Can't clench a fist. Hand weakness.

Hi everyone... I am a long-term TMSer. I suffered a lot until I read the books. The symptoms continued after reading the books, but the understanding of the symptoms allowed me to live a normal life.

Last year the pain moved to my ankle and I had difficulty walking. I even got blisters because the pain forced me to walk awkwardly.

Anyway, now I am very worried about a symptom because I think it might not be TMS. I have difficulty clenching my fist. My hands feel numb and week. I'm worried I have difficulties writting with a pen. I manage to do other tasks such as brushing my teeth by holding the toothbrush in a different way.

Long story short, there are moments I think these symptoms could be TMS. Then, there are other moments I think this is so different from the TMS I know that I have to accept that this time I am dealing with a real condition.

Anyway, I wanted to share this story with you.

 

Anytime you have a new and worrying symptom you should have it checked out, because we are not medical professionals here, and if it is TMS, you won't make any progress as long as you have doubt.

There ARE a number of joint/nerve/tendon conditions that medical practitioners have attempted to put names to, which many people here have recovered from, using TMS awareness and mindfulness practices when they realized that practitioners were having a hard time actually making a diagnosis or explaining one (see the personal stories of @TG957 or @miffybunny).

And then there are the inflammatory autoimmune conditions which cause joint disability and damage - and they can be bad news, but the good news is that they are easily diagnosed (or ruled out) with blood tests. It's important to rule these out. Although here's the most important thing I want to say about these conditions: the medical community agrees that inflammatory autoimmune conditions can be made worse with stress. What they will not discuss is the possibility that stress can CAUSE inflammatory autoimmune conditions. Never mind that they have NO idea what DOES cause them.

Which brings me to my story: I was diagnosed with sudden-onset RA three months into the pandemic, at the unusually-advanced age of 70, and with zero family history of any AI conditions on either side of my family. I had really hoped that the pain and swelling in my hands was TMS, but the blood tests proved me wrong. I even consulted a TMS doc after my diagnosis, who said that RA is a physiological condition, and I have to be a good patient and take the medication. He said that he had seen many people with RA experience remission, although he was not willing to say that stress caused it, but personally I have no doubt whatsoever that stress caused my RA (I was actually enduring an enormous amount of stress due to a pandemic-related volunteer position, on top of regular pandemic stress).

I still believe that reducing stress will allow me to experience remission, but this is proving much harder in practice than in theory, given the state of the world in the last several years (and for me, I would say that my stress about the world started ramping up about four years before the pandemic - combined with rage about aging). So I'm making do with increasing my exercise and reducing what was excessive sugar in my otherwise-quite-healthy diet - while remaining convinced that a commitment to a consistent meditation practice would make a huge difference. But I just can't seem to do it, and when it comes to the state of the world, things ain't getting better...

Anyway - get it checked out. That's always recommended for a truly new symptom that doesn't behave like TMS or make sense.

~Jan

 

What you have is likely dystonia. I had it, it is TMS. It is all gone now. Read my success story, ask questions. You can do it!

 

Thanks Jan for your message... I don't think it's RA, honestly... what were your symptoms? And you say that RA can be ruled out with a simple blood test? That's interesting... I am afraid of going to the doctors and have my life ruined by a never-ending list of tests and appointments... It has happened me in the past.

 

Ok... that's interesting... I wish this was just TMS. TMS is annoying but I have been living with it for many years and I am used to it... I will try to observe the symptoms for hints of TMS behaviour and try to think psychologically and see what happens...

 

Everyone is different, so my symptoms might not be yours, but typically it's joint pain and swelling, typically manifesting first in the hands and feet. During bad flares I've had it affect other joints. It's very TMS-like in that it affects different joints at different times, sometimes switching back and forth overnight. Again, I believe it's stress-based, and I have a lot of personal evidence for that belief. But I'm still taking the medication, since right now it seems really hard not to be stressed.

 

I have a medical background and because of that, am a big believer in empowering ourselves to heal ourselves before going to doctors. I know too much, lol. It took awhile, but I healed 5 different TMS symptoms, at different times, with prayer and identifying the emotional causes of my stress, and forgiveness before I even heard about Dr. John Sarno or this work. After learning that this is actually a thing, which I always could see in my clients over the years (medical intuitive, manual therapist since 1995) I decided to formally start coaching people in healing their symptoms using this awareness. In each of my conditions, and one of them was life threatening (God intervened on that one in the 11th hour), I knew allopathy wasn't going to be able to help me and they would just throw drugs at it, or recommend PT, which I also knew wouldn't help. I believe 100% that autoimmune conditions are emotionally mediated FIRST and complicated by inflammatory diet/lifestyle habits second. But many people eat crap and don't sleep enough, etc, and don't develop AI conditions. Really I believe that in the last 26 years of working with people holistically and with my own healing processes, mostly all health issues are stress caused, which comes from not believing we are safe, first. But it's helpful to get "ruling out" medical diagnoses first for some people, but for others it can have that "nocebo" effect. What's so exciting to me about all this is that people can be empowered to heal ourselves, we don't need doctors, or even therapists, although they can be helpful. Thanks for letting me share!

 

Ok... thanks Jan for the information.

My symptoms are much better now than they were three months ago. It's likely that they were, at least in part, TMS.

 

I have a similar problem, struggle to make a fist.

Its definitely TMS as one day i can get close to making a fist and then another day i can't, my hands are cold one min and then warm the next. Sometimes i can literally feel the tendon struggling to move (likely due to oxygen deprivation)

The hardest part is getting to the bottom of why its happening, i was tested for RA 18 months ago when it first started and came back clear.

Get pain in my knees and feet too but i sit all the time for my work and hobbies on an evening and my hamstrings are really tight, i foam roll but i know the underlying problem is the TMS in my body.

I am just hoping and praying that ill get that full recovery one day.