Can TMS cause inflammation?

Last year I suffered with recurrent breast inflammation (mastitis) which would occur in either of my breasts, but only in one breast at a time. I was sent to my local breast clinic each time as my GP was concerned that it could be cancer (there's a form of breast cancer that manifests itself purely as inflammation, with no lumps as such, plus I am post menopause and therefore wasn't breast feeding).

I had mammograms and ultrasounds at the breast clinic, which showed absolutely nothing. They put me on antibiotics in case of bacterial infection, but one of the comments that the breast consultant made was that he thought that the inflammation was taking too long to subside on the antibiotics for it to have been caused by bacterial infection. His verdict was that it was 'just inflammation' and he just shrugged his shoulders as to what could be done about it...

Fearing that I would have to live the rest of my life intermittently taking antibiotics with all the side effects they can cause (I was told that inflammation can lead to secondary bacterial infection of the breast, which can cause abscesses and fistulas that would probably need surgery, so I needed to take the antibiotics) I did my own research. And - to cut a long story short - I determined that the cause of the mastitis might be hormonal (although post menopausal, I've never been on prescription HRT)...So, I now self medicate with natural progesterone cream that has a touch of natural oestrogen in it...And, so far so good; I still occasionally get a bit of breast pain (mastalgia), but not inflammation/mastitis (which had caused me intense pain, but also made my breasts swell, go bright red and burning hot to the touch and caused me whole-body shivering, which made my teeth chatter like my body was in shock; on none of the occasions that I got mastitis did my temperature go up).

I am now wondering whether the natural hormone cream is acting as a placebo and whether the inflammation could have been caused by TMS. Has anyone had a similar experience? Is there anything in any of the literature about TMS that has shown that it can cause inflammation anywhere in the body? I would be grateful to know if you've come across anything about it.

Thanks in advance.

 

Both Dr. Schubiner (post below) and Dr. Schechter say that TMS does not cause inflammation. You can put the word "inflammation" in the search box at the above right and find more discussion on this.

http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/threads/tms-and-inflammation.5477/#post-43061 (Dr. Schubiner - TMS and inflammation)

Hope this is helpful.

 

Thank you very much for that, Ellen. It's really helpful and answers my question.

 

That sounds painful! Now, in principle I agree with Ellen and what Dr. Schubiner and Dr. Schlechter say. But, well, I more psychoanalytical oriented psychosomatic theory inflammations can be part of a wrong bodily response to emotional and psychological pressure. It’s not a direct causal interaction.
Have you checked your hormones? Good that you have found a solution!!

 

I've not checked my hormone levels, because I'm kind of happy as the bio-identical progesterone/oestrogen cream seems to be doing the trick in stopping the inflammation, but I will get them tested if it flares up again. (It took a hell of a lot of reading up about benign breast disease and inflammation to settle on trying the bio-identical hormones; it's so frustrating when the so called 'specialists' just shrug their shoulders and don't at least try and help you.)

 

I checked out Dr. Schubiner's response above. I think it was from a few years ago and he may have updated his opinion on this, based on the course I took from him. I get what he is saying, that normally an inflammatory response is due to an injury like a fracture or sprain. However, there are clear examples of people with TMS-variants with definite inflammation present. One classic example is "CRPS" or chronic regional pain syndrome, often occurring in an arm or leg. It is diagnosed when swelling, pain and redness occur in a limb when all physical injury causes are ruled out. I've seen patients with this; it is definitely a mindbody response. Remember that the brain can cause any symptom in the body. I've seen several people diagnosed with "conversion" disorder (severe TMS) whose TMS mimics a stroke or spinal cord injury...they frequently also have some swelling.

All this to say it's not always as simple as TMS=no inflammation. I don't know about your specific experience with the breast swelling and hormones but I wouldn't rule out the possibility that it is TMS.

