Conquering TMS

Hi Everyone,

I'm currently working on an extended version of my recovery story but in the meantime I'd like to share my review for Healing Back Pain on Amazon.com.

"26 years old and have suffered from chronic back/neck/shoulder/pelvic pain for 3.5 years. Probably saw 20ish doctors, physical therapists, acupuncturists, chiropractors, massage therapists, and osteopaths over the years with nothing but temporary relief.

I can't think of a better way to share my experience than sharing with you the letter I wrote to my family 4 weeks after reading this book. Forever grateful to Dr. John Sarno.

"My Dear Family,

There was a time when I never thought I would be able to say this, and I still can't believe it myself, but I have made a 90% recovery from the chronic muscle problems that have debilitated me for the past 3.5 years.

Over the past few weeks I have gradually resumed an active life once again, and find myself driving, doing computer work, lifting weights, going on intense bike rides, and much more with virtually no pain at all. I feel like I have been re-born again, and find myself in a perpetually good mood and excited about life and the opportunities that await me once again.

As you know, these years have been extremely difficult for me, both physically and emotionally. Particularly over the past year when this problem took on a whole new level of intensity and spread throughout my body. I wanted to thank you all for your support through this very difficult time for me. Without you guys, I probably would have jumped off a cliff by now.

You may be curious as to what caused this sudden and immediate change in my health. Which doctor did I see? What excercise did I do? What posture did I adapt? Modern medicine has conditioned us to look for a physical explanation to our symptoms, and after countless massages, physical therapy, chiropractic, acupuncture and osteopathic treatments, with limited progress, I was depressed, desperate, and knew I was looking for an answer in the wrong place.

I know what you're thinking. Stop blabbing on, tell me what you did? What caused this miraculous change in your health. Well, the answer is so stupidly simple you are going to think I'm crazy. I read a book. Yes, that is not a typo. I read a freakin' book, stopped going to all my doctors, and within weeks I am virtually normal again. 3.5 years of awful and intense pain that my life has revolved around disappears, and all I have to do is read a book...?

I'll let this 20/20 news clip and this article about in Forbes Magazine about America's most miraculous yet unknown Doctor explain further.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/edwards...doctor-and-his-miracle-cures-dr-john-e-sarno/

As I reflect on why the universe chose this journey for me, I am going to do something unorthodox and be very emotially open with you all (I know I'm not known for this). This journey has without a doubt been the most difficult thing I've ever had to deal with. While I tried my best to be optimistic, there is no doubt that my life has full of pain, fear, sadness, loneliness, anger, anxiety, rage, self-pity, desperation, and depression since this all began. Living with some back pain and not being able to play sports is one thing, but eventually becoming disabled, being forced to leave my job and unable to support myself at the age of 26, with the fear of living the next 50 years of my life with this was probably the most unbearable feeling of all.

I often thought what it would be like to overcome this battle and be able to be a normal kid again, but to be honest, I never truly believed it would happen. Now that I stand here with all of this finally behind me, I still can't believe it. It hasn't totally hit me yet that I have my life back.

As I try to think how to wrap up this email with some sort of lesson that will inspire you and help you in your daily lives, I'm beginning to think that is all unnecessary. Instead, I'll leave you with a piece of wisdom, from an ancient Native Indian proverb that has always stood out to me and illustrates the power of the mind-body connection.

An old Cherokee told his grandson: "My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, and resentment, inferiority, lies and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth."

The boy thought about it, and asked, "Grandfather, which wolf wins?"

The old man quietly replied, "The one you feed."

