Allergies after Eliminating TMS?

Alright people,

So basically my TMS recovery has been pretty much flawless, I eliminated all my pain and when I feel it coming I'm armed with the tools to stop it. However ever since early January I have been suffering from a whole host of upper nasal and Eustachian tube problems. I was nearing the end of my first walkthrough of Alan's new Pain Program when this started and it basically started out of no where. I have never been allergic to anything and never once had any issues with anything outside. I also exercise and run outside 5 times a week for the last 5 years and never had a issue either. Out of no where I started to experience a slight "muffle" to a crazy fluid trap feeling in my ear, I haven't been able to fully pop open my left tube in awhile. I had some pretty insane post nasal drip for about a week, I didn't even know I could produce that much mucus!! I have drained all the fluid from it I'm pretty sure but I just can't open it up and it's pretty painful. The best way I could explain it as a like having glue and popcorn in your ear. Anyways I haven't really had effective results from meds either. I have a mild tinnitus too which makes me depressed sometimes but I know it isn't anything bad and will clear up when I eliminate the issue. I saw a doctor just too make sure it wasn't a ear infection and he said I probably just have "blocked tubes" But I feel the issue runs deeper in the brain with my recent recoveries. What I'm leading to is has anyone recovered from Allergies and developed pain or vise versa with the elimination of a symptom? Has anyone experienced Eustachian Tube Dysfunction or Patulous Eustachian Tubes and recovered with TMS and or developed other symptoms after eliminating the issue if you did?

 

Hi IceBergs,
My TMS journey began with a diagnosis of eustachian tube dysfunction-- that's what my first symptoms mimicked. I don't have it any more---My brain has changed its way of getting my attention! In regards to allergies: I have not had allergies since I discovered I have TMS however in looking at my history I realized that the time in my life that I did have allergies -- no doubt in my mind now it was TMS then too. Dr. Schubiner tells a story in his "unlearn your pain" book of a someone he knows having an attack of sneezing and runny nose, congestion that came on suddenly in the middle of a conversation he didn't want to be having--that he was "allergic to" in a TMS sense.

 

IceBergs, I couldn't put it better than @iwire has.

Here's the thing, which I don't think is emphasized enough. TMS is not a disease that you can cure once and forever. It's is actually a primitive brain mechanism designed to keep you alive in a very ancient primitive world, by keeping you on your toes with fear.

Your brain will keep trying to repress negative emotions as you encounter them in your normal life, and it will come up with brand-new symptoms just to fool you and keep you in fear. When you consider that your brain is in charge of all physiological processes and sensations in your body, you'll realize it has essentially an infinite bag of trick to draw from.

Congratulations on your success so far! Your goal now is to get to the point where thinking psychologically instead of physically becomes second nature, and you will trust your instincts well enough that you'll be able to tell the difference between a brain-generated TMS symptom, and something you should absolutely pay attention to.

These are your very good instincts at work here!

 

My journey mirrors yours exactly... I was able to stop the TMS back pain symptoms last year then I immediately began experiencing a runny nose and sinus issues that involved my throat too. I dealt with this up until recently when I got wise to the fact my TMS symptoms shifted to allergies. Since re-reading TMS literature and journaling heavily again recently my runny nose has disappeared and my throat is getting better

 

I have the same thing going on. Long term post nasal drip. I have been working on digestive issues that come and go but seem to be getting a handle on that by taking a deep breath and repeating like a mantra " let go". Then i just say NO! I'm going about my life now, and I stop focusing on it. It's working for that. Main thing about the nasal stuff is it's making me a little crazy as it's chronic. I get very few breaks from feeling it behind my soft palate... not moving... not going anywhere... just THERE! irritating the hell out if me. Ok...i vented...now I've just got to deal with it like all tms symptoms. Psychologically! It takes a lot of repetition to counter the long term focus and repetitive thoughts we have been having.

 

Hello!

I just seen your email here, I haven't been on this blog in years. In The recent years I have tackled it completely. I have no pain anywhere, no popping anymore. I just moved on through it ignoring it and caring for myself and I feel amazing! Youll come through!

 

thank you, IceBergs. I needed to hear this today!

 

Hi! How did you overcome Eustachian tube dysfunction, through journaling?

