Do I have to go to a doctor?

Hi,

I have been fighting TMS on and off for 30 years. I have had insomnia, depression, IBS, foot pain, back pain, neck pain, severe panic attacks, leg numbness, neuropathy, plantar fasciitis, leg weakness, allergies, persistent cough, numb and tingling hands, hands curling up (won’t open all the way, no gripping power), painful leg and stomach contractions at night, dizziness, electrical “buzzing” inside my bones and balance issues.

In 2017, I discovered Dr. Sarno and immediately embraced TMS. I studied it day and night and started journaling about my emotions and got rid of tingling hands at the time. During my other episodes, I just somehow ignored it, and it went away eventually or diminished enough to live with it. For the panic attacks, I meditated and learned about anxiety and it helped to control it.

Flash forward to 2020. During the pandemic, I was extremely terrified, and under a great deal of stress on many levels. I began getting many new symptoms— plantar, foot pain, tingling, numbness, weakness, stiff knees, cramping hands and balance problems. No matter how hard I tried reading Sarno and other books and journaling, I couldn’t put a dent in my symptoms. They just kept getting worse.

So I took Sarno’s advice and got a psychotherapist. I’ve been seeing her for 3 years and we have been tackling my very abusive childhood. She isn’t trained in TMS, but she believes me that I have it. Meanwhile symptoms are still increasing. I recently had to go from a cane to a walker to get around. I am only 64. My hand numbness is starting to make working on my computer difficult.

In the past couple months, I have been reading more and more TMS books. Journaling. Discovered this wiki. Doing EFT tapping. Took Alan Gordon’s Pain Recovery Class. Learning so much!

My biggest obstacle right now is I have refused to go to any doctors about this. I’m afraid they will scare me and make it worse. I’m not one to trust doctors much anyway. In fact, I have severe anxiety when I get medical care, related to some negative experiences in the past.

Am I close to a breakthrough and that’s why things are getting worse? Or, do I really need to see the doctors to accept I have TMS?

I would so welcome advice of any kind!

Thank you!

 

It is always recommended to go to a doctor first to clear anything sinister or life threatening.

Then if is all clear you can assure yourself despite the pain and symptoms you are experiencing some form of TMS. My hands have also curled it and been stiff, after several years of suffering and finally accepting TMS and believing it I am seeing results and without setting a date I feel like I’m finally in the road to recovery.

The resources are great on here but I totally recommended Dan Buglio on YouTube as he posts daily videos and success stories and they help keep you in that frame of mind.

 

Thank you so much for this your response! So nice to hear you are recovering! I have listened to Dan Buglio for awhile. He really is great. Im glad to be on here and hope I can help share some success stories one day. Please post news about how you are healing. I would love to hear about it. Especially the hands. Its really strange when it happens. Kind of scary. But that’s what the primitive brain (I call it my lizard) is trying to do! I’m trying hard not to be scared. Easier said than done.

 

If you prefer, you can contact a TMS Doctor. A few will do video appointments to talk about your symptoms and your history., they will make suggestions for any other medical testing (if any) they want to see done and help clear any doubts. If you can find someone locally, you could also just make an appointment. The PPD Association (another name for TMS) website has a list of medical doctors on their provider list.

 

Yes.

I'm really sorry, my dear, and believe me that my heart absolutely breaks for every victim of childhood abuse, an abuse of trust and responsibility that is beyond my comprehension.

Nevertheless, I must be brutally honest when I say that your refusal to obtain a medical evaluation out of fear is not going to lead to recovery, because you're still giving all of your power away to other people. This is a sign of victimhood and it seems to me that you are holding on to your victimhood for dear life.

After doing this work here for coming up on thirteen years, I have seen proof that true recovery can not take place where victimhood is a controlling factor.

