Day one...

I am just starting the online education programme, day 1. I feel a bit scared but also excited. I have been suffering from kneepad for over 10 year, which according to doctors and MRIs are due to loss of cartilage, but my pain has also started in my lower back and right hip. I live in sweden so there is no TMS therapist here, which makes it difficult for me to myself give the diagnosis. I understand most people have been helped with their backpain, but is there anyone who has experience of knee pain? (I also have a lot of pain in my whole legs).

 

Hi, SaraLi and welcome to this community of TMsers. I healed from severe back pain three years ago after learning about Dr. Sarno and TMS. I was 83 then and am 87 now. I healed after discovering anger that went back to my boyhood.

I take it that you have begun the Structured Educational Program free in the subforum of this web site. That's the right thing to do. Journaling will help you to discover repressed emotions or personality traits such as perfectionism or "goodism" that cause emotional pain.

Knee, hip, and leg pain are three very common symptoms of TMS, and you can find many postings about them by looking at earlier postings from others. You will find it helpful if you read each day Dr. Sarno's 12 Daily Reminders. I especially like this extended version:

Herbie Douglas's Extended Version of 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 are in pain 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 can but its better to lose some of the pain through losing your focus on the body and not fearing the pain. I can start my life over, I don't have to be in pain trying to heal cause I can face the repressions through awareness and journaling.
   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 and my patience in flow will be my power. I will not fear moving 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 it's hidden -- it's illusion, It's 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.
   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.
   12) 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 physical 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.
   

 

Yes. One of my relapses was all about my knee. It wouldn't bend at all. I thought I had 'really done something'... there was not just pain, but swelling and an inability to bend . I went to a sports doctor who explained it and then removed about a 25 cent piece worth of fluid. The physics made no sense. How could .00001 ounces of fluid impede my leg?
That was the day I realized it was just TMS. I re-read HBP and the pain went away again. Like it always does.

I never did any program other than what is in the book... though if this expedites the cure, I'm all for it!

 

Hej!

Jag är också svensk, om du vill bolla med någon på hemspråket!

 

Hi SaraLi
Welcome to the TMS forum discussions. I just signed on in June, so am also a relative newbee. Reading your intro sounded much like my pain issues, left knee pain, lower back pain and right hip pain. Arthritis and cartilage disintegration diagnosed about 6 years ago, but have had the problems, particularly in my lower back for over 20 years.

My knee pain has gone away (for the second time). The first time was about 16 years ago when I suffered with pain in my knee for a couple of years. The pain in the knee just disappeared around 2002 ,(interestingly after I purchased a standard transmission car with a clutch) but came back with a vengeance this past year. Along with the return of the knee pain I also began to have very painful sciatica and increased hip pain that necessitated me using a walking stick since last winter. I sadly had to stop doing pottery because of the discomfort of sitting at a wheel for extended periods of time. I began reading Dr. Sarno's books (again), and also read Steve Ovanavich's book, The Great Pain Deception. I found it helpful to journal, processing my emotions and memories in this way. Some people do not journal, but it is a good medium for me. After a couple of very painful months, both emotionally and physically, I woke up one morning and my sciatica was gone! My hip pain remains as the most tenacious. Since working with Alan's program "the Pain Recovery Program" (found on this site), I have been having some success with decreasing the intensity of the pain. I am not using the walking stick all the time and not waking up in the middle of the night with excruciating pain.

Keep us posted on your progress.

Lainey