What a relief to be able to finally write this. I think it's time to go for a bike ride "

 

I thank you so much for explaining all of your fears. You have put a calm in me that I
cannot explain. I fully understand the difference between the wolves. I can totally
relate. I am so thrilled that you are doing well, you are so young to have experienced such
pain. Please write to me and explain your experience. You are a true "Hero" God Bless,
and I am so very happy that you are well once again. Nancy

 

Hi Nancy,

Thank you for the kind words. I see from your posts that you are currently in the process of conquering your own pain. I'm glad you are finally seeing results and have found the community. The most important steps in my recovery were:

1) Reading "Healing Back Pain" and following Dr. Sarno's recommendations. .
2) Reading and watching video's of other people's success stories (it gave me hope and helped me believe)
3) Remembering what my life was like when I was healthy. Healthy people don't think about pain, talk about pain to their friends and family, and feel limited in terms of what they can do. My goal was to return this state so I tried very hard to just live my life normally. I didn't talk about my pain to my family anymore, I did my best not to let it distract me, and I did not obsess about the different techniques I could use to treat TMS.

Eventually the pain disappeared and it became natural to feel like this again.

If you can, it might be a good idea to take a few days to just enjoy yourself. Take a break from the forum and self help books and just do something you enjoy.

Best of luck to you!

 

Hey, you are wonderful, I thank you for writing back so soon! All of your
wisdom is needed. You made my night! I did have a pretty good day today
and when I saw your post it gave me more encouragement to move on
and not feed the wolf! I cannot express my feelings of gratitude to you
enough. I was a very healthy person all my life until I topped off the stress
and then the pain began. It's been 8 long yrs now with all the tests in the
world done, all negative basically. I found Dr Sarno's book only a short time
ago. I have been improving with all the help of the wiki and you. I wish you
peace and the best life has to offer, write anytime as I would love to hear from you.
Nancy

 

Hi, I was so encouraged by your story. I am so happy you are back to living and enjoying your life.
I am trying also not to let these symptoms dictate my life. Thank you for giving more specifics.
I agree it is important not to talk about pain or obsess about it because then you truly are feeding the wrong wolf.
I believe whatever we focus on and give attention to we give it life.

May I ask you did you journal at all about repressed emotions? And when you had pain even if it was severe you
just ignored it; did you try to think psychologically?

Thank you so much for sharing your amazing story, it has so inspired and encouraged me, especially that I am on
the right track.
G.R.

 

Good to hear from you G.R

To answer your first question, yes I did begin journaling to get a better understanding of what my unconscious stress factors might be that were triggering my pain. I eventually discovered that my breakup with a girlfriend, anger towards my surgeon for a failed knee surgery, and the pressures of launching a new business must have been the events that triggered my TMS. To be honest, while these events were challenging, consciously they did not seem like a big deal. They seemed like normal events that are part of life and I quickly overcame them and moved on.

What I now understand is that the unconscious mind is not rational and behaves very much like a young child. Events that are seemingly trivial on the conscious level can create very deep pain, fear, or rage below the surface that we are not even aware of.

As for your second question, yes I did make a point of thinking psychologically whenever I was in pain. Since the pain is supposed to serve as a distraction from emotions, anytime things would flare up I would immediately make a point to think about my emotions and anything that was bothering me. I kept telling myself that the pain was not worthy of my attention. I also remembered that a healthy person did not think about my pain and I did my best to readopt this mentality. It was not always easy but I did my best to stick to these techniques and the pain gradually disappeared.

Hopefully these tips help you along your journey. Please keep me up to date with your progress back to optimal health. There are a few advanced techniques I have discovered as well but are only appropriate for people who have plateau'd in their recovery or have made limited progress after several months.

Best of luck

 

Thank you, Pyyhosomatic for answering so quickly. I have been able to get a symptom under control then another symptom starts. Is it possible
to explain in detail the few advanced techniques that would help people who have plateau'd or have made limited progress after several months.

When you had intense pain did you just ignore it and thought psychological. Sometimes when the pain is intense, I cannot even think.
Any suggestions I would appreciate.
Thanks

 

Thanks, Forest for responding. I find that reading the success stories really helps also and posting on the wiki has been very helpful when I am getting discouraged.
I definitely feel our thoughts about the symptoms are very powerful; especially about wanting to live a normal life. I will investigate if I am holding onto the
symptoms for some reason.

What is happening I get one symptom under control then another symptom comes. And that totally in the past has discouraged me. I guess my subconscious
is fighting to keep my attention. I refuse to let it.

