAM AND ALL THE PEER SUPPORT NETWORKS ARE CHANGING LIFES.
My fave quote "Dr Sarno saved the world, the world just doesn't know it yet"
Take care, Richard
