Foot & Leg Pain

[RikR]

This is getting ridiculous. I now have foot pain so bad I can hardly walk to the bathroom. My calves are almost too tender to touch. I am sure it is TMS as it started just one morning in July and has progressed to my whole body – the only thing that does not hurt are my toe nails.

Before this hit I could hike 10 or 15 miles a day and ride my bike for hours – now my feet cramp, burn and ached deep even when I am off them. I have tried to go for a walk and it just makes them worse.

My feet are the worst – they feel like they have been run over by a truck. Hard to grasp how a nervous system can came severe foot pain.

I have been doing the TMS recovery program for about 3 weeks and not one inch better.

Has anyone had totally crippling foot/leg pain.

 

[gailnyc]

Rik, I have foot pain, though it sounds not as bad as yours. Mine also started last summer and it got worse and worse until I couldn't walk normally anymore. I am fine when I'm at home and barefoot (though for awhile that was problematic, too), but once I put on shoes the top of my foot is so sensitive that the shoe rubbing against it causes discomfort and, if I try to walk at a normal pace, pain. It's like my mind doesn't want my body to be able to go anywhere. It's been getting better but very very slowly. And I still live in fear of re-aggrivating it by trying to walk too fast. I know that the fear is probably slowing my progress but I just don't know what I can do about it.

 

[veronica73]

Yep, I had bad foot pain too. Sometimes even walking around town was torture, and I'm car-free so that was a challenge.

I'm sorry to hear you are still in pain, but if the pain is moving around, this is a good sign. Dr. Sarno calls this the symptom imperative.

When I finally let go of watching the calendar, I paradoxically started to get better a lot faster.

For three weeks in, I think you are doing great. You are posting here a lot, getting and offering support, understanding the concepts, learning a lot about yourself, and now you're seeing physical changes. Pain is on the run and one day it will be gone!

 

[Leslie]

My foot and leg pain aren't totally crippling but they are definitely having a negative impact on my life. My original TMS location is my left shoulder/neck and for the most part that area seems to be improving much of the time. Now my left leg and foot are involved. I cannot identify a single thing I've done that would make the leg/foot pain the result of an injury so I'm assuming it's the TMS. I've just gotten to the point where I'm finally "thinking psychologically" when I feel pain somewhere (I've been working at this since the end of December) so I'm not even considering the idea of seeing a doctor for this new leg/foot pain. I am hoping that this is some frantic, last chance effort on the part of my sub-conscious, and I'm afraid that if I were to seek medical advice for it, my sub-conscious would declare victory and I'll be back to square one.

My pain started Monday. My left hamstring is so tight it feels as if it might snap in 2 any time it's engaged, naturally it's putting tension on my quad and knee in the same leg. I haven't made any connections between that pain and emotions, but I haven't tried all that hard either, mostly I'm trying to ignore it.

The foot pain on the other hand is a whole different story. The pain itself is mostly in the ankle, around the outside malleolus, traveling a bit into the outer top and side of my foot. This pain gets more of my attention than the leg and I know it's conditioning. I sustained an injury to this ankle when I was a child. I spent about 6 months on crutches and at one point the doctors were at such a loss for the cause and the cure that they did some type of nerve injections into my spine and told my parents (fortunately no one told me until it was all over) that if it did not restore the nerve and blood flow to the foot within something like 10 minutes the only remaining course of action would be to amputate. Although I'm fairly certain that the current pain is the result of my super-tricky sub-conscious, I guess the decades of conditioning I've had to baby that ankle and be on high alert for signs of distress prevent me from being absolutely certain. I guess maybe my sub-conscious figured if I was going to travel around that part of memory lane it might as well come along for the journey and trigger some of the physical pain from that time too.