Adding TMS to the mix

[Michael D.]

I recently had some numbness on my left side and was diagnosed (after MRI) with cervical stenosis with myleopathy. Symptoms have gotten worse since the diagnosis. This was in early January, 2013.

I was wondering about the mind/psychogy, as after an endoscopy last week, all the symptoms were very subdued. I think this may of been because I was very relaxed from the drugs. When I say the symptoms receeded, I mean *ALL* of my symptoms (myleopathy, weakness in lungs from recent pneumonia, and stomach discomfort). I felt better and more energetic than I had in months.

On the other hand, I have had reflex/clonus test which can indicate nerve damage. The surgeons all said very bad and said I had to do surgery right away, but the physiatrist said it was not that bad (although he concluded at some point I would need surgery).

I wondered how I could find someone to do the physical testing for a diagnosis of TMS to see if that was also contributing to my state of mind/body.

I live in the Denver area.

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

I just watched most of Dr. Alan Gordon's TMS/PPD web site and found it very helpful.
Mostly, it reminded me that I need (again) to tell myself that my lower back pain is psychologically
caused and not structurally because I am nearly 83 years old. Yes, I know most people my age
have back pain, but also, not all do. So I have to tell myself I am not like every old person with back pain,
I am like the others who do not have any. Why do I still have back pain after being relieved of the
other pain I had several months ago? I believed that pain was psychological.

So I will work on that, that my aging back is not causing me pain but something(s) psychological are.
I think I've journaled all the reasons for my psychological pain that were people-related,
so what was left was stress caused by financial worries. I need to be positive about those worries
going away if and as I keep trying to solve them.

So the moral of my story is, to keep reminding that our pain is psychological... the basic principle of
Dr. Sarno.

And one of the best ways to reduce stress is to practice deep breathing.
And laughing.

Good luck everyone.

 

[BruceMC]

Walt: Of course I don't have access to all the statistics, but I believe the lower back pain phenomenon peaks in a general bell curve between 35 and 65 years old, and then the incidents begin to decline after 65. Interesting in this context, that my allergist at Kaiser said that allergies and asthma tend to go down or even disappear after 65 years old. So, your statement that "most people" your age have back pain is not really correct. Dr Sarno has also noticed that back pain does not increase with age and reaches the conclusion that lower lumbar pain peaks between 35 and 65 because that is the age of responsibility when adults are under the most psychological pressure - either self-imposed or from external sources - to achieve and "make it". After 65, when SS and Medicare kick in, those pressures presumably begin to decline and, with them, incidents of back pain. If lower lumbar pain increased in an asymptotal curve from let's say 50 to 80, you might conclude that it's due to spinal degeneration and the increased incidence of herniated disks, bulging disks etc. etc. But since that is not the case, you have to conclude that the underlying cause for these symptoms is primarily psychophysiological in origin.

I must add that I'm not an MD and don't have these statistics at my finger tips, but this is the gist of what Dr Sarno believes to be the case. In the physical therapy clinic that I used to go to back in 2001-2003, it seemed like most of the back pain patients who went there were what you would call early middle aged - mid-forties to the mid-fifties. It seems like this is the point where people who still feel pressured to achieve begin to confront mortality, creating a double stress in their lives. To generalize from my experience with this patient population, it seemed like most of them had lost their jobs at the same time a parent either died, got sick, or began to develop dementia. This is not a hard and fast rule, but it does hold true for quite a few of the back pain patients I've encountered in physical therapy. None of them were in their 70s or 80s.

 

[Michael D.]

??? Not sure where you guys are going with my original question????

I was surmising that the drugs I took for my endoscopy reduced my minds "worrying" and so the symptoms I was having were greatly reduced.

The next question was if there were practitioners in my area who could do some of the muscle and testsingdescribed by Dr. Sarno to see if TMS could be a factor in some of my symptoms.

 

[chickenbone]

Recent studies in the field of Neurology have shown that the brain often has pain when it thinks it should have pain. It can ratchet the pain up or down depending on the mental disposition of the individual. Most of my pain is gone since I have been working on my TMS (and I have osteoporosis and scoliosis along with a few other "osis" that doctors get upset about, but are not known generally to be painful conditions). I have some symptoms that I believe are TMS equivalents, like allergies, asthma and sleeping problems. I have used my TMS methods to get rid of pain when it is only psychological, but also to reduce the severity of my symptoms, even if there is some possibly of them being partially physical (don't really know). I believe that TMS training is good for everyone because it shows that we do have some control over how much pain we experience, even when there is a physical issue. It helps alleviate a lot of needless suffering. I have generally been successful in separating my symptoms from the "FEAR" of symptoms. Fear will always cause pain and make existing pain worse. Freedom
from the fear of symptoms, that gets you into the endless loop of pain-fear-more pain-more fear, is so empowering.

 

[BruceMC]

Sorry, Michael D., to have taken a detour into geriatrics and TMS, but Walt led me down the primrose path. It sounds as though what you need is to be diagnosed as having TMS by a bona fide TMS doctor. The following list on the TMS Wiki should provide the information you need to find one in your area:

http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/Find_a_TMS_Doctor_or_Therapist

I see several TMS therapists in and around Denver, and one of them may be able to connect you with a TMS doctor. Personally, I think that any symptom can function as a TMS equivalent, even a head cold or a rash. They all can distract you from powerful emotions you'd rather not experience. But it takes a real TMS physician to diagnose your individual case. On this forum we are only here to provide support. That is, we cannot diagnose, prescribe or treat a medical condition. I do know that being diagnosed with TMS by a qualified physician is often a first step the speeds up the healing process.

 

[Michael D.]

Got it Bruce. Thanks.