First post, long time lurker...

Hi folks,

I've been reading forum posts on here sporadically for a few years now, and figured it's about time I bore all you wonderful folks with my story. I first want to thank all of you, because reading your posts and replies has really helped me, and it's wonderful that you all take the time to write and try to help others who suffer from TMS.

My TMS journey started in the mid 1990's. I was around 30 years old and living alone for the first time in a new apartment (bachelor pad) that I loved. Life was good, my family was great and I was happy. I was in great shape and worked out 5 days a week. One morning, out of the blue, I woke up with excruciating lower back pain. It was so bad I couldn't stand up. I literally crawled on all fours to get to the bathroom. I was home from work for a few days and the pain gradually got better and finally disappeared after a few weeks. I figured I must have slept wrong. Over the next few years, every now and then, my back pain would return, seemingly out of the blue. I started being more careful at the gym, stopped squatting, always bent my knees when picking things up, etc. My family was always kind enough to constantly remind me to be careful because I "had a bad back". I'm sure you've all heard that before.

Fast forward about 10 years. I'm working at a different company, married, living in a house and still getting that "out of the blue" back pain every now and then. I should mention that I had gone to see a doctor a few years earlier, who took x-rays and advised me that I had advanced degenerative disk disease. He said there really wasn't much that could be done, and I'd have to either live with the pain or opt for surgery. I opted to live with the pain. One of my co-workers asked me if I ever heard of Dr. Sarno. I had not, and he explained to me how Dr. Sarno had helped his son. When he mentioned about the cause of the pain being in my head, I dismissed it as hogwash. Well, a year or so later, after another brutal bout of lower back pain he again brought up Dr. Sarno. I googled Dr. Sarno and found the tmswiki website. As I started reading post after post, and following the various links to TMS information, it all started making sense. My back pain felt like it was vanishing as I read. To make a long story a bit shorter, I was pretty much cured of my back pain before I even read one of Dr. Sarno's books, thanks to you good people. I did buy "Healing Back Pain", and think it was one of the best purchases I've ever made. I have been 100% free of back pain for nearly 7 years.

So....why am I writing now? Well, I have a new issue that I believe is TMS, but I can't seem to beat it. In mid December 2013, 2 weeks before I was scheduled to sail on a Caribbean cruise with my wife, I suddenly started having a feeling of consantly having to urinate. The feeling of urgency was unbearable. I went to a urologist who listened to my symptoms and advised me that I had prostatitis. Now the odd thing is that I had had prostatitis 20 years earlier, and I remembered it because I came down with it 3 weeks before a Caribbean cruise. I was lifting very heavy weights at that time trying to get in shape for the cruise. The urologist I went to back then advised me that sometimes if you lift heavy and your bladder isn't empty, you can force urine back up into your prostate. He put me on Cipro (antibiotic) and eventually it went away. This time, the urologist put me on 10 days of Cipro. (I should add that once again, I was lifting heavy weights trying to get in shape for my cruise.) After 10 days, it was still bad, so I was given another 10 days of Cipro, which I had to take while on my cruise. Apart from a twinge here and there, I felt fairly normal throughout the cruise. When I got home, the feeling of constant urge to urinate returned. I called the urologist and she put me on 10 days of Bactrim DS, another antibiotic. Well, here it is, nearly the middle of February, and I'm still suffering. So why do I think this is TMS? Because on weekends, when I'm sitting home, I'm fine. No urgency, nothing abnormal. When I drive my car, the urgency pops up within 5 minutes. When I sit at my desk at work, the urgency is minimal. For the 30 minutes that I'm downstairs in the cafeteria eating lunch, it's brutal. I've actually left lunch early because I couldn't sit there any longer. Then, I get back to my desk and the urgency starts to diminish. Get in my car for the ride home, it's terrible again. Walk in the door of my house, and it's gone within about 5 minutes.

One of my main problems is that 99% of the TMS material I read, talks about pain. Since I'm not in any pain, just discomfort, I'm finding it hard to relate this to my prostatitis diagnosis. I desperately want to believe this is TMS, but I'm finding so little to reinforce that belief. I know Dr. Sarno did mention it in HBP, but it's only mentioned briefly in 3 places out of the entire book. I've been doing positive affirmations and talking to my brain, and anything else I can think of, but it won't go away.

Sorry for such a long winded first post. If anyone has any good advice for me, I'd be so happy to hear from you!

