Day 1

Intellectually, I have no doubt my pain is a symptom of TMS. But I just finished the book a few days ago - it's not quite "in my body" yet. So far, I'm having pretty good success leaning into my 'position of pain' and resting there while talking to my brain until it stops. This also helps instruct my brain that I'm not doing any damage by bending that way.

I've always been able to stop my pain by thinking about it, but my results were very temporary. Now I realize until now I didn't have the appropriate information; I never realized that thinking about it could be part of a permanent fix.

My functionality is returning. I still have some pain, but it's intermittent and I notice it less. Also, it skips all over my body when I'm trying to get it to shut down. Like flickers of light flashing in various muscles. Fascinating. Planning to stay the course!

 

Hi, melanyrare62. Looks like you're really learning about TMS and how to heal your symptoms.
They do tend to move around as the subconscious waits for you to discover the repressed emotions
that is the cause of your pain. Or to modify your personality if it is perfectionist of "goodist."
You don't have to change, just lighten up on yourself and not demand so much of yourself.

Yes, stay the TMS and SEP course and you will become healthier and happier than you ever imagined.

 

So far, so good. I have moments of doubt, but they are growing fewer and far between. I did jumping jacks yesterday. I lifted a 50 pound sack of goat feed a couple days ago. I'm signed up for an aerobics class tomorrow and I have a date with a shovel Thursday. It seems the more I use my body, the quicker my head is to respond. Thanks for your encouragement

 

Welcome, melanyrae62!

 

Hi, folks. Well, I'm following the directions here and writing a Day 1 post, even though I really don't want to. I'm 36 years old, and my husband and I got married and bought a house a year ago, within one month of one another. We began to try to have a kid. I had just started my solo law practice two years prior. I identified completely with Dr. Sarno's statement that TMS sets in during the "years of responsibility." Oh boy, am I ever responsible. People have always characterized me as conscientious, and I've taken that as a compliment, a sign that people trust me. Is it possible that the under-side of conscientiousness is my lack of trust in myself?

Anyway, three months ago, my back "went out." I'm not sure what happened. I was sitting in the car with my husband, and it just began to hurt. And over a period of weeks it hurt more and more and more and more and more. People kept asking me what I did, whether I got into an accident, whether I had some dramatic trauma that made my back hurt. No, no, and no. Nothing dramatic, but the pain certainly was dramatic. I went to chiropractors and acupuncturists, as I really didn't have any faith that a doctor would help. After a month and a half of pain with no significant help from chiropractors and acupuncturists, I went to the doctor, who said that I had a problem with my SI joint and sent me to PT. I went to PT and nothing changed. I went back to another doctor who had an X-ray done, which revealed " a question of slightly short pedicles of L4-L5, which could result in spinal stenosis." I Googled "spinal stenosis" and freaked out, then called a family friend who is a doctor who told me to stop freaking out and chill out. The second doctor sent me to PT. PT and doing somatics exercises (I found a book) seemed to help, but not totally. Went to an osteopath and that seemed to help, but not totally. Still in pain, still scared.

I used to run. I used to dance. I played tennis in high school and was really good. I haven't run for months, and tears are welling up as I write it. I've been walking. Walking is good and has been very relaxing. Getting out into nature -- we live near Golden Gate Park in San Francisco -- has been a blessing. I've been hugging trees, hoping that it will help "ground me" (advice from the osteopath). No offense to tree hugging, it's a great activity, but ENOUGH! I want to run, no holds barred RUN!

A friend, a fan of Howard Stern, recommended Dr. Sarno's book. I ignored her because I'm not a fan of Howard Stern. One day earlier this week, I had a body panic attack. Nerve pain everywhere down my back; back "going out" every which way I turned. This happened after a very difficult day at work and a night during which I barely slept. It finally dawned on me -- this body pain is STRESS. I got desperate and went on Amazon to read the reviews of Dr. Sarno's book. I tried to download it, and that wasn't working, so I read the reviews instead. After an hour of reading reviews, I wasn't feeling any pain. Then it came to me -- this whole thing, all of this pain, this is BS.

It's been a week. My pain is much reduced. I read Dr. Sarno's book (mostly anyway) and have found this Wiki, what a blessing. I read the first review from Day 1. What a blessing. I'm so grateful. I'm going out for my first walk-run. Wish me luck!

 

Believing 100 percent that your pain is from TMS is essential in healing.

It looks like you are still working on that belief, and that is something most of us have or had to do to heal.

Here are some helpful things for you:

http://tmswiki.org/forum/threads/what-to-know-to-heal-from-pain-pt-1.5482/

Deep Breathing -- a great way to heal from emotional stress and physical pain:

In order to breathe deeply properly you need to breathe deeply into your abdomen, not just your chest. Even in the old Greek and Roman times doctors recommended deep breathing, the voluntary holding of air in the lungs, believing that this exercise cleansed the system of impurities and gave strength. Breathing exercises should be deep, slow, rhythmic, and through the nose, not through the mouth. The most important parts of deep breathing have to be regulating your breaths three to four seconds in, and three to four seconds out.


