Day 1 Accepting the diagnosis

Hi everyone, so last week after a horrible few months I began to convince myself I have TMS. Over the past few days my pain has occasionally reduced, although it's still more or less constant. I'm now beginning the SEP as I've now had the chance to read some of Sarno's own work.

I guess this post is going to be a sort of public journal, starting by outlining the reasons I have TMS.

The type of pain I'm suffering from is chronic epididymitis, which although seems an uncommon TMS symptom compared to back pain, neck pain etc. is still mentioned a lot on the forums and on the internet as a TMS symptom - so it can be caused by TMS. Here's my original post if anyone wants to take a look http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/chronic-testicular-pain-long-read.11725/

Doctors first began by telling me I had an infection, and I took many courses of antibiotics and every time there would be some short term improvement but the pain would always return to being just as bad as it was before.

As well as the testicular pain, I had low back pain, abdominal pain, and leg pain that went down to my knee! If I had an infection severe enough to cause pain in ALL those places it would have definitely shown up on the many, many blood and urine tests I did!

After deciding the cause probably wasn't an infection, I looked into physical causes and problems with my back or hip - which are said to occasionally cause testicle pain. I saw many physiotherapists, some of which specialised in trigger point therapy. They told me I had a few issues which COULD cause my pain, but none seemed at all sure. However, if I did have a physical cause for my pain like a hip or low back problem, then why am I able to run and do any physical activity I want without the pain getting worse? (in fact it gets better!). The pain is often worse in the hours after the exercises, but this seems to be common for TMS so actually supports the diagnosis.

A physical cause just doesn't seem to make sense in my case. The pain gets better or worse seemingly at random - I used to think it was sitting down that makes it worse, then standing up, or twisting my back, when in fact there really isn't any reliable pattern to it APART FROM MY MOOD. If I'm feeling worse and hopeless about my condition, I feel much worse. If I manage to just get on with things I will usually feel much better - even if the pain doesn't go away completely.

Based on all of this, a physical cause seems very unlikely. I've had so many investigations from doctors and nothing remotely conclusive has been found that could point towards a physical cause. I've even had ultrasounds and a CT scan to look for hernias and kidney stones - all came back negative.

As well as all this evidence, I fit the psychological profile of TMS pretty well. Although I'm not really a perfectionist, I am quite driven and hard on myself. I can also recognise a few things in my life I'm very angry about. Some of which I made a conscious decision to try and ignore - not long before all my symptoms began!

Would love to know what anyone thinks about all this. To me it seems pretty likely I have TMS, but the more people that reinforce the diagnosis for me the better!

Thanks for your time,

Ben

 

Hi, Ben. First let me assure you, your penis problem is not structural because doctors were wrong that it was from an infection but medication didn't cure it. You say you are angry about some things. That could very well be the cause of your pain because as Dr. S arno says, our subconscious sends pain so that we discover our harmful repressed emotions.

Your doctor said you suffer from chronic epididymitis. He was wrong that it was because of an infection, so I would be skeptical of his dianosis. YOu may not have that at all. I doubt an infection would last that long. I think your ailment is emotional.

The SEProgram helped many including me to heal from severe back pain by my journaling to discover anger and feelings of abandonment and insecurity when my parents divorced when I was seven. Our repressed emotions often go back to our childhood. The thing is, Dr. Sarno says we don't have to solve any emotional problems. It is enough to recognize them, then the subconscious stops the pain.

You have definitely come to the right place to heal. Here is something to read often, maybe daily. Dr. Sarno's 12 Daily Reminders, from his book Healing Back Pain. This is a very good longer version:

Herbie’s Extended Version of Dr. Sarno’s 12 DAILY REMINDERS

1. The pain is due to TMS. This is real pain or anxiety but it is caused by subconscious tensions and triggers, stressors and traits to your reactions and fears and also when at boiling point your conscious tension can and does also cause real pain.
2. The main reason for the pain is mild oxygen deprivation. This means that when you get in pain or anxiety then the blood is restricted from going to your lower back, for instance. The blood being restricted causes oxygen deprivation which causes the pain. Remember, where there is no oxygen then there is pain in the body. Also, the pain stays because of fear.
3. TMS is a harmless condition caused by my REPRESSED EMOTIONS so even though you think you can harm yourself from the years of pain you have felt and how you feel in general -- so far no reports have been heard from TMS healing knowledge causing damage to anyone, it only helps.
4. The principle emotion is your repressed ANGER -- this means under your consciousness lies something that happens automatically to everyone. TMSers have repressions that are stored because of our personality traits, traumas, stressors, fears, strain, etc... When these stored repressions build and build, then eventually they cause the brain to send pain into your body to keep you from having an emotional crises. The mind-body thinks it is helping you.
5. TMS exists to DISTRACT your attentions from the emotions, stressors, tensions and strains of your personality traits because if you can get distraction then you won’t have to be in emotional turmoil. When you don't face and feel your emotions and they get repressed because you didn't want to deal with something -- they are just adding up in this beaker, ready to pour over and create real pain and anxiety in your body.
6. Since my body is perfectly normal, there is nothing to fear. So in reality when I fear the pain or anxiety I just cause myself undo strain and tension adding to the beaker of pain. If I fear, then I feed the pain, If I fear, it’s impossible to recondition. Fear keeps the pain and anxiety alive in the body through focus.
7. Therefore, physical activity is harmless. If I want to work against the pain I could but it’s better to lose some of the pain so when I start my life over I have to be in pain trying to heal because facing the repressions and all the other activities that cause the pain and reversing my fear and focus to them, then I can heal.
8. I am resuming all normal physical activity. I don't fear moving anymore. I believe in my body’s ability to heal now. I can move as I want. I will not fear moving with a bent back anymore. I will also practice going out and acting normal again, not in fear of what pain might do to me.
9. The pain is unimportant and powerless. Its only power is how it is hidden -- its illusion, its fear.
10. I will keep my attention on the emotional issues. I will think about my emotions and feel my emotions throughout the day. I will not judge, criticize or fear my emotions. I will not run from my emotional issues but face every one of them. I will feel my emotions fully and cry if I need to. Then I will release the emotion and get my mind and thoughts back to my life and living in the present.
11. I am in control of all of this. This is how I recover.
12. I will be thinking PSYCHOLOGICALLY AT ALL TIMES. This means I will keep my thoughts on psychological issues like happiness, fear and anger -- traits and triggers, conditioning and journaling -- The science behind mind-body/TMS healing, etc.... This way I will not feed my thoughts to the body -- that is a trick of TMS. TMS will always try to get me to focus on the body caused by the pain until I break its show and flair. When I get my attention off physical symptoms and on to emotional issues and psychological issues then I will not feed the fear of the physical issues anymore, thus making the TMS of no pain effect on the body. This will in return, give us the cure and become pain-free.