Thanks again!!

 

Tru B Leever, you have beat it in the past. You can beat this too. You have got to loose your focus on this issue and don't fear it whatever you do. I'd not worry about if its pain cause like you said The Good Doctor did mention it in his book HBP so I'd get my confidence back and believe again that you have got some emotional issues that need to be dealt with ok. Other than that you should come around just fine.

PS - You did write a success story in this thread. After you beat this imperitive why don't you come back and let us know how the whole thing went ok

Bless You

 

Thanks for your reply Eric. I feel like beating my back pain was easy, but this prostatitis thing is just brutal, especially since there seems to be so few other people on here who have had it. If I could read tons of success stories of people who beat it, I think it would be easier for me to make myself believe it. I didn't mention it in my first post, but about a year ago, I developed terrible pain in my right shoulder. It was so bad I could hardly lift my arm. I went for an MRI and was told I had a shoulder impingement and some tendonitis. A few days after that, I started to think that maybe it was just TMS. Once I realized that, the pain vanished within about 2 weeks. This prostate issue is going on 9 weeks now and has hardly improved. Very depressing.

I will definitely write a success story once I beat this thing!

 

Remember that pain serves as a distraction, so does anxiety. Having the urgency to go when you don't really have to is one of the most distracting things I have experienced. I have all kinds of strange things that I know are TMS and sometimes it is discouraging for me when I feel like what I'm experiencing is unique and isn't what is commonly known to be TMS. The last few days my nose and front teeth have been numb. This happened to me about 6 months ago for a few days so I am confident it is TMS. But still, I haven't heard or met anyone else with that symptom. It would be more comforting to me if I did know others but its strangeness it also what gets me. I'm way less scared than I used to be and so its coming up with new tricks. The way your symptoms come and go, it really does sound like TMS. And you already know you have TMS from before so you are susceptible. You've investigated medical causes so perhaps its time to try and switch your focus to the emotional and psychological. Hope you have a break through soon!

 

I've had urinary urgency, got an RX for Flomax on the advice of a retired doctor friend who swore by it and it took care of the symptoms. Hasn't your uro prescribed it to you yet? I also treat it as TMS when it occasionally occurs and keep the Flomax handy but don't need to use it much anymore. I was on a road-trip about a year ago and I had to stop to pee about five times whole driving home within a hundred miles. Thought it was rather amusing, tried going for a record of how many times I could pee before getting home. I've posted about urinary urgency over at the other TMS Help board if you feel like doing a search there. You have a lady urologist! Didn't know they were out there--you lucky boy. Seem's like an interesting job choice for a woman doc, how'd you pick her? Has she tried Flomax on you? It will get better with time and you'll start seeing the TMS element of it.

g'luck,
tt

 

Hi Anne.....Yes, this is beyond distracting. It's all I can think about, and since TMS is meant to be a distraction, it sure is doing its job. I fear it and find myself starting to doubt if its TMS. I think one of my biggest issues in regards to the doubt is that the urologist basically just asked me a bunch of questions and then told me i had prostatits. No actual tests except a urine sample. The few things I've read from others who were diagnosed with prostitis seemed to show that most of them had a number of different tests done. I think maybe that little bit of doubt is enough to keep me from totally believing this is TMS. I defintely agree with you that it is so comforting to find others with the same issue though. I hope you find relief for your numbness issue. Wish I could give you some help with that one. I'm sure you can beat it!

Hi Tom....wouldn't taking a medicine for your symptoms go against what Dr. Sarno says about stopping treatments? My urologist had me on antibiotics, which I was taking before I had any idea that prostatitis symptoms could actually be TMS. The strange thing about my symptoms is that while I have the urinary urgency, I don't actually have to go much more often than I normally did in the past, so I won't be beating your pee record lol! As far as my urologist, my symptoms came on so suddenly that I called up my medical group and took whomever I could get the earliest appointment with. All she's done so far is talk to me. Glad to hear you've got a handle on your symptoms.

Thank you all for your responses. Would love to hear from anyone else who was diagnosed with prostatitis.

 

Hi Tru B Leever,
If you put 'prostatitis' in the search box at the top right of the page, you will find many previous threads that discussed prostatitis. This is a great way to find others with the same TMS symptoms.

And welcome to the forum!

 

Welcome Tru B Leever. Sounds to me like you are just having a relapse of TMS. It can be a stubborn little bugger, but you've beat it once, so stick with it!
Thank you for sharing your success story.