Thanks, again Forest for your insight!!

 

Hey GR,

I'm currently in the process of writing up some material on how hypnotherapy can be used to quickly discover and release negative emotion. Once it's ready I'll be sure to send it your way.

 

Thanks, I so appreciate that.

 

Your story is wonderful. Gives me peace. I am struggling with nerve & back pain now for 10+ years. Discovered Sarno over a year ago but have not seen much relief. Steve Ozanich has been a great mentor for me during this hard time. I just can't seem to get past the pain even with all the TMS knowledge. But stories like yours is what keeps me going. Peace & love.

 

Hey GR - My write-up on hypnosis is taking a little longer than expected. In the meantime I'm sharing an email I sent to one of my previous doctors about how I used hypnosis to quickly end a reoccurence of my symptoms. Hope this helps.

"Dr T,

I wanted to give you an update regarding my health because I think you'll find it quite interesting. This email is a little long but I think you'll find it worth the read!

I decided to spend the past month backpacking through Colombia. A few weeks into my trip I ended up going tubing on the Colombian rapids but it turned out to be a very dangerous ride. I landed quite ackwardly into a rock, and for a few days after the injury my neck and upper back were sore.

The pain eventually calmed down, but when I got back to Canada it became very intense. It felt very different than the chronic pain I was used to, and it got so bad to the point where my whole body tensed up and I could barely move. I was confused. While I definetely suspected the pain was emotional in nature, the fact that I had an accident made this difficult to believe. The pain was also incredibly intense which made me question if there could be a real physical cause.

I decided to go to a chiropracter to see if this would help I but didn't see much relief, which affirmed my belief that this was emotional in nature. I began to reapply all the same principles that made me healthy the first time. I re-read Dr. Sarno's book and I ignored the pain and tried to live a normal life like nothing was wrong. The pain persisted. I really tried to dig into my psyche to understand what the root cause might be but I couldn't figure it out. Things kept going on like this for a week and the symptoms did not calm down.

I knew in the back of my mind I needed to release negative emotional energy but I did not know what had triggered this episode. I decided to try a hypnosis technique where you put yourself into a hypnotic state and ask your unconcious mind to show you an image representing your inner emotions. An image of a skull and crossbones quickly appeared in my mind. It brought back memories from the tubing trip where I was sucked into a rapid and was panicking for about 20 seconds desperately trying to avoid drowning. The image represented FEAR, particulary FEAR of death. These repressed emotions quickly poured out of me and I felt much calmer and relaxed after the session.

The next day the pain DISAPPEARED! The negative emotion had been released and the pain no longer served a purpose. I have been back to 100% health ever since. I find this story extremely fascinating for three reasons.

1) It amazes me at how deceptive the unconcious mind can be. In this particular case, it used a physical trigger (the accident) to try to deceive me from realizing the pain was emotional. The pain was also incredibly intense and very different than what I was used to. It knew that my concious mind would recognize "normal pain" as emotional, so it created a very different pain to try to prevent me from realizing what was going on. The unconcious will go through great lengths to avoid dealing with emotional pain.

2) It was also very intersting to pin-point the exact event which caused this episode. To be honest, while getting sucked into the rapid was scary, it wasn't THAT bad. On the concious level I quickly forgot about it. Little did I know that it had terrified my inner-child to take such drastic action. Events that may seem trivial at the concious level can leave a large footprint of negative emotion below the surface.

3) Finally, this incident has really reaffirmed my belief in the power of hypnosis to quickly treat mind body disorders. While Dr. Sarno's techniques are very useful and a necessary part of the healing process, a good portion of patients will see other symptoms pop-up or experience setbacks such as mine. These patients are currently being refered to psychotherapists, and while this may eventually pay dividends, I'm convinced that hypnosis is a far better route. Healing will occur much faster, it will be much cheaper for the patient and they will see better results.