Recovery requires accepting the truth about reality. It is possible to make yourself physiologically ill from stress. I am proof of that fact, because after 9 years of TMS success I contracted rheumatoid arthritis during a surprisingly short period of unrelenting stress at the beginning of the 2020 pandemic. I was 69, which is more than 20 years older than the typical person when they develop RA. I probably waited a month longer than I should have to see my own doctor, who took one look at some basic blood tests and immediately hustled me off to Rheumatology for more tests and confirmation. I consulted with David Schecter MD, a well known TMS doc, who said I could certainly assume that stress was the cause, but that I had to take the medication or risk future damage.

Does it suck? Of course! Is it the end of the world? I decided it wasn't. That is all. Because that is life. I also gave in to my doc a few years ago and agreed to take high blood pressure medication because I was unable to control my blood pressure on my own, and I decided I didn't want to mess around with the possible consequences. Also, my younger siblings had already been on it for a number of years and my dad had been on it in his early sixties.

Again, this is life. It's also a fact of life these days given that we've already used modern medicine to extend our lives far beyond what nature designed! So, you know, why not take advantage? I'd like to think that if the world weren't so f*ing dysfunctional during the last eight years or so that maybe my blood pressure would be lower on its own, but the first is not true, and the second ain't happening.

So, dear Diana, where does this leave you? Go find a doctor. Try to find one who understands that stress affects health in every way possible (although any doctor who doesn't accept this as fact by now should not be practicing. You need one who really knows it). State up front that you have a lot of health issues and that you fear finding out there is something wrong, and that you would be ecstatic to be told that there's nothing wrong apart from obvious stress and anxiety.

FWIW, I was told this many times in the decades before I turned 60, and each time I was thrilled, and each time the symptom I had gone in with would disappear. I could see this, but of course I didn't understand it until I discovered Dr Sarno in 2011. This could happen for you too, if you just do the one thing right now which is like an albatross around your neck, totally weighing you down with fear. Just do it!

~Jan

 

Jan,

With all my heart, thank you for your answer. I appreciate everything you have told me. I want to face reality and snap out of victimhood. I feel so trapped right now and I struggle picturing where I will find the strength. If I even think of making a doctor appointment I feel major panic. But I can see it’s what I have to do. I just have to. My grown kids are at wits end trying to persuade me with some of your same advice. What if the sooner the better? It’s all really exhausting and I was hoping I could just come out of these TMS symptoms like before. But this is life: as you say. There could be some legitimate things that need addressing in addition to TMS. Again, I appreciate your honesty and compassion. I will do it.

Diana

 

Thank you so much for this advice.

 

Great news! I finally had the nerve to go to the doctor! She was compassionate and understanding about stress causing symptoms. She thinks I am deconditioned, which basically means I sat around too long during COVID and lost all my muscle tone and balance. Then basically my panic set in and TMS had a good breeding ground. I can’t say how huge this is for me! And @JanAtheCPA, I really thank you for the nudge in this direction! My heart feels lighter! All day I was filled with relief and joy.

 

~J

 

If I am TMS prone and know it, and I go to a doctor who cannot or will not EVER make a diagnosis without blaming something physical, I am not really getting an Honest diagnosis. Sarno pointed out this conundrum even after recommending seeing a doctor...But he 'loaded' the statement by saying 'to rule out cancer or a tumor'...

This 'losing balance and muscle tone'...that is a PHYSICAL diagnosis so once again, they can't help themselves...even the ones who claim to 'believe' are actually really saying that something physical happened and then your emotions exacerbated it..that is HORSE$H!T. If that were true (which it isn't) then that would mean we are all subject to pain anytime we don't do something physical...therefore negating Sarno's work and TMS completely. I have an intensely physcial job yet when I don't work I will lay in bed and read only getting out of bed to drink coffee and play guitar.,,,for weeks at a time...and then I go back to pushing a jackhammer....and I might be sore 1/2 of one day...and I am almost 60.
Mythology

I am glad you got your piece of mind. Now forget about it and move forward.

and covid was a LOOOOOONG time ago. That's as silly as the 'high school football injury' bugging a man in his 40's...

SOOOO grateful that Sarno saved us from them.