Anne, I tried to send you a message but it says I couldn't. Wanted to tell you that I have the same symptoms as you! Message me if you'd like.

 

Tru B Leever here is the url to our search engine -- http://www.tmswiki.org/search/ Just type in your issues and you should be able to get a handle on what your seeking. I know this has got you weighed down but if you want to get better it would be wise to take Tom, Ellen, Honeybear and Anne's advice. They have all had the burden of symptom imperatives -- I have too and looking for the person with the exact sensations you have is Tmsing or stressing. This means the more you worry the more the symptoms will hinder you.
Take a stand and fight this burden with less stress and tension thoughts. You'll be surprised at the benefits.
I wanted you to know that we all tell you from our hearts and what we know as true. The rest is up to you.
Bless You

 

Ellen and Honeybear......Thank you for your input. Every little bit helps, and it's great to find a community of people here who understand TMS and believe in it. My own wife doesn't really believe in it, so that can make it difficult. She's so stressed at work and is also a real perfectionist. She constantly has pains that go from her back, to her neck, to her knees, etc, plus she suffers from bad headaches. If I mention TMS, she gets angry and says she doesn't have TMS. She's a textbook case of a TMS sufferer, but she has yet to be enlightened. That's how I feel about it. I feel that those of us who have been cured of our TMS suffering by reading and accepting Dr. Sarno's work are the enlightened people.

Eric......Thanks for that link. I've searched around and found a few people with a similar issue. You are right. I spend so much time searching for TMS info on prostatitis that I'm stressing myself out about it. I keep telling myself that the fact that I feel nearly symptom free when I'm sitting around my house and the symptoms only act up when I leave, makes for the proof that I need that this is TMS. I've tried some deep breathing and relaxation stuff, but as you said, I need to reduce the stress I'm putting on myself.

Thanks again everyone for taking the time to respond!

 

No I don't think so, he didn't recommend suffering in silence. Nothing wrong with taking meds short term for symptomatic relief of pain, or to calm anxiety to be able to function and focus on doing TMS thinking--I wouldn't have a root canal without novacane. Dr. Sarno even recommended, when all else failed, to curl up with a bottle of wine and a good book. TMS is about what is going on in your mind in relation to the symptom and how you view the origin of the symptom. Do you believe it's structural? Or do you believe the pain originates in your subconscious?--a protective defense mechanism who's function is to distract you from acting on tension creating repressed emotions.

I used to take Flomax regularly when leaving on a plane or car trip. Now I rarely take it unless I'm having a flare-up, having to get up at night frequently. Knowing the med is in my medicine cabinet or glove-box is enough to put my mind at ease. TMS symptoms tend to fade away rather then immediately disappear. I started being aware of my urinary urgency, viewing and relating it to TMS conditioning. On road trips I would have to go at the same places, like driving through Santa Cruz, CA. I noticed when I was playing tennis I didn't have to go for half a day. I observed some players consistently running off to the loo just before playing between the warm-up and starting the match--lot's of conditioning going on-- TMS is the volume control for the pain--or the peeing or pooping.

 

Hi Tru B Leever,
Reading through your posts I couldn't help but notice the signs of a perfectionist! I am sure you know that this is a common trait amongst us TMSers. When you spoke about pushing weights and getting yourself in shape for your cruise it made me think that despite your logical "self " thinking this is a sensible thing to do, your unconscious mind is perhaps furious. Your inner child doesn't want you to be doing this! The fact that you recovered so quickly before proves to you that you can do it again. I just think that you need to look into your personality a bit deeper and question your perfectionism. It is something that I am currently working on myself and I now view it as a bit of a curse. If you google Brene Brown you will find some great videos of her discussing this subject. By the way I have many many times heard of frequent urination being a TMS symptom. In fact, I am pretty sure Dr Sarno has it on his blackboard as part of his lecture.

 

Frequent whizzing must be a result of stress or anxiety. I have the problem off-and-on, but rarely when I'm doing something
I enjoy that takes my mind off things that worry me. Dr. Sarno does say it's one of the symptoms of TMS.

The thing I have to laugh at about the whizzing cycle is we're supposed to drink at least 8 glasses of water a day.
When I do that, I have to whiz more.

I don't think that frequent whizzing means we have a bladder problem. We may have a repressed emotion problem.