You are one of the few doctors who will appreciate this information so I wanted to share it with you. I know this email was long, but this stuff is just so interesting, especially since this is a field of medicine that is largely unexplored. I will keep you posted with any new techniques I discover. Starting to think my calling in life might be to innovate new treatment strategies to help people suffering from pain syndromes and mind body disorders.

All the best,

K"

 

Hey psychosomatic this is such a cool story. Man you are bound for great things. Its not just coincidence that you've went through all that for naught. You are already a bright star on here helping folks with your techniques and style. I like the way you added Hypnosis to your healing journey. I too have had tons of success with hypnosis and I cant think about it enough.

I study tms healing and hypnosis daily among some other topics but I find these two to be very well worth their time.

If I cant get myself doing something that I believe in my heart I need to do-- Like something just seems to be holding me back then I'll do self hypnosis and after a few days to a week ill be going forth and accomplishing whatever it might be that was holding me back.
Its like at first im not sure but after hypnosis I get this general over all feeling that im heading in the right direction.

Id like to add one more story of my own from my healing journey. I too was at 90% and seemed stuck but as I remember I used The swish a lot. Its a form of hypnosis/ nlp that takes a positive and a negative thought and collapsing them together I can take any negative charge of a thought or memory away, instant pain relief when I can collapse the negative energy charge ya know. It was this swish that really kept the symptom imperative under control for me. If id hurt in my knee, then id think of my knee and then id move that picture to the side and then think of a great time in my life, after this id start to move the negative charged picture back in front of the positive picture and the positive energy from the good picture would vanquish the negative charge from the hurt knee picture.

After this the pain would leave and I'd not even be thinking about my knee cause even the focus was gone. I've tried to explain this style a few times here but its hard to explain without actually talking to the person wanting to know in person or on the phone. If I could get this technique out to the people - it would be awesome. Maybe you've heard of it psychosomatic.


Im really glad your hear and hope to hear more from you soon. You have an extra ordinary story and id love to hear more... Thanks

 

Hi, Psychosomatic.

Your success story is terrific. Very inspirational and informative.
I agree with you that hypnotherapy can help relieve back and other physical pain and also emotional stress and anxiety that cause pain.

A few years ago I began watching a DVD called Stress Relief for Life by a British psychotherapist-hypnotherapist, Susan Hepburn. She spends 20 minutes with a young man, telling him how to relax and mentally think and physically feel he has no anxiety or fear of anything. I was under a lot of stress as a freelance writer with very little money and lots of bills, working mainly for a book publisher who is a perfectionist's perfectionist. I could work 24 hours every day for him but never please him. To him, if I put a comma where he wanted a semi-color, he chewed me out. The work gave me back pain because I, too, am a perfectionist. I think writers have to be, but we need to take time off to relax and smell the roses and, in my case, play with my dog.

Long story short, Hepburn's hypnosis DBD helped me to relax and put my anxieties into proper perspective. I consider hypnosis and self-hypnosis two excellent techniques for TMS healing. Journaling about our repressed emotions is another form of self-hypnosis, I believe.

We who visit TMSWiki.org every day for advice and inspiration on TMS healing appreciate your posts and look forward to more. I love how TMS leads people, including me, to a deeper understanding of ourselves including why we have pain, and how we can pass on to others what we have learned to heal our pain.

Walt

 

thanks Psychosomatic for sharing the video especially of your recovery on youtube. I realise thats an incredibly difficult thing to do especially when someone you know might watch it! really powerful to have someone relay all their ideas on it.

Is there any possibility you could enlarge the text in the original post on this thread? not a problem for me but I'm thinking of the senior citizens

 

Not sure why the font was so small in my original post but here it is in a larger font.

Hi Everyone,

I'm currently working on an extended version of my recovery story but in the meantime I'd like to share my review for Healing Back Pain on Amazon.com.

"26 years old and have suffered from chronic back/neck/shoulder/pelvic pain for 3.5 years. Probably saw 20ish doctors, physical therapists, acupuncturists, chiropractors, massage therapists, and osteopaths over the years with nothing but temporary relief.

