Does this sound like TMS?

I now have ALL of Dr. Sarnos books and just got his DVD! I have his Mindbody prescription to read and Im ready to start getting to business!

However, I've got a couple of questions for you?

I recently had a half body thermography scan it came back with the following:

BACK:
A localized region of relative hypothermia at the T2 level of the spine should be correlated with autonomic / immune system compromise.

There is also hyperthermia of the upper back which correlates with myofascial inflammation of the trapezius muscle.

There is also spinal hyperthermia at the lower thoracic, lumbar level of the spine and SI joints which should be clinically correlated with reported pain and with joint dysfunction at that level.

Paraspinal hyperthermia from the mid thoracic to the lumbar level of the spine may be related with myofascial inflammation.

A thermography of the lower body is needed to determine the presence of lumbar radiculopthies, which would explain pain "going down leg".

Neck:

There is also hyperthermia at the posterior and lateral muscles of the neck which correlates with myofascial inflammation.


I do not have resourses to see a trained doctor here in Canada and when I asked my family doctor if he knew of a doctor who might be able to diagnosis me he just said NO and that was the end of that conversation!

So all I have is the report from the thermography of my back and the symptoms I'm experiencing as follows

I started all this problem Feb 28 this year....

every muscle in my legs were twitching .....
I started taking magnesium thinking my mag was too low.
I asked my doctor for a mag RBC blood test
He said the test was normal
I asked him for a copy of the report....good thing I did because I found out I was deficient in magnesium, iron, b12 and Vitamin D!
During all this I was having pains all over, lower back, buttocks, backs of legs, inner thighs, calves, neck shoulders inside of knee basically all over
This pain would travel!
I would take one step to come upstairs and I would have a muscle in my buttocks that would just clamp right down on a nerve.
The pain would be awful, I would spend most of my day in bed.

I started seeing a chiropractor who does active release to help loosen these muscles up. I find I can only go a little over a week before the muscles need to be loosened up again. Some with the RMT and Physiotherpist!

I've had a rough 5 years between loosing my mother in law then my father and moving my mother and up rooting ourselves....my pain started 3 months after we moved my mother into a retirment home. It's like my body just said enough!

My problem is because Im deficient in minerals could the pain be caused from that?

I'm better then what I was but I've been having a heck of a time with my right leg! The pain starts at the glute fold and goes down the middle of my thigh.....as well as inner knee...side inner knee...then today I could feel it moving to the outside of my knee! It feels like it's quivering and shaking...is TMS like that?

My neck and shoulders also hurt... I haven't had that pain for weeks then all the sudden BAM there it is....2 days later it's gone, then my knee starts bugging me....or the back of my thigh....or I have a headache that last for 3 days.

What do you all think?

Thank you for your thoughts
Wendy

 

Hi Wendy,
I don't know the technical aspects of what the readout means. But your symptoms have been reported by people on this forum including twitching, pain, spasms. I think that you are doing right to eliminate the physical causes methodically as best you can. You want to reassure yourself as best you can that you are not experiencing something serious that should be treated with standard medicine. I wonder if the magnesium has helped. And also what your doctor thinks is causing all this pain and twitching. In my limited understanding, yes, this could possibly all be TMS symptoms. Love to hear others on this.
Andy B.

 

Hi Wendy,

Welcome to this site.

The fact that you have pain in so many places, and that it moves around and comes and goes, is strong evidence that it's TMS. That's what TMS often does, especially when you start reading Sarno, challenging the pain, and thinking about psychological causes.

I don't know anything about the thermography procedure. However, the results that you report indicate inflammation, and inflammation is a common TMS process. Remember, TMS is a psychophysiological condition. TMS produces real physical changes (inflammation, swelling, or spasms for example) that show up on objective tests, and yet have a psychological cause.

You're on the right track by learning about TMS. Let us know how things go.

David.

 

Hi, Wendy. The replies to you are great. Your symptoms do sound like TMS.
You're reading the right books to heal, but have you begun the Structured Educational Program?
It's free in the subforum on this web site and offers daily techniques and suggestions for TMS healing.
It has help me and many others.

You should try not to think your symptoms are structural but psychological, as Dr. Sarno suggests.

For headaches, practice deep breathing and meditation. Massage your forehead and temples.
Drink hot decaff tea or hot milk. Listen to soothing music. Don't watch tv news or violent shows.

Close your eyes and try imagining yourself in your favorite peaceful place.

And try laughing. I've laughed my pains and headaches away.

 

The fact that you are getting temporary relief from seeing a chiroquacter and phyisos tells me it could be TMS. You're getting some temporary placebo effect. Get more bang for your buck and get massages instead, consider if for relaxation not to cure anything. If it's TMS, only you working on the emotional causes or with the aid of a TMS therapist, can you "cure" it.

Are you sure you are vitamin defficient? That's pretty rare these days with supermarkets full of all types of foods and vitamins. Did you discuss with your doc how he missed it? If so what was his answer?

 

Thank you for the replies!

Yes I go for RMT (massage) I have been going for several years. Both the chiropractor and RMT visits offer temporary relief. To be honest the active release is better then the RMT..... It hurts like hell but it works For a short time.....we are trying to go for 3 weeks between this visit. Going to physio is just a waste of money imo.

I'm thinking I have other placebos..not sure if it's TMS related though?.....heat seems to help the pain for a while.....Epson salt footbaths (use for pain relief and also increase magnesium).....Sleeping with a pillow under my knees because physio said so....now I'm afraid to sleep without one!

