fluid in the knee

Hi,
I have a developed knee pain over the past few months. My mri shows a torn meniscus. My orthopedist who is familiar with Dr Sarno's approach said he would think it is tms except for the fluid that is in my knee. Does fluid indicate a lack of tms? Or, is that just "inflammation"? I am ready to treat it as tms but don't want to hurt myself if it is not. Any thoughts would be extremely appreciated!
Thanks,

 

Hi Trainert,
I don't have a definitive answer for you but the therapist I work with told me that when he was dealing with tms knee pain his knee would swell every time it rained. I'm not sure if this was due to "fluid" or not but it is certainly amazing that mind is capable of creating such a change.

 

Thanks for your response. still dealing with this. ;(

 

I had the "water on the knee" diagnosis on several occasions but it was always TMS. The swelling and loss of range of movement were simply somatic responses. If you're not healing then that further points to a mindbody effect. But there are few things that aren't.

 

Thank you. That was very helpful. Having a really hard time with this one.

 

Hey Trainert,
My husband went through this. He is not a TMS'er and it was interesting to observe. They told him it was a torn miniscus. His knee would swell to the size of a grapefruit and would last for days and days. He saw multiple dr.'s and they wanted to operate on him. He came home one day and said "they're all full of shit." He bought a bike and that was the end of that. He rode for a year.
It was fascinating to me to remember how he handled this. It was before I knew about TMS. He basically said, my knee is fine and pushed through it and it went away. That was after a year of back and forth with pain and swelling and dr.s.
When I found out about TMS I remembered how that all went down for him and I used that as inspiration.
Good luck.

 

Yes Ines, your husband did the right thing intuitively. Fear is the evil, and he conquered his with a bike. He sounds like an athlete or military man,

 

That is truly amazing!! I am 98 % confident it is tms...it's the 2 % that is getting me.....How do I gain that certainty? I do barbell lifting and I am trying to push through but the pain gets me and it's excruciating and I can't keep the barbell balanced on my back....

 

Never attack the pain, and 98% conscious belief means little. It's your unconscious you need to get to. When it believes it's ok then you are on your way, good luck.

 

Thanks....I need it

 

I have a swollen knee now, the x-rays showed mild arthritis but I think it is just the usual regular and normal aging changes Dr Sarno was talking about. I had my doctor drianed the knee but it is still painful and filled back with fluids. I am trying to deal with it as TMS but get filled with fear and anxiety whenever I see it swollen even more. How did you deal with understanding the swelling as TMS? It's a tough one...

 

Hi Elle!
Do you have fluid in the knee is or is it simply swollen? I now have this also, my Dr. doesn’t want to do an MRI as he says stuff like this usually resolves on its own and insurance companies don’t want to pay for the imaging. He says he is 99% sure it is the meniscus but I never injured it. Also starting to feel something I the left knee now so I k ow it’s TMS but it’s so freaky because of the fluid in the knee and the pain.

 

I have the same thing going on right now. It has been going on a month. The doctor said mild arthritis, but nothing wrong that he could find. The knee is slightly swollen and warm to the touch. I have been walking and biking on it but it isn't getting better. I too am thinking TMS but the swelling, warmth and not getting better with exercise have created doubts.

 

Hang in there chopper72! I am also hiking on mine, the weird thing I notice about it is twofold. First, when I start hiking the pain moves from the inside of my knee to the knee cap and also occurs in the other knee as well. Second, pain is the most severe it seems when I’m seated, which to me points to nerves as the origin of the pain as sitting puts pressure on the lower spine thus possibly stimulating the sciatic nerve, which of course passes through the knee. I never had a traumatic injury so it has to be caused by the nerves.

 

TMS is not about nerves or the physical. Short term traumatic pain heals. Long term chronic pain without any evidence of structural issue is most often tms.
Here is more information about tms https://www.tmswiki.org/ppd/For_people_just_learning_about_TMS (For people just learning about TMS)

 

So my range of motion limitations and swelling in the knee could be entirely TMS?

