mikeinlondon
Well known member
I know the sensations I feel are TMS and I send my brain messages of safety throughout the day. Messages of safety may include "... my body is okay and resilient". However, sometimes my brain comes back to me with thoughts along the lines of "your body isn't fine, you know you've got crohn's disease". I do indeed have crohn's disease of the colon. I hate the medical term "crohn's disease" because it implies abnormality in the function of the body. In fact, I believe the fear of having a diseased organ fuels fear and contributed to the stress in my life over the past few years. I prefer the term "colitis" i.e. inflammation of the colon rather than a reference to "disease". I hate some medical terms. Lets stick with colitis which is factually correct. Anyways, the more I understand TMS the more I'm starting to believe that colitis, in my case, is in fact TMS. The medical industry says that colitis is autoimmune i.e. immune system attacks the body's own cells. Ok, so I ask myself what ultimately controls and regulats the immune function i.e. is it the brain? A simple query in AI says:
"Absolutely—it’s a fascinating and intimate connection. The brain and the immune system are in constant communication, a relationship often referred to as the neuroimmune connection"
So, now I'm thinking my colitis = TMS. I know my colitis got more severe when I was dealing with more emotional baggage in my life i.e. reliving childhood memories. My GI says stress and trauma can trigger or worsen colitis so that validates the link to TMS.
I recall reading a book on TMS that said colitis is TMS (Sarno, Shubiner, Gordon??? One of those guys). Dan B interviewed a guy with another autoimmune - RA - and he got his symptoms in remission using TMS therapy. That is purely anecdotal and not a study so I'm not putting too much weight to it.
For those of you with deep experience of TMS what is your thinking of autoimmune and the connection to TMS? There seems to be some mixed opinions on autoimmune colitis:
https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/is-ulcerative-colitis-tms-ppd.8864/ (Dr. Clarke - Is Ulcerative Colitis TMS/PPD?)
https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/is-colitis-tms.11677/ (Alan G. - Is colitis TMS?)
Note: These posts are ten years old so views may have changed since then.
I do not know who Dr Clarke is nor his credibility but he says: "... in 25 years practicing as a board-certified gastroenterologist I did not observe much of a link between UC and psychosocial issues and do not believe it should be considered a form of PPD (or TMS). I am not aware of any other autoimmune disorder where psychosocial issues are more than a minor contributing factor (though that may change in coming decades)." I don't agree with him. I've spoken to a couple of GI's who say there is a significant link between stress/trauma and IBD severity. Steve O says: "The key will always be to understand "why" the body attacks itself, and to understand that the body doesn't just fall apart. There are reasons for the physical effects. " Although he didn't clarify why. Why does it attack itself and what are the reasons for this? Maybe the book The Body says No has the answers. Has anyone here read it?
I started my TMS journey three months ago and I'm now coming to the conclusion that most of the "ills" in my life was triggered by the brain and that my body is fine. I used to blame my body and now I feel it was the scapegoat. I'm learning to befriend my body now. I hug it everyday to show it love. Funny story, I was in the US in 2000 and I heard on TV that a bad flu is in the area and to take pre-cautions. I then thought to myself "oh no, I'm gonna catch this" and felt fear. I kid you not, within a few days I caught the flue and was bed bound. Did I actually catch the flu or was it TMS? I will never know for sure.
When my TMS got so bad recently the first symptom I felt was anticipatory fear i.e. anxiety. I felt so much fear but I didn't know what I was fearful of. This fear/anxiety was so severe (I believe a H Pylori infection triggered it but then became chronic i.e. like long covid). The emotional fear/anxiety then manifested as physical sensations i.e. pain and discomfort. I've come to the conclusion that fear/anxiety = pain/discomfort = TMS. My reasoning behind this is that I've had really bad acute pain before from tissue/nerve irritation e.g. tooth pain or colitis pains. Such pain was horrid and disabling but I never felt anxiety/fear when experiencing this pain. It was just severe pain which was horrid. The pains I'm now experiencing seems to be tethered to emotional states of fear/anxiety. I've never experienced this before. When I feel the sensations of pain I feel fear/anxiety as if there is an association. The pain almost feels artificial and not real. It feels like emotional energy of anxiety/fear manifesting as physical pain. This is TMS pain i.e. fear based pain. Does this make any sense at all to anyone or is this all in "my head"?
