Day 1 - defeating TMS

I am a new member and this is my first post, and my first day on the educational program. I came across TMS and Sarno about two weeks ago and have since read Healing Back Pain and The Divided Mind. I have also watched his lecture on YouTube twice.
The second day of learning about TMS I felt so good that I thought I was "cured". I thought I was going to be one of those miracle stories of someone who reads the book once and is symptom free. Since then the pain has made a comeback, but each day I improve in some degree.
First, some background.
In June 2011 I was 30yrs old and heard a "pop" while golfing. I was told I had a herniated disc and this was causing me pain in my right leg with sciatica down to my foot. I went through 11 months of excruciating pain and my whole body shifted to the right and I hobbled around. I tried in the following order: chiropractor, massage, physio, traction, electric shock, acupuncture. Eventually I elected for a microdisectomy surgery which I got in May 2012. I felt instantly cured after the surgery. I got into shape and ran a half marathon in 2014 and was running 150kms a month.
In 2015 I underwent some big changes. A divorce, a move to a new house and shared custody of my six year old son, uncertainty with my company, a new girlfriend pregnant and a scare with the pregnancy. All of this occurred within a six month period. Somehow I made it through all of this and about two weeks living in a new house, I was quite suddenly stricken with left leg pain and sciatica and lower back pain - a pain I knew all too well. I attributed the pain to the recent move - lifting boxes and furniture, and to a fall I had playing hockey a month earlier. My doctor gave me painkillers and I went and saw a chiropractor who wanted me to sign up for 20 sessions of spinal decompression. After the third session, I was laying on the floor reading stuff online and came across Sarno. Two days later I was able to drive with ZERO pain, something I wasn't able to do for the last month. I felt cured. But it didn't last. The pain would come and go. But I was convinced I have TMS, from childhood issues, my personality, and my current life stresses. A day later I made a miraculous return to ice hockey. But I only felt about 35% healthy. Nonetheless, the fat that I could gather my hockey gear, put it in the car, drive to the arena and carry my 60lb bag over 100meters across a giant parking lot and get my gear on and play about five shifts was encouraging. Considering that four days earlier I was unable to even get off the floor and use the bathroom without a huge effort and extreme pain. Since then, I've been reading and journaling and today marks my first day on the actual TMS wiki program. I have noticed several times in the last week I will feel really good. Able to now wake up in the morning with no pain. But as soon as an stand still for too long or sit down to a meal, it comes back. I've started going for long walks with music to have time to myself in my head. I've walked a 2k, a 3k and a 5k walk in heavy snow the last week and felt good. But then this weekend I tried walking 1km with my son and felt horrible and had a spasm. This morning I went on the ice to coach my kid's hockey practise. This was a lot easier than me playing in my competitive league so I realized I was probably pushing it too much last week, and I get more comfortable with just a light skate with the kids. I'm 34 and know I have TMS and know I have the tools now to overcome it. I will report back in a few more days.

 

I might add that one huge tell for me that I have TMS - last weekend, after I had finished Sarnos book, I was getting ready to leave the house and I had a bit of weakness in my left leg and I slipped on my floor and literally fell down my stairs HARD on my back. A week ago such a fall would have put me in the hospital....but strangely I was able to stand up after it and shake it off as if it was nothing. Very odd.

 

I should also add a final note that I may have omitted - I quit all my painkillers, ice and chiropractic sessions.
My chiropractor called me panicking and trying to rope me back in saying I had "classic disc" issues. Oddly, the rest of the day I had pain, probably because I was thinking about what he said and may have had some subconscious self-doubt despite my resolve.
Other notes from the last week was that one night when I had no pain in my back, I randomly had an earache. Then the next day pain returned to me left leg and back. This happened two nights ago when the pain left my leg while I was laying in bed and inexplicably reappeared as wrist pain, which I had never had in my life. Again, in the morning the leg pain was back. This shifting of pain that night came precisely when I started to imagine my unconscious and pain not as a hateful insidious thing but as a frightened child.

 

Yes, symptom imperative at work! I've been dealing a bit with that myself of late. Good luck and I look forward to reading your progress!

Kevin

 

Hi, CookStar. Pain moving around and new pains showing up are typical in TMS healing. The subconscious recognizes that you have discovered some emotional problems and does this so you keep searching for them. They may also be from personality traits such as perfectionism and "goodism," wanting everyone to like you for everything, so you try too hard to achieve that approval.

Be careful of falls, but it is a good sign you are healing because the most recent fall did not cause much if any pain. Your positive belief in TMS emotions causing your pains is going to help you to become free of pain. Try not to be impatient about healing. You are doing everything right.

I was going to a chiropractor years ago and decided that I didn't want to make it a lifelong thing. I'm not sure the treatments helped my back pain. I may just have thought it did, because he was so persuasive.