 

Hi IceBergs, how did you overcome this? It’s been a year and still cant find a TMS tool that helps

 

I've been reading this thread and I see that some of you suffer from Patulous Eustachian Tube (PET). PET is different from eustachian tube dysfunction. In PET, the eustachian tube does not close properly. It is supposed to open when one swallows or yawns, and then it closes immediately--but in PET the tube doesn't do this and so it remains open, and one may experience a feeling of fullness in the ear, tinnitus, and autophony (the abnormal hearing of one's own voice, breathing or swallowing). The characteristic feature of PET is improvement when you lower your head down to your lap.

I've had PET on/off for about five years now, but I put it down to allergies. However, recently I realised that each time I could hear my own voice inside my head, echoing loudly and driving me insane, all I had to do was lower my head onto my lap for a moment and everything just disappeared. Mind you, once you bring your head back up the autophony may come back immediately, but sometimes it just goes away and it leaves you in peace. Lying down also makes it go away, but it may return once you get back up. In any case, this is the hallmark symptom of PET, and I found this out by researching all the articles I could find on this condition.

Anyway, it only dawned on me recently that PET may be yet another form of TMS. After five years of this PET thing I started to feel better (I guess I was too busy worrying about other TMS issues I have, which total to about 24 different conditions thus far), and so I never paid much attention to PET. But a few weeks back I went through some horrible anxiety/depression and worrying about some new conditions that came up, and I noticed that once I was able to relax, knowing the conditions were not as bad as I thought, I lost my fear, and PET came back to haunt me with a vengeance. I guess my brain had to find something to terrify me

So it seems to me that once I overcome one thing, another rears its ugly head, and then I get rid of that thing, and yet another thing will happen. It just never seems to stop. I'm disappointed that PET is back to drive me insane, but I hope that I will eventually be able to get rid of it.

 

Hey there, @Syl, it's been awhile since we've had the benefit of your support here! Good news/bad news kind of thing, right? It's nice to receive the benefit of your experience once again , but I'm sorry you're having to report a setback . It seems to be the name of the game these days, because you sure as heck are not alone in these trying times!

Anyway, that's a really interesting observation about yet another condition that seems to come and go along with stress levels.

I'm strongly of the opinion, which is getting stronger all the time, that there isn't any physical condition that can't be helped in some way by adopting a constructive self-healing mindset with strong mindbody tools. The hardest issue for many of us is overcoming our entrenched anxiety.

~Jan

 

Dear Jan, how great to hear from you! I've been offline because I've been really busy working through all these TMS things, some of which make me go into huge panic attacks! And I've also been emailing poor Dr Schubiner, always telling him about my new conditions in order to get some reassurance from him. I have to say I really appreciate the fact he replies to all my emails, but I'm surprised I haven't driven him crazy with all my conditions I recently wrote to him re PET as well, so I'm now awaiting his response, but I have a feeling that he'll say PET is indeed TMS.

I have also been working on all my emotions and telling my brain to stop creating even more pain, etc, etc, and I've been able to make some things go away, but others always seem to rear their ugly head to replace those conditions that have improved, and so I'm beginning to think I'm cursed or something, and I don't even believe in curses! Aaarrrggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hope you are doing well. You certainly sound like you've got it together and I admire you very much. I think we can learn so much from you. I appreciate your advice. I may not always reply in threads, but I have read a lot of your posts and have always found them helpful.

Syl

 

Hi, how did your tackle this? I have is so bad. Going on for 9 months after a ear infection. I have pain, clicking, popping and a feeling of fullness and pressure.

 

What did Howard said about PET?

 

How did so solve it and how did it start?

 

Hello,
I've been doing tons of research in regards to PET (patulous eustachian tube)--NOT to be confused with ETD, which is eustachian tube dysfunction). Unfortunately, no one seems to know what causes this horrible condition, although most ENT doctors think it could be:

• Weight loss
• Chronic neuromuscular or immunological disease
• Chronic nasal allergy
• A history of acid reflux disease
• Stress and anxiety

There was only one site I saw which pronounced PET as being "idiopathic", meaning they have no idea what can cause this condition. This is when I jumped on TMS. After all, the brain always seems to be the culprit! Dr Schubiner did agree this made sense, but the problem is that as far as I know no one in the medical community has been able to prove exactly what causes PET, hence the reason they throw a whole bunch of suggestions as to what could be causing it.

I can only answer for myself and say that I haven't had sudden weight loss (like it's got to be a lot of weight loss in a short span of time), as far as I know I don't suffer from a neuromuscular or immunological disease, I don't have any allergies that I know of, but I do have some intolerances to certain foods due to silent reflux (which came on abruptly into my life in 2017 and which shortly thereafter gave me some symptoms of PET (but at the time I didn't recognise this and thought it was the weather changes causing ear symptoms). As for stress and anxiety, this is the only condition I have lived with since I was born!

