Program Flare-ups/Relapses, and Medication Use

A

Avi Lee

New Member
Just spent years tapering medications and just when I could finally rest as I finished all difficult tapers 2 months ago, I had continuous recent major stress, demands and worry about a loved one for a month straight which brought me to a tipping point and the following occurred:
New burning and squeezing and prickling/nervy pain in all extremities, New temperature regulation issues with hot skin and then cold hands with an increased heart rate, intensified tinnitus and insomnia.

Seems I’m stuck in sympathetic nervous system overdrive.

I’m angry with myself (and others) for putting so much pressure on myself and letting the stress get to that tipping point.

OTC meds are not working. And now I’m going to have to go back on these horrible meds when I just sent years tapering off meds.

I was so ready to move forward with my life and had a reached a place where the previous TMS symptoms had subsided, as I had done the TMS recovery work previously.

And now I am stuck in a worsened flare-up and angry that I have to go back into the Western Medical System again, get back on medication which I’m seeing as a failure, and all just when I thought I was finally done with it all.

Going down the rabbit hole of fear and catastrophizing.

In order to get back into the TMS Recovery work, I have to get some better pain control and get these thermal regulation issues under control.

So disappointed and worried about what’s to come, especially from Western Medicine tests and recommendations.

How is one to cope with all of this?

Any words of encouragement would be appreciated.
 
Hi Avi. It is a lot what you're going through, sorry about that. But let's see:

First, about the insomnia, if it's usually more than 30 minutes it is an oportunity to journaling, meditation, somatic tracking etc. Journaling specifically always worked for me for reducing the anxiety and making me sleepy.

The meds are a hard one, and I'm assuming you don't have the option of eliminating them. I also am taking some that I pretty much don't believe are helpful. But you see, TMS setbacks are quite normal and the failure is not on you, it's on the system that doesn't provide the methods to cope with mindbody issues, let alone mindbody setbacks, leaving the patient usually alone with this task.

The anger... you can do emotional release techniques to start burning it for real. Then you'll have space to direct the anger to other things but yourself. And then, there will be space for self compassion.

About the situation with your loved one, is there anyone you can talk about this? Just to take some pressure off your shoulder a little...

And the pain and your question about how to cope with it all. TMS pain is designed exactly to not let us feel encouraged. But I imagine the best solution in this case is to get power back by being assertive in your safety messages, treating this bully the way it deserves. Then when the pain gets more manageable you can procede with all that "I know you're actually trying to help me" thing.

Well, hope it helps. It's a hell of a journey, isn't it?
 
Awesome advice and response from @feduccini.

The only thing I would add is that maybe it would help to understand what happened.

It all goes back to the original evolutionary purpose of what we call the TMS brain mechanism. It has one purpose, and one purpose only: our literal physical survival in a dangerous primitive wilderness. It evolved in this wilderness over tens of thousands of years of homo sapiens, and even more tens of thousands of years of various homo-types before sapiens, and the mechanism literally has NO clue what the modern world is about. Don't forget that the modern world only covers about five thousand years - a teensy tiny sliver of time on our evolutionary timetable.

This means that our brains still exist in the primitive wilderness. Which means that the stress response which evolved to keep us safe in the wilderness is being triggered by the gazillion modern stressors we experience in the modern world. Which, for most of us who are lucky enough to live in physical safety, do NOT represent a threat to our physical survival. But our brains don't realize this! Instead, they invoke physical responses designed to keep us focused on the danger and to keep us hidden away from the unsafe conditions outside in the world. In other words - the symptoms we call TMS, which as we know also include the non-physical equivalents of anxiety, depression, and OCD.

Give yourself a break, along with patience, kindness, and a whole bunch of compassion. This is a setback, which does not need to come with a predetermined set of expectations. Your initial response represents desperate attempts by your TMS brain to get you to run for cover. Take it one day at a time, and allow your rational brain to calm down your irrational brain. Come back to the work, and assume that you can conquer this again.

All the best to you, @Avi Lee. We're pulling for you.
 
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