Day one

I am somewhat accepting of the TMS diagnosis. I thought that I truly believed when I had some relief after the first few weeks of reading Healing Back Pain. Then this past week pain began again and each day got worse. There was a lot of crying as I tried to accomplish my work and care for my family, and failed. Today i have had to stay at home on the couch on my stomach all day. After a while on the couch I am comfortable again, and can do a few things, but then standing, sitting up, or walking for more than a few minutes causes a sharp burning muscle spasm that encases my left leg from my hip to my mid calf.

The return of this pain makes me skeptical of the TMS diagnosis. I have never had pain this bad in my life except in childbirth, and it has gotten worse since I started learning about TMS. Life without TMS would mean everything to me. The way I am living now is not life, and I am scared that the pain will not get better, that the current trajectory of the pain getting worse will continue and that I will end up a crazy invalid, crying over a pain that no one else can see.

I guess, on that note, i should get up and go walk around the block. I feel like that is part of the practice I have read about, and i would like nothing more than to go for a jog around the block (we live in the country so our block is just under three miles). If pain comes up, I believe I am supposed to say "Down Boy, Damn You." and continue.

Wish me luck!

 

Great name, Person, and welcome to the forum and the SEP! Sounds to me like your brain is freaking out because you are threatening to step outside your lifelong habit of suppressing emotions, and it's trying to prevent that. This is a very common phenomenon that Dr Sarno talks about. Steve Ozanich does a great job explaining this in The Great Pain Deception.

In addition to doing the SEP, read Success Stories here, (we have a subforum just for those) and follow threads in the general discussion forum. There are a ton of different resources out there to help you find the combination of skills that will work for you. This is a whole different way to live your life, and I promise it will be worth it if you commit to it. At this point, it can't hurt, so you have nothing to lose!

 

Hi, Person. I am sorry you are in pain, but it is most likely not from anything structural but is from TMS. You are fearful that the pain may get worse or never end. That's not going to happen. S tick with the SEP and you will discover the emotions causing your pain.

Try to walk even a short way around the block. If pain comes on, tell yourself it's not structural but TMS. Steve Ozanich played golf despite the pain and he finally healed, but he also had to discover that his pains were from his emotions.

Here is a pep talk from one member of this TMS web site community who tells how she healed with TMS.


nowtimecoach Well known member
New

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!!!