1. Inhale through your nose, expanding your belly like it is a balloon and fill it, then fill your chest. Counting to 5
2. Hold and Count to 3. Feel all your cells filled with golden, healing, balancing Sunlight energy.
3. Exhale fully and slowly through the mouth and feel all your cells releasing waste and emptying all old energy and worrisome thoughts or pain. Counting to 5.


Herbie’s Extended Version of Dr. Sarno’s 12 DAILY REMINDERS

1. The pain is due to TMS. This is real pain or anxiety but its caused by subconscious tensions and triggers, stressors and traits to your reactions and fears and also when at boiling point your conscious tension can and does cause real pain too.
2. The main reason for the pain is mild oxygen deprivation. This means that when you get in pain or in anxiety then the the blood is restricted from going to your lower back for instance. The blood being restricted causes oxygen deprivation which causes the pain - remember, where theirs no oxygen then there is pain in the body. Also, The pain stays because of fear and focus to physical organic symptoms and repressions.
3. TMS is a harmless condition caused by my REPRESSED EMOTIONS so even though you think you can harm yourself from the years of pain you have felt and how you feel in general -- so far no reports have been heard from tms healing knowledge causing damage to anyone, it only helps.
4. The principle emotion is your repressed ANGER -- this means under your consciousness lies something that happens automatically to everyone. Tmsers have repressions that are stored because of our personality traits,traumas, stressors, fears, strain, etc... When these stored repressions build and build then eventually they cause the brain to send pain into your body to keep you from having an emotional crises. The mind-body thinks its helping you.
5. TMS exists to DISTRACT your attentions from the emotions, stressors, tensions and strains of your personality traits because if you can get distraction then you wont have to be in emotional turmoil. When you don't face and feel your emotions and they get repressed cause you didn't want to deal with something -- they are just adding up in this beaker, ready to pour over and create real pain and anxiety in your body.
6. Since my body is perfectly normal, there is nothing to fear. So in reality when I fear the pain or anxiety I just cause myself undo strain and tension adding to the beaker of pain. If I fear then I feed the pain, If I fear Its impossible to recondition. Fear keeps the pain and anxiety alive in the body through focus.
7. Therefore, physical activity is harmless.If I want to work against the pain I could but its better to lose some of the pain so when I start my life over I=t have to be in pain trying to heal cause facing the repressions and all the other activities that cause the pain and reversing my fear and focus to them then I can heal.
8. I am resuming all normal physical activity. I don't fear moving anymore. I believe in my bodies ability to heal now. I can move how I want. I will not fear moving with a bent back anymore. I will also practice going out and acting normal again, not in fear of what pain might do to me.
9. The pain is unimportant and powerless. Its only power is how its hidden -- its illusion, Its fear.
10. I will keep my attention on the emotional issues. I will think about my emotions and feel my emotions throughout the day. I will not judge, criticize or fear my emotions. I will not run from my emotional issues but face everyone of them. I will feel my emotions fully and cry if I need to. Then I will release the emotion and get my mind and thoughts back to my life and living in the present, in flow.
11. I am in control of all of this. This is how I recover.
12. I will be thinking PSYCHOLOGICALLY AT ALL TIMES. This means I will keep my thoughts on psychological issues like happiness, fear and anger -- traits and triggers, conditioning and journaling. The science behind mind-body/tms healing, etc.... This way I will not feed my thoughts to the body -- that is a trick of tms. Tms will always try to get me to focus on the body caused by the pain until I break its show and flair. When I get my attention off psychical symptoms and on emotional issues and psychological issues then I will not feed the fear of the physical issues anymore thus making the tms of no effect. This will in return, give us the cure.

 

Walt - thanks so much for the reply. It is very helpful, and I will keep the breathing exercise and list in my thoughts. I appreciate your reaching out to a total stranger and showing me that I'm not alone.

 

I'm glad you find my suggestions helpful.
Do practice the deep breathing. It really is wonderful for calming.
Don't worry if you don't do it exactly as I wrote... That makes some people stressful.
Just do it as you feel comfortable.

As you inhale through your nose and fill your belly with air, before letting it out add breath to your lungs in your chest,
then slowly breathe out through your mouth. The breath into the lungs really is relaxing.

 

Hi MR62,

See, Howard Stern has some redeeming features after all. You're a smart cookie, you figured out the source of your somatic pain was stress before even opening a book! You are well on your way to reconditioning your mind to incorporate TMS/psychosomatic KNOWLEDGE PENICILLIN into your mental medicine cabinet. It took your MINDBODY a long time to be brainwashed by the alopathic medical/industrial/Walgreens approach to health, so it will take a little time before the TMS info is fully absorbed on a cellular level. You should be playing tennis soon with your kid and turning him into a little Fed or a Sharopova--I guess you have to have the kid first. When the time comes for tennis or soccer lessons for the tike I know a great coach who'll guarantee a tennis scholarship to the school of your choice--Stanford's a nice environment.

The RAHE-HOLMES is some of the good science behind TMS. You'll find the stressful life events concurrent with the start of your TMS/back pain listed there:

http://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/The_Holmes_and_Rahe_Social_Readjustment_Rating_Scale_(SRRS)

G'luck!
tt

 

Thanks, TTom, for sharing the HOLMES-RAHE article.
My big childhood stress was my parents divorcing when I was 7 years old.
It took the ground out from under me. I repressed anger all my life, but have
learned through TMS to forgive it all.