Day 15 - Kristina

Question To Ponder
During the past two weeks has your pain been moving around? How has this affected your belief in the diagnosis?

Pain has moved around and has been present in different intensities. There are also other symptoms that come and go or improve and then get worse, like the ability to sleep at night for example. On some level this makes me believe it IS TMS yet I also have doubts. I am still in that place where I believe I am on the right track but if things get worse I wonder if I am chasing down the wrong road. I was hoping to find people who have dealt with potassium and magnesium deficiency and/or adrenal insufficiency, and have overcome those using TMS as those are my biggies right now. There is also menopause and supplementing with bio-identical hormones except testosterone and I was told testosterone deficiency can cause pain and trouble sleeping. Of course if testosterone deficiency was the problem then the pain should be constant.

Two days ago I had significant pain. I didn't take anything for it. At night I took kratom which helps with sleep and pain, although it's not always great for sleep. Sometimes I still wake up during the night when I use it. I went to bed around 11 PM and the first time I woke up was 5 AM - huge progress. I went back to sleep until 6AM and got up. I had mild pain but was able to overcome it with meditation and looking at emotions. This happened several times during the day. I went to bed around 11 PM again last night and chose not to take kratom since I had little to no pain. There was some fear that I would not sleep or have pain without taking it, but it's addictive so I don't want to use it too often. I woke around 3 AM, then 5 AM, then 6:30 AM. This is actually fairly good. I felt completely incoherent when I got up and had significant pain in my back and right heel. The pain then got worse as the morning progressed. Excessive sweating is worse this morning than yesterday which is usually due to potassium deficiency and I am cold although it's 73 degrees which has also been an issue with potassium deficiency. This is where I have a hard time believing it's "just" my emotions, that my brain can and would actually produce this level of pain because of repressed emotions.

So I looked at what was going on emotionally yesterday.
1. My clothes have been and continue to be tighter and I hate it. I want to lose weight and there is fear that I won't be able to because I am on hormones, I will never be able to balance them, etc.
2. There was something going on with a family member. It's a minor thing but keeps happening and it's stressful to me.
3. My husband and I were on a dinner lake cruise last night with some of his work colleagues. All the wives of the other men have jobs or are raising children. We don't have children and I am not working due to health issues and I feel like a failure. Last year I thought I would be back to work by now and then my health declined after initially getting better.

Again, I can see how this could lead to symptoms but at the same time I don't feel a connection. Intellectually I can see that my brain is trying to keep me from feeling the feelings, but emotionally I can't feel the connection. It has been a fight all morning to keep myself believing that it's TMS and to stay out of fear and of course fear just makes it worse as that IS the distraction. I felt so run down, tired, and achy this morning I just wanted to give up and crawl into bed. I didn't but it's close to 11:30 AM and I have gotten hardly anything done. I want to take a pain killer but I don't. I wish I could get to the point where I can get rid of pain by looking at my emotions.

I am tempted to just take kratom every night because I do seem to have better days the next day, but I don't want to be addicted to something. The weaning process is not easy. I have done it before but still.