I can't think of a better way to share my experience than sharing with you the letter I wrote to my family 4 weeks after reading this book. Forever grateful to Dr. John Sarno.

"My Dear Family,

There was a time when I never thought I would be able to say this, and I still can't believe it myself, but I have made a 90% recovery from the chronic muscle problems that have debilitated me for the past 3.5 years.

Over the past few weeks I have gradually resumed an active life once again, and find myself driving, doing computer work, lifting weights, going on intense bike rides, and much more with virtually no pain at all. I feel like I have been re-born again, and find myself in a perpetually good mood and excited about life and the opportunities that await me once again.

As you know, these years have been extremely difficult for me, both physically and emotionally. Particularly over the past year when this problem took on a whole new level of intensity and spread throughout my body. I wanted to thank you all for your support through this very difficult time for me. Without you guys, I probably would have jumped off a cliff by now.

You may be curious as to what caused this sudden and immediate change in my health. Which doctor did I see? What excercise did I do? What posture did I adapt? Modern medicine has conditioned us to look for a physical explanation to our symptoms, and after countless massages, physical therapy, chiropractic, acupuncture and osteopathic treatments, with limited progress, I was depressed, desperate, and knew I was looking for an answer in the wrong place.

I know what you're thinking. Stop blabbing on, tell me what you did? What caused this miraculous change in your health. Well, the answer is so stupidly simple you are going to think I'm crazy. I read a book. Yes, that is not a typo. I read a freakin' book, stopped going to all my doctors, and within weeks I am virtually normal again. 3.5 years of awful and intense pain that my life has revolved around disappears, and all I have to do is read a book...?

I'll let this 20/20 news clip and this article about in Forbes Magazine about America's most miraculous yet unknown Doctor explain further.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/edwards...doctor-and-his-miracle-cures-dr-john-e-sarno/

As I reflect on why the universe chose this journey for me, I am going to do something unorthodox and be very emotially open with you all (I know I'm not known for this). This journey has without a doubt been the most difficult thing I've ever had to deal with. While I tried my best to be optimistic, there is no doubt that my life has full of pain, fear, sadness, loneliness, anger, anxiety, rage, self-pity, desperation, and depression since this all began. Living with some back pain and not being able to play sports is one thing, but eventually becoming disabled, being forced to leave my job and unable to support myself at the age of 26, with the fear of living the next 50 years of my life with this was probably the most unbearable feeling of all.

I often thought what it would be like to overcome this battle and be able to be a normal kid again, but to be honest, I never truly believed it would happen. Now that I stand here with all of this finally behind me, I still can't believe it. It hasn't totally hit me yet that I have my life back.

As I try to think how to wrap up this email with some sort of lesson that will inspire you and help you in your daily lives, I'm beginning to think that is all unnecessary. Instead, I'll leave you with a piece of wisdom, from an ancient Native Indian proverb that has always stood out to me and illustrates the power of the mind-body connection.

An old Cherokee told his grandson: "My son, there is a battle between two wolves inside us all. One is evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, and resentment, inferiority, lies and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth."

The boy thought about it, and asked, "Grandfather, which wolf wins?"

The old man quietly replied, "The one you feed."

What a relief to be able to finally write this. I think it's time to go for a bike ride "

 

Hi Kareem, Time and Again your story inspires a lot of us here.
You are truly blessed.

 

Hey man just wanted to say that your story was very inspirational to me, especially after watching your videos! In fact, seeing your video and forest's recovery dialogues really helped solidify my belief in TMS. Just want you to know that I truly appreciate your decision to post your experience -- it has been quintessential in my recovery.

 

Physchomatic, I saw most of your videos on YouTube a couple of weeks ago. Thanks for sharing. I am still trying to recover from TMS, a condition I discovered about 18 months ago, by accident. I believe my TMS is due to my mum bullying me for most of the 38 years I have been alive. My mind has gone to some very dark places, but I have had some successes and failures during the TMS journey. Nothing seems to be working permanently, but I will continue to work at it.

Thanks again for sharing.