Oh yes I'm 110% sure I'm deficiant I got the blood test reports from my family doctor after he told me all was good! The thing is the deficiencies can cause the muscle spasms, muscle twitching, lack of blood getting to where they need to go, and oxygen too.

When I asked him if he realized my blood levels were low he said "oh you must have been called?" I replied no one called me, I seen it on the blood test report... He didn't say too much after that!

So I have no idea if my symptoms are caused by the low blood levels or TMS.... We have no one up here in Canada near me to be able to get a consult.

On my thermography images you can see the areas that have hyperthermia and myofascia inflammation as red and orange... Upper and lower jaw....the tops of shoulders near the neck, back of neck, collarbone area, trapeze area of upper back, mid back, lumbar and area of S1..... I've decided to go to have the buttocks and legs done next week since a lot of my pain is the back of thighs, knees and inner thighs.

One thing I did find to work was when I was in pain I'd head for the shower sitting there feet stuck in a footbath with Epson salts all the while singing "gunna wash this pain down the drain"!...and it seemed to help! LoL

 

Hi WendyS,

of course severe defiencies in minerals/vitamins can worsen all kind of conditions. I too was very defient in B12 and other B-vitamins, iron, Vitamin D3 (was so low that it gave me osteoporosis with fractures), magnesium and other minerals. But: TMS can use all kind of conditions! When some of my symptoms improved (I supplemented the defient minerals) my mind created new symptoms. The mind can use everything to obsess about: weather the symptons are caused my some defiencies or injuries or by the mind itself (TMS). It's hard to draw the line between just physical or psychological induced symptoms. Get your minerals/vitamins balanced and then you will see weather your symptoms improve or not. If they improve it could be due to the supplements but it could also be a placebo effect. If the symptoms were replaced by other symptoms you know for sure it's TMS.

I had nasty Trigger Points and muscle cramping for a long time. When I got my minderals right AND stopped physical therapy/accupunture for TRPs they disappeared. So it could have been a TMS-healing or a healing due to the supplements. But: now I rarely suffer from Triggerpoints but from severe insomnia. So it became clear it was TMS.

In my opinion TMS can use nearly everything and aggravate it, as long as you obsess about it.

There's no harm in getting your minaerals balanced but if you have TMS this won't cure you.

My symptoms usually have some very physical and measurable components (hormonal dysbalancec and so on), never the less that's all due to stress and TMS is the underlying cause. If these kind of dysbalances can do harm to the body you have to treat them physically, too. But never forget the underlying cause...otherwise you only cut off the branches of the tree and not the root and there will grow new TMS-branches...

 

Hi Birdie,

If I may ask, how did your minerals get imbalanced? Were you on a special diet, if so which diet, veg, vegan, paleo?

Thanks,
tt

 

Hi Tennis Tom,

that's a good question. I am not on a special diet.
I don't tolerate heat very well, so I avoided the sun over years (I am a vampire!) and that's probably why I became vit d3 defient. There's also lacking something in my intestine so that I can't digest vitamin B12 and have to get injections in the muscle. I also was on Lyrica for several years and my neurologist told me that special psycho-meds can deplete B12. The defiency of iron and folic acid was probably due to polymenorrhea. I had other defiencies, too. But I don't know in detail why, because I am on a normal and healthy diet (except the tons of chocolate ). I am also lacking several amino acids and was told that imbalances of the ANS can cause this (in conditions like "fibro-TMS" there's often a lack in L-Carnitine and other aminos). As I was testet for neurotransmitters (and I am lacking Cortisol and Adrenaline, I was now prescribred hydrocortisone by the endocrinologist) I guess the dysbalance of the ANS can do all these things. I have lots of childhood trauma and probably repressed emotions and that creates chaos in the ANS and can affect all systems in the body (immunesystem, neurotransmitters, hormones, minerals....).
I support my body by supplementing the most important ones but I know that it's only a crutch.

So it is definitely possible to lack certain vitamins/minerals/amino acids even if one is on a normal diet. Sure there are enoough of all the needed vitamins in the food. But if a body is severely impaired by chronic stress even the ingestion can be a problem.

 

Thank you for the thorough reply Birdie, I'm also on the chocolate diet, polished off a box of See's Chocolates this weekend, helped with my stress a lot. Hopefully doing the TMS work will help you with some of your vitamin and mineral deficiency issues too.

Wishing you the best,
tt

 

Thank you for your reply Birdie,

Since a kid I've always been deficient in iron...always needed to take it off and on over the years......I basically figured it out on my own that my magnesium was very low...... The night it all started in Feburary with my legs in full out twitching I ended up in ER my husband called the ambulance..... While there they did all kinds of bloodwork...but they didn't do the bloodwork for minerals...... I knew my mag was 1.70 back in January 2014, I was on the low end of normal...... After reading up on muscle twitching and spasms I started taking magnesium Bisglytinate 300mgs a day...I went the the Doctor in March and with the guesstimate of having lower then normal mag I asked for a mag RBC, b12, iron, vitamin d.......I contacted the doctors office a few days later and asked them to fax it to me.....they did...but I never heard from the office.......turned out my mag was 1.29 from 1.70 in 2014! Plus everything else was deficiant as well!

I do understand what your saying to wait until my levels are back up....but I don't think the levels have anything to do with travelling pain and muscles clamping down on my nerves, tingling, depression and everything else I experienced....but I could be wrong too! LoL

I've been dealing with trigger points for years as well....one RMT would just touch a trigger point in my back and I'd be on the ceiling!