 

Yes, it certainly can cause inflammation. Straight from Steve Ozanich himself:

Regardless, it's always smart to get a full medical exam to be safe. As someone else already pointed out, CRPS/RSD causes swelling and is absolutely a TMS component, as confirmed by Dr. Schubiner, Steve, etc. Personally, my blood vessels constrict when I'm stressed out, causing my hands to visibly swell.

 

Yes! For example prostatitis, which we see on here a lot, causes inflammation. I definitely get lots of inflammation with bladder issues. I always test positive for leukocytes (inflammation) when my bladder is bothering me. I talked to Dr Schubiner about it- totally thought it was tms.

 

Thanks to all of presenting the latest knowledge. Readytoheal: my urologist tells me the same, because I also have sometimes leukocytes in my urine. She calls it a dysfunctional response to stress. I am very happy to have the confirmation by Dr, Schubiner (indirectly from you), I always thought my urologist is very alone with this claim. Nevertheless I believed her. Also because her and the TMS approach worked.

 

Thank you, MindBodyPT. This is most interesting to me, especially as I have another condition that could be 'conversion'/'functional' disorder. I have been diagnosed as having Ocular Myasthenia Gravis (OMG) https://www.myaware.org/ocular-myasthenia (Ocular Myasthenia). It took a considerable amount of time to get a diagnosis as neither of the two types of antibodies known to cause the condition have ever shown up in my blood and my blood has been tested many times over the years. However, I do have high thyroid antibodies (the TPO type) which cause me hypothyroidism and my eye specialist eventually accepted those antibodies as a 'substitute marker' for the OMG. I've had repeat single fibre nerve tests (the ones where they stick needles around your eyes, mainly in the 'crow's feet' and eyebrow areas - ouch!!) but they only came back as being 'mildly positive' for OMG on just one occasion...

My medical specialist was a neuro-ophthalmologist, and although he never said about it, I knew that neurologists are apt to think 'conversion/functional disorder' when none of their tests prove blatantly positive for any neurological disorder. However, as my symptoms are purely ocular (and apparently the worst they had ever seen at the eye hospital ) and the blood tests for the antibodies aren't all that sensitive anyway, my neuro was prepared to diagnose me as having OMG.

The most effective treatment for OMG is steroids and/or other auto-immune suppressants, but I decided to live with the binocular double vision and my droopy eyelids because I didn't want to suffer the serious side effects of those powerful drugs...which has meant that the diagnosis has never been confirmed by treatment (albeit that any positive response to treatment might have been a placebo effect).

The 'Sword of Damocles' is over my head is that OMG can become generalised in the body, albeit the longer you have OMG the less likely the muscle weakness is to 'spread'. I've had the condition for over 10 years and it usually generalises within 3 years of first getting symptoms (if it's going to generalise at all) but I do know of someone who got generalised myasthenia after 15 years of having OMG. It's difficult to know whether my OMG is actually TMS/conversion/functional disorder because there's a possibility that there are yet to be discovered different types of antibodies that can cause the disease. (One of the known antibodies was only discovered in recent years, so it's not beyond the realms.)

It will be interesting as to whether my doing mind/body techniques will relieve my eye symptoms. I will obviously post up about it if they improve or disappear. Thanks again for your reply. (Btw apologies if you already know all about MG, but I thought I'd post up with explanations for anyone reading this who might be suffering similar symptoms and has no medical knowledge of it. Also, sorry that I seem to have written an 'essay' about all of this!!)

 

Thank you so much @Caulfield, @readytoheal and @Time2be for your replies about this.

 

Hi and thanks for your input, @Caulfield. Regarding Steve Ozanich, I noticed that his book 'The Great Pain Deception: Faulty Medical Advice Is Making Us Worse' is also entitled 'volume 1' - Do you happen to know if there's a volume 2? (I'm about to buy his book and want to get/'go the whole hog' .) I couldn't see a volume 2 listed for him on amazon, so maybe that's yet to come...

 

As far as I know he has not published vol. 2. But, if it existed, I would buy it! His book is so helpful and I am often re-reading some chapters.

 

He is probably sitting there writing volume 2 as we 'speak'!