The thing is, PET is considered to be a rare condition, affecting around 0.3 to 0.6% of the world population, and yet billions out there have acid reflux, and billions more have stress and anxiety, allergies are common as is weight loss, and even neuromuscular and immunological conditions are common. So my question is: HOW COME HALF THE WORLD DOESN'T HAVE PET? And this is how I reasoned that it must be a TMS condition. I also agree that billions of people have TMS out there, some without even knowing it, but we know the brain picks whatever condition it wants to pick on, and not necessarily PET. So my point is that PET is indeed "idiopathic", as some doctors believe, but no one can prove 100% that it's TMS and so the condition will remain "idiopathic".

The trick here is to find a whole bunch of people who KNOW THEY HAVE TMS and who have also had PET and they were able to eliminate it via the TMS methodology.

In conclusion, I believe PET is possibly a TMS manifestation, and Dr Schubiner tends to agree with my conclusion.

If there is anyone out there who has been diagnosed with PET and they've been able to eradicate it via TMS I would love to hear from them!

 

I was extremely under weight when I wrote this. Borderline anorexic. I've added around 10-15 pounds and it went away

 

Oh, if only I could put on weight! I also happen to suffer from acid reflux (since 2018) and I am on a low acid diet, which is so healthy (but rather bland) that I lost heaps of weight--but the weight was lost in a slow and healthy way, and over a period of 14 months, but now I cannot seem to put on any weight at all. If I eat anything fatty or a little junk food I get all sorts of horrid symptoms. Ironically, PET started bothering me at the same time as I developed silent reflux, and at that time I hadn't yet lost any weight. This is why, in my case, I know PET did not develop due to weight loss. The only one thing that's at the root of all I have has got to be very high levels of anxiety (which I've had from age 14 years... well probably before this because I've experienced a traumatic childhood).

So on top of all this, including LPR (silent reflux), I have been dealing with pudendal neuralgia, fibromyalgia, both of which I still have, anxiety/panic attacks, painful bladder syndrome, IBS, and now PET.

Therefore, if the brain is looking to drive one crazy... well, it's working! Can else can I say?

 

At the end of day a lot of that stuff comes down to nerves and anxiety, one of the reasons I lost so much weight was anxiety and OCD. A lot of the issues I had pain wise would revert or get better with mind work. If there's anything I 've learned about bodies is that regardless of whatever you believe TMS wise is the Brain is the root of the problem. For any of my issues I just needed a way to let go. I haven't studied "tms" in years because I found out how to communicate with myself. Matter of fact I don't even call it anything anymore because it isn't anything at all. One of the ways I helped my issues out was doing the first thing my brain thought of in a situation, for example calling somebody back if I would sit and think about it then create scenarios then do my 2nd or 3rd choice and always wonder about my first choice then I would start to hurt shake not eat etc. It's just not worth dealing with all that, that's just a small example of finding answers for me and myself

 

Hi @IceBergs

I was just sitting at my computer as your message came through. Good timing!
I came to the same conclusion re the brain being the root of the problem. This is why I sometimes think we'd all be better off with a lobotomy Ha! Just a little of my morbid humour. Having said this, I tend to talk to my brain a lot and I explain that we are safe (the brain and my body), and I reassure it and encourage it to let go of the rage and simply relax. I assure it that I am here and I can deal with the emotions side of things (ie. seeing as the brain is causing all these problems because it doesn't want to face the repressed rage under any circumstances); so I tell it I'm okay handling the emotions so the brain doesn't have to. I thought this would give it some reassurance, and sometimes it does because I can manage to tone down certain pains, etc. Unfortunately, however, I am not a very patient person and so I end up giving the brain a bit of a lecture. Then I stop myself and say: "What am I doing, talking to my own brain? It's crazy!" And so I pretty much order the brain to reset its current settings back to "SAFE", and then I hope for the best.

On the other hand, if I don't wish to talk to the brain, I simply and totally let go and I think to myself that this is the way it is and the more I lose the anxiety/fear about a health condition it kind of eventually goes or it tones right down. The trick is not to care what happens either way and really mean it. And this is where I'm up to.

Having said all this, the brain waits until things calm down and then it finds yet another condition to bring up. It's like it just has to make matters worse for me and sometimes I feel I'm fighting against an enemy.

Well, I guess I may have to threaten it with a lobotomy after all!