Abrams Story

Hello all,
nice to meet you. Here is my story so far. (please excuse my poor English)

PAST

It all started at the age of 18. From playing the guitar 4 hours a day, I got a “tenosynovitis”- like the doctors called it. A world broke down for me and I never was able to get back to play entirely.

In the next years I got ups and downs with my hand pain, and I have had to give up certain hobbies, or the pain would come back. For example bowling, weight lifting, PC games etc.

At the age of 23 I developed an anxiety disorder.

With 25 I`ve had a lot of pain and fear, including back pain, tenosynovitis and some physical minor issues. I went to psychotherapy for about 15 months and after that, I was able handle my fear most of the time. Anyway I felt physically restricted and a deep underlying fear of ending disabled and suffering.

With the age of 28 I became father and it seemed, I was developing all kind of little health issues, which more and more where restricting my life (all kind of paresthesia and pain).

With 29 I got a second job, and at a stressful time I felt ill and exhausted. I thought it was some kind of infection. I felt well and ill alternating about every 2 weeks and the cycle continued. Even though I thought I was mentally ok and that everything was caused physically, but the doctors couldn’t find anything abnormal. My growing health issues and related fears brought back my anxiety disorder to a new level, so I went back to psychotherapy and tried to reduce my stressors. At the same time I was obsessed with my restricting major hand pain (left AND right now), and tried again to physically get over it. Due to extreme suffering and nonstop internet research I finally came across TMS.
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NOW

I read Dr. Sarno`s “Healing Back Pain” and Scott Brady`s “Pain Free For Life” Book and found my way to tmswiki.org.

Right now I`m at day 20 of the structured educational program, but I only count days when I`m journaling. I only journal about 3 times per week, since I often felt mentally overloaded due to lots of psychological work I`m doing.

I would say I fit into the Fear- and Perfectionist prone personality.

Until now 2 major things already helped me a lot:
Outcome Dependency – it made the pain much more sufferable and that also reduced fear.
Finding a mental relation to the pain – I found out that I feel ill, when I am around my family at the weekends, that means I get stressed by my child, wife & personality traits. I also learned that my back pain and leg pain get worse, when I have a stressful/fearful time. For me that makes TMS real. Too bad I didn’t find that connection for my hand pain until now.
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QUESTION

I have a question where I can`t find the answer:

A physical therapist brought me to this question. He said that most people have psycho-physiological pain sometimes in their lives, due to stress leading to tension, leading to pain. But he didn’t know that the brain can reduce blood flow due to repressed emotions.
So is there a line between “common psychosomatic pain” and TMS/PPD?
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If you have any question or suggestion, please feel free to post!

Right now I can`t believe that I wrote this text with nearly no pain in my hands??


Cheers
​

 

Second day without pain, today i worked about 3 hours with the PC, i cant believe it! I think that was the missing TMS proof for my hands.
So thinking and writing about my pain & fear story did the trick i guess.
Lets see how it goes on

 

Hi abraham,

I think your story is typical of many people who suffer TMS. The connections you make, as you write your life history with pain and anxiety are probably supportive in that they give you a deeper evidence that you suffer from TMS. So just writing about this probably takes your "belief in TMS" to a deeper level. Much of this belief may not even be conscious; it is working on deeper levels, and then now you are enjoying the benefits!!

I don't worry too much about a perfect correlation between what the physical therapist says that supports your TMS condition and the words of Dr. Sarno. It is natural to look for evidence and good correlation, as we remove doubts about our TMS diagnosis. But the proof seems to be your relief right now. Your clarity and precision, and watching patterns seems to be paying off!

No matter what happens from here, even if you get some set backs, contemplate every day the breakthrough you just had. It does not take much of this "miracle" experience to completely undo the pain patterns. Just bring your mind back, lovingly to the change in the pattern, the relief. Let this understanding, experience soak in.

Andy B

 

Congrats, Abraham, on your progress! You can count days in the SEP however you wish. I was so eager for healing that at first I rushed it. Glad you're doing better with pacing yourself.
@Andy B said it well. Focus on working the SEP, and enjoy your results thus far.
Blessings on your journey.

 

thanks you so much, i have had some little flare ups today- i guess there is still a lot of work to do

 

Thanks for your post. Hey, what is Outcome Dependency?

 

Sorry, "outcome independence".

 

I googled it because I still didn't know. Very interesting. Thank you for sharing.

 

Hello, im back after about 8 months of getting more and more depressed and painfull.
I stopped the Structured Educational Program at day 25 because i felt i was not getting anything out of it anymore.
I tried one last REAL physical approach with a hand expert team. X-Ray, ultrasonics and other tests showed nothing.
Only the expert said, i have a huge amount of tension in my hands and body and it can take some time to get more relaxed,
since my hole body is tense and thats part of my being since i was a child.
After a few months of intese physiotherapy, the expert said i should be fine and i have no handycap at all - I can do whatever
i want and i am healthy. I left with some relaxation exercices... still in pain, researching the internet
for days to find a way out of my situation. This really made me more depressed and fearfull.

The pain only came when using the Computer or doing other repetitive hand work. once i got a flare up, it took about
2 weeks of getting "painfree"... and it took always more and more time to "heal" after the next flare up.
I was totally in fear about getting handpain and the related consequences.
My feelings where split: perfect family life where i couldnt be more happy... but a lacking passion for personal hobbies/developement due to my pain.
That was the time i came across another TMS book via internet called " Chronic Pain: Your key to recovery ".

The next days where strange due to really accepting TMS. ...to be continued...