I am 35 and have suffered from lower back pain for 10 years, the worst being the past two. As with many TMS sufferers, I tried every modality to try to "fix" my pain. I have all the signs of TMS and firmly believe in the diagnosis. But i need a bit of a reality check and appreciate any response to my lingering doubt that my pain is in no way associated with a functional/structural problem...
After a year and a half of excruciating and all consuming back pain, my sciatic nerve pain escalated to a the point of complete numbness in my butt and leg and foot for three months (on and off throughout the day, I would be dragging my leg around). I felt I had spent close to two years doing everything I could to avoid surgery, and after seeing 5 surgeons who all looked at my MRI and said I needed urgent surgery or run the risk incontinence (thats how bad they said my L5-S1 herniation was, but I was paralysed by fear and grieving the fact that I was told I could never play sports again). I did a mircodiscectomy on my disc in January of this year and the leg numbness went away immediately and hasn't returned...but my back pain persists (my obsessive attempts to treat my pain were focused mostly on the physical, with some meditation and therapy mixed in but without an awareness yet of TMS and Sarno's work). Post-surgery, I have since been working with the Curable app listening to podcasts by Alan Gordon...but was still struggling with a lot of back pain. I decided to do facet block injections a week before I really got deep into the TMS literature. I am in less pain after the injections, but they coincided with reading John Sarno's book Healing Back Pain and starting the TMS recovery program. So...of course, while I am quite certain I struggle with TMS (my evidence sheet is long!), in the back of my mind, I am also thinking that surgery and injections have helped. I am quite certain that the injections are a bandaid and the pain will return, and that the TMS recovery program is a longer term solution...But any advice on how to either ignore (or embrace?) this small sense of feeling like treatments addressing the functional issues have been helpful? And fear that the TMS program might not help, and my pain will return once the injections wear off.
Thank you for reading, and any response is so appreciated...I am sure i am not alone in this feeling!
After a year and a half of excruciating and all consuming back pain, my sciatic nerve pain escalated to a the point of complete numbness in my butt and leg and foot for three months (on and off throughout the day, I would be dragging my leg around). I felt I had spent close to two years doing everything I could to avoid surgery, and after seeing 5 surgeons who all looked at my MRI and said I needed urgent surgery or run the risk incontinence (thats how bad they said my L5-S1 herniation was, but I was paralysed by fear and grieving the fact that I was told I could never play sports again). I did a mircodiscectomy on my disc in January of this year and the leg numbness went away immediately and hasn't returned...but my back pain persists (my obsessive attempts to treat my pain were focused mostly on the physical, with some meditation and therapy mixed in but without an awareness yet of TMS and Sarno's work). Post-surgery, I have since been working with the Curable app listening to podcasts by Alan Gordon...but was still struggling with a lot of back pain. I decided to do facet block injections a week before I really got deep into the TMS literature. I am in less pain after the injections, but they coincided with reading John Sarno's book Healing Back Pain and starting the TMS recovery program. So...of course, while I am quite certain I struggle with TMS (my evidence sheet is long!), in the back of my mind, I am also thinking that surgery and injections have helped. I am quite certain that the injections are a bandaid and the pain will return, and that the TMS recovery program is a longer term solution...But any advice on how to either ignore (or embrace?) this small sense of feeling like treatments addressing the functional issues have been helpful? And fear that the TMS program might not help, and my pain will return once the injections wear off.
Thank you for reading, and any response is so appreciated...I am sure i am not alone in this feeling!
