Can a delayed response be conditioned?

Hi all,

Apparently, I'm not entirely certain my problems are all psychological, even with my new (although I didn't have time to ask my many many questions) diagnosis of TMS. Here's my situation: my issue is lower back. On a good day, it's stiff and achy. On a bad day, it also has pain spasms and sort of buckles (although that's usually used in reference to knees, but it seems like it fails to hold me up and I sort of dip down like with a buckled knee) when I stand up or sometimes going up or down stairs or similar motions. I've been having mostly "good" days. The weird thing is that actions that seem to make me worse (I know TMS theory says it's emotions/thoughts) make me worse LATER, which really seems like it's a physical issue. For example, I don't hurt when I'm sitting, I hurt when I try to get up after sitting for an extended time. It doesn't happen if I'm walking, sit for ten seconds, and then stand. Only if I've been sitting. And it almost always surprises me. Today I ran (only in one-minute intervals, but still something I haven't done in a long time) and now, 12 hours later, I'm not just sore but getting the bad spasms and buckling. I stopped running not primarily because it hurt while I was doing it but because I just couldn't take the pain the next day. Is this conditioning, or should I go back and grill the doctor about it?

 

I'm just going to answer the question in your title, because I'm one of those people who never went to see a TMS doctor - I knew I had TMS before I was through reading The Divided Mind, and I'd already been assured by a number of health practitioners that there was nothing wrong with me, so I didn't see the point. I self-diagnosed, and I got my life back. It's all in my profile story along with a reading and resource list. One of my many symptoms back then was "shaky legs".

The simple answer to your question, is Yes, absolutely, conditioned responses can be delayed. Just do a little research into phantom limb pain if you need to be convinced of that.

We have a lot of members here who obsess in great detail about the minutiae of their symptoms, they keep looking for others who have their exact symptoms, and they keep going back and back and back to doctors to be reassured that their latest symptoms are TMS. We don't see them achieve much recovery while they are in this phase.

My suggestion to you is to stay engaged and keep posting (I saw that you're on Day 33!) but be extremely general when describing your symptoms. Just say "back pain" and refrain from going into detail. When it's TMS, the details really don't matter, so the more that you get used to that mind set, and the more it becomes second nature to generalize your TMS, the more progress you will make.

Good luck!

~Jan

 

Hi, Cara. Jan has given you excellent advice. Try not to think so much about your pain. Give more thought to believing in TMS causing it. Be positive that you are going to heal. It's wonderful if you can practice positive thinking and tell yourself a mantra that you are already healed. I like "The Law of Attraction" in which you tell yourself that whatever you want, you already have, such as being pain-free. There are some excellent videos on that on Youtube.

It's good to do some exercise but start in moderation. You may have pushed yourself too much in running. I don't think you need to tell your doctor about it. He might just prescribe some pain killer, and that may help for a little while, but not solve the problem. The pain is from your emotions, which journaling will help you to discover.