 

Tom......I think I get where you're coming from. You're saying that just knowing that you have the medicine available is something that helps you with the anxiety. I guess you could say that the Flomax is almost like a placebo, right? You expect it to help you, so therefore it does. I would think that anything that would help calm your anxiety would reduce your stress levels.


Sheree............You're absolutely right. I am a bit of a perfectionist. I also don't adapt to change very well. I sit in the same chair at the same table at lunch every day at work. I keep paperwork in the same spot on my desk. I always put things back in the exact same place I take them from. I have been using the same pen at work for at least 3 years or more. Etc, etc, etc. I guess you could almost say it's O.C.D. I really need to figure out how to get into my subconcious. I know Dr. Sarno talks so much about inner rage and repressed emotions from when we were young. When I think back to my childhood, I can't think of anything that would cause me any inner rage. I had loving parents, went to a small school were I was friends with everyone, lived in a nice house, was always healthy, had no tragedies or early deaths of family members or friends. There's got to be something there though, because as I found out with my back pain, I am a TMS sufferer.

Walt..........My issue is more of an urgency, or feeling like I have to pee, rather than frequency, but it's certainly causing me lots of stress and anxiety. Like you, when I'm home relaxing and not thinking about it as much, that feeling of urgency is nearly gone. For some reason, driving in the car really causes it to act up terribly, even though I love driving and am not at all a nervous driver. Unlike most prostatitis sufferers, I don't have any pain and don't urinate any more often than normal. It's just this feeling like I need to pee, even when I don't need to go, plus every now and then there is some "penal tingling" for lack of better description.

Thank you everyone!!

 

Relationships are major TMS tension causers if not THE major cause. Your wife not being on-board nor sympathetic to TMS is a big rift in my opinion. Take a look at the Rahe-Holmes list for other causes of TMS tension--there's your TMS science!

 

Hi again. There is a book that you may find interesting. It is not about TMS, but it relates to your problem. It is called "Teach us to sit still" by Tim Parks.
I can relate a lot to what you have said. I am finding it difficult to understand the reason I have TMS, but I do think that the perfectionist side of me is all to do with needing to control things. Being a fairly anxious person, I think that by keeping things in control makes me think that I am protecting myself from bad things happening to me. Of course this makes no sense at all, but it is something I am working on. Good luck with your journey.

 

We may think we like to drive, but driving today is no piece of cake. Other motorists are rude drivers
and/or are multitasking at the wheel so I feel that today it's dangerous to take the car out of the garage.

Driving today can cause anyone to need to urinate.

If anyone is on Flomax, maybe for a while it could be a crutch to keep from urinating often,
but I remember years ago when I was on Librium, I tapered off of it until I stopped using it,
but kept one pill on me as a "Dumbo's feather." Remember the Disney cartoon elephant held a
feather in his trunk when he took a high dive into a bucket of water? He thought it gave him courage,
and it did, until one day on a dive the feather flew away and he made the dive without it?
Maybe try that with Flomax until you don't need it anymore. Dumbo found courage without his
feather. You can, too.

 

Tom.........I totally agree. I feel that a huge part of helping TMS sufferer's get past their symptoms is having someone who says, "yes, you are right. These symptoms ARE being caused by your brain. There IS nothing physically wrong with you". It was very tough for my when I first started believing that my back pain was cause by TMS. I was trying so hard to believe in what Dr. Sarno was saying in HBP and would tell my wife about how much sense everything in the book made, and she'd respond with, "I don't want to hear it! Dr. Sarno is a quack!" I had to ignore what she was saying and do the journey on my own. That's why this forum is so wonderful. People in here get it. As I said in an earlier post, we have been enlightened. They say misery loves company. Well TMS sufferers love company too!

Sheree.........I'm sure our perfectionist tendencies are a big part of our TMS issues. It's something that probably isn't too easy to change either. Thanks for the info about Tim Parks' book. I've seen that title mentioned in some other posts before. I'm going to take a look and see what it's about.

Walt...........One of my own theories about the reason for my feeling of urgency while driving being so much worse than how I feel when I'm home is that when I'm home, I'm in a safe, comfortable place with the knowledge that if I do need a bathroom, there is always one just a few feet away. In the car, I don't have that comfort. As far as Flomax, I'm going to try and beat this thing with no medical help whatsoever. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced it's TMS, and I will not let it win!

Thanks folks!!!