 

Yes. We had two nearly identical topics going and I posted on the other one. I had swelling and the sports Doc told me I had fluid on the knee. But when I saw the negligible amount of fluid (3 quarters stacked in a pile) The engineer in me that builds stuff knew that the physics made no sense. I treated it as TMS and have had zero negative consequence.. I am 57 and still run and jump and climb and all of that good stuff... not even in particularly good shape.

This may just be semantics, But I DO attack the pain.
I have been staying TMS free for decades and playing sports and working in all facets of construction . When I know something is TMS I absolutely attack it.. it's a part of my strategy to disable it.

EXAMPLE;
This week. On a barn burner of a job. ... I made a calendar mistake and promised a guy a deadline that I never would have promised if I was reading the calendar correctly....What I thought would be a difficult 10 day job had to be done in 4 !!
I normally work alone but had to hire two of my friends...They are good painters. But I am an "oh my god, don't miss one little thing OCD, perfecto-painter"... after working with them for 3 days my hip was totally stiff and killing me. I was in a RAGE at the situation I had got myself into, being dependent on their help, but less than satisfied with their neatness and quality of work....reigning Narcissist tyrant!! But unable to express it based on the situation

As the pain grew in my awareness, I immediately attacked it. Went out and tried to run in spite of being hardly able to walk normally..throwing things hard for my dog in spite of the pain and stiffness. In SPITE of... it's like a little war inside of us.."No...little angry narcissist doesn't get to run the show. You are IN the world, you are not the world"....I focused my attention on feelings of not being good enough, and feeling helpless. And the next morning, I am pain free. all the stiffness is gone.

Any time I have what I call a 'tickle', ,, the discernible onset of a pain or stiffness, I Immediately get involved in an activity that the symptom would seem to preclude...if my shoulder hurts I do push-ups or play catch... if my hip hurts, I run and hit balls off a tee. If My foot hurts, I go for a long walk...Important to that statement is, I do it in a therapeutic context. While I am doing the 'attack' or I prefer 'challenge' as Sarno said, I focus my mind on all of the little rage makers that I am aware of to send an instant message down to my unconscious "Hey...STOP that crap right now!"

We never really know what goes on down there, BUT I have been doing this for two and a half decades with zero negative consequences. Mind you, I was very very versed in TMS theory before I did this. Even Sarno said that is was a bad idea except for people who understood the priciples and he always gave the example of the woman who had 'bursitis' and then went running... it's in the text of 'Healing back Pain', and i believed he mentioned it elsewhere.

 

Hi Baseball,
Thanks so much for your response. I am really working on treating this as TMS, in fact I know it has to be (my other knee has now begun hurting also but not as bad). What I am finding is the more I ‘power’ through the worse it hurts. I have heard that it is the fear that keeps the pain going, so I was wondering if you remember how long after you decided your fluid in the knee thing was TMS that the pain went away? My pain seems to be hanging on for dear life!

 

Also, did you take NSAID’s for any of it?? My wife keeps telling me to take them for my swollen knee but I’m like “why? I need to learn to control this on my own.” But I conflicted on this point….

 

Well, first of all, how long have you been doing this? I would NOT recommend what I do to a new person just because it requires some experience with knowing how your 'process' works. It was frustrating reading Sarno's story of the lady with Bursitis getting better in one long jog, But in retrospect, I totally get it. The longer you do this, the quicker you can go from intellectually knowing it is TMS to respite.

What was far more important was the underlying repressed emotions. My wife and I had just had one of our phony 'solutions' to a problem that was longstanding and ultimately we got divorced....but at that time in my life that thought entering my consciousness would have terrified me.

Remember, the whole point of the pain is to 'protect' us from scary repressed emotions and gross feelings. Getting to the root of THOSE combined with denying/challenging the structural mythology is a multi-pronged strategy.

When my knee hurt I noticed it was swollen and baggy...but later when it did NOT hurt, it looked the same..I just have ugly F-d up knee from being a tradesman and working on them my whole life. I never bothered to notice them until I had a symptom. If it is TMS , NSAIDS aren't going to do anything... the only thing that ever gave me respite from TMS was steroids and only briefly. That was one of the observations Sarno made as well, and could only guess it stimulated blood flow