Day 1

Hi my name is Renee and this is my first day doing the Structured Educational Program.

I am a 53 year old woman who has always been very active. Growing up I always had on and off stiff neck problems. About five years ago I started with carpal tunnel on my right hand. I had surgery and it went well but then the carpal tunnel pain began in my left wrist. I just had surgery in February of 2015. Surgery went well with great results but pain now has moved to my left leg and severe sciatica pain all down my leg. So debilitating at times. Eventually had an MRI, nothing showed up. Dr. said it looked like the spine of a 53 yr old woman. I was sent to physical therapy and that worked out beautifully!!! No more pain!! But.......I wake up one week later and the sciatica pain has now moved to my right leg!!! You have got to be kidding me!!! I said to my husband this is just ridiculous....What the heck is going on!!! Through surfing the internet I found Dr. Sarno's book and read it in two days. I feel so excited that I may just overcome this chronic pain. It makes perfect sense!!! The past couple of days I have been talking to myself, " Knock it off okay, I am on to you and you will NOT effect me anymore!!! (if anyone hears me I am pretty sure they will think I am crazy!!! Thanks for listening!!

 

Welcome, Renee! Good for you! I'm so happy that you are so excited and hopeful about finding Sarno and the TMS wiki. I love your self talk! Best wishes, Sunny

 

Hi, Smiles. I love the TMSWiki name you chose. It shows you are a positive person, and that helps a lot in TMS healing. I'm a wee bit older, 85. Three years ago I bent over picking up a case of 36 cans of beer at a supermarket and saw stars. I had been healthy up until then. I decided not to see my doctor because all he ever did was give me pills. I can get pain relief from Advil so I only tried that, about two a day. I always wait for my body to heal me, but it didn't with the severe back pain I felt. I emailed nurse friend in Hawaii and she said I should read Sarno's Healing Back Pain. She said a mutual friend, a psychiatrist, healed from his back pain after reading that book. I read it and believed in TMS. I healed about 90 percent in a few weeks of telling myself my pain was caused by TMS repressed emotions. I did the SEP but still had a little back pain. It didn't go away until I began believing 100 percent in TMS.
I journaled in the SEP to discover I had been repressing feelings of insecurity when my parents divorced when I was seven. I thought about that and discovered they had their own TMS, from financial problems. I was able to forgive them (they were long gone by then) and my pain went away.
Forgiving can be very therapeutic.

Your medical tests prove there is nothing structurally wrong with you, and the fact that your pains move around so much, that's what the subconscious does to us... until we discover the emotional causes of the pain it sends us. The subcon should be thought of not as our enemy sending pain, but our friend, to lead us into self-discovery that makes us healthier and happier than we ever dreamed.

Welcome to this web site of caring people. TMS has changed our lives, for the better, as it will yours.

Keep in the SEP and keep posting about your questions and progress. Meanwhile, here is a wonderful recent post by someone whose pain was totally healed with TMS belief:


nowtimecoach Well known member


Oh its been so long since I've visited all of you wonderful people - the healed and the healing folks. My life is forever changed as a result of this forum, the books that were suggested, read and discussed and the opportunities to receive support from so many people on the TMS recovery path.

Am I 100% recovered? Not quite but when I have a flare up, its usually been a situation or circumstance that is extremely stressful. Usually a feeling of being trapped and out of control. It depends upon my acceptance of what is and a surrender to self-care that predicates how long the flare up will last. I've had a few instances in the last 2 months as my partner and I decided to sell her house and move to Tucson.

So many changes, deadlines, pressure and lots of "I don't know!" brought up a few bouts. But they rarely last more than a day or two. And because I practiced what everyone suggests on this forum, I always knew what to do and I didn't ruminate or worry that it was going to last long.

I am so eternally grateful to all of you. I am grateful to everyone who has written a book that gives us the solution, the hope and hammers in the fact that we have control over TMS. To all of you in pain today, I promise that you will get better if you keep accepting the psychological component to all of this. I remind myself if I have a flare up that I'm vulnerable to old habits. That vulnerability leaves me open for my brain to pop up its old directive to send pain to my back. Its just an old outdated mechanism of protection that still does not serve me very well.

I hope you read this as a message of hope. Never stop believing that you are going get better! Stay close to the wonderful people on this forum. Read the books. Do the work and you'll be rewarded with a pain free life. For me, I got the bigger bonus of a greater self-awareness, of patterns that I was blind to and a sense of empowerment. All this because of TMS. So it ended up being a gift. Of course, I would NOT be able to say this so cavalierly if I was still in pain 24/7!

 

Beloved Grand Eagle,

Thank you for sharing, it is going to take me a little bit of time to understand this whole thread thing! I just love the success stories. I really think it will help me to stay connected with the wiki group because every one of my friends and family think I have lost my mind!