One other query. I'm very sensitive to meds and psychological meds are not an option for me but out of curiosity I have a question. For the sake of argument lets accept this equation: anticipatory fear = anxiety = TMS = physical pain (in my case I don't believe rage is a significant factor in my symptoms). If I were to take an anti-anxiety med like Sertraline and say that med worked perfectly i.e. reduced fear/anxiety in the CNS/brain and I felt calm and free. Would that get rid of the pain or would the pain still persist as the brain would still send out danger signals in the form of physical pain? I do wonder if anyone tried this approach.
"Absolutely—it’s a fascinating and intimate connection. The brain and the immune system are in constant communication, a relationship often referred to as the neuroimmune connection"
So, now I'm thinking my colitis = TMS. I know my colitis got more severe when I was dealing with more emotional baggage in my life i.e. reliving childhood memories. My GI says stress and trauma can trigger or worsen colitis so that validates the link to TMS.
I recall reading a book on TMS that said colitis is TMS (Sarno, Shubiner, Gordon??? One of those guys). Dan B interviewed a guy with another autoimmune - RA - and he got his symptoms in remission using TMS therapy. That is purely anecdotal and not a study so I'm not putting too much weight to it.
For those of you with deep experience of TMS what is your thinking of autoimmune and the connection to TMS? There seems to be some mixed opinions on autoimmune colitis:
https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/is-ulcerative-colitis-tms-ppd.8864/ (Dr. Clarke - Is Ulcerative Colitis TMS/PPD?)
https://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/is-colitis-tms.11677/ (Alan G. - Is colitis TMS?)
Note: These posts are ten years old so views may have changed since then.
I do not know who Dr Clarke is nor his credibility but he says: "... in 25 years practicing as a board-certified gastroenterologist I did not observe much of a link between UC and psychosocial issues and do not believe it should be considered a form of PPD (or TMS). I am not aware of any other autoimmune disorder where psychosocial issues are more than a minor contributing factor (though that may change in coming decades)." I don't agree with him. I've spoken to a couple of GI's who say there is a significant link between stress/trauma and IBD severity. Steve O says: "The key will always be to understand "why" the body attacks itself, and to understand that the body doesn't just fall apart. There are reasons for the physical effects. " Although he didn't clarify why. Why does it attack itself and what are the reasons for this? Maybe the book The Body says No has the answers. Has anyone here read it?
I started my TMS journey three months ago and I'm now coming to the conclusion that most of the "ills" in my life was triggered by the brain and that my body is fine. I used to blame my body and now I feel it was the scapegoat. I'm learning to befriend my body now. I hug it everyday to show it love. Funny story, I was in the US in 2000 and I heard on TV that a bad flu is in the area and to take pre-cautions. I then thought to myself "oh no, I'm gonna catch this" and felt fear. I kid you not, within a few days I caught the flue and was bed bound. Did I actually catch the flu or was it TMS? I will never know for sure.
When my TMS got so bad recently the first symptom I felt was anticipatory fear i.e. anxiety. I felt so much fear but I didn't know what I was fearful of. This fear/anxiety was so severe (I believe a H Pylori infection triggered it but then became chronic i.e. like long covid). The emotional fear/anxiety then manifested as physical sensations i.e. pain and discomfort. I've come to the conclusion that fear/anxiety = pain/discomfort = TMS. My reasoning behind this is that I've had really bad acute pain before from tissue/nerve irritation e.g. tooth pain or colitis pains. Such pain was horrid and disabling but I never felt anxiety/fear when experiencing this pain. It was just severe pain which was horrid. The pains I'm now experiencing seems to be tethered to emotional states of fear/anxiety. I've never experienced this before. When I feel the sensations of pain I feel fear/anxiety as if there is an association. The pain almost feels artificial and not real. It feels like emotional energy of anxiety/fear manifesting as physical pain. This is TMS pain i.e. fear based pain. Does this make any sense at all to anyone or is this all in "my head"?
One other query. I'm very sensitive to meds and psychological meds are not an option for me but out of curiosity I have a question. For the sake of argument lets accept this equation: anticipatory fear = anxiety = TMS = physical pain (in my case I don't believe rage is a significant factor in my symptoms). If I were to take an anti-anxiety med like Sertraline and say that med worked perfectly i.e. reduced fear/anxiety in the CNS/brain and I felt calm and free. Would that get rid of the pain or would the pain still persist as the brain would still send out danger signals in the form of physical pain? I do wonder if anyone tried this approach.
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