Fully accepting TMS

[chrisami]

Hello all,

I am new to this, and find today I could really do with a little support and advice.

I have RSI in my hand, and before discovering Dr. Sarno's "The Mindbody Prescription", I had tried several physical therapies. The only one that really worked (at least temporarily) was massage. I had been seeing an osetopath in parallel who had tried everything to fix my RSI, but eventually gave up by saying he "can't find anything wrong".

My massage therapist was also not sure of the cause of my symptoms except for vague comments about tight muscles, until he found that my hand had developed tight, thick, fascia beneath the skin on my palm!
At the time I was very relieved someone had finally found something, and was hoping that we can target this tight fascia and the RSI would be fixed!
However I have had the fascia treated several times, and treat it myself through massage that the therapist taught me, and while symptoms did reduce quite a lot, they did not go completely.

The theory of tight fascia, or fascial restrictions, and the practice of myofascial release as the treatment for many chronic pain conditions is also quite controversial, and not yet fully accepted by mainstream medicine ~ (sadly) just like the TMS, mindbody theories of Dr. Sarno.

While I strongly believe that my symptoms are caused by TMS, the fact that I have this very noticeable physical manifestation of tight, thick, fascia (I can literally feel it) on my RSI hand, but not on my healthy hand, occasionally means I have niggling doubts.

Please help me fully accept that this structural problem did not independently create itself somehow, but is 100% caused by TMS. (I have read, for example in Dr. Sarno's book, and in some text by Howard Schubiner that this is very important: "The major things which determine if someone gets better from TMS are these: ability to recognize the process as TMS and to clearly understand that there is no physical reason why they cannot get better. + ability to recognize the psychological issues that have created TMS symptoms.")

Has anyone experience of their TMS causing tight, thick fascia/dry skin/restricted movement of the fingers? Did it get better?
If TMS operates by causing local ischemia, can that affect the fascia as well, or only the muscles?

Sorry for the long post, thank you so much.

Chris

 

[Eric "Herbie" Watson]

Chris. You are over thinking. I too had all the tight muscles and did the myofascial release. It wasn't the answer. The answer is that you have emotional issues that you have put on the back burner and never face. It could be current stressors and past stressors and thoughts about your future. If your worrying about any of those then your going to have pain and the tms indicates that you have been worrying for some time now. You have goals and wants in life that you really want to do but you think this pain will always be a thorn in your side. That is a lie made up by to much western civilization knowledge. You need to do meditations to calm down your ANS system. You need todo deep breathing to calm your over sensitized nerves. You have just begun and you need to get on the SEP structural program and learn more of this knowlede therapy so you can apply this knowledge therapy and turn it into wisdom ok.

 

[chrisami]

Thank you again for a thoughtful and helpful reply Eric. I guess I am just overthinking things!... but you know, at lot of sources stress how important it is to 100% believe TMS/PPD as the root cause of the tension and pain, and sometimes its scary to think small doubts may arise, and may hinder or de-rail one's journey to healing!
But anyway, perhaps that's me overthinking things again. I know the SEP is the way forward and I'm not going to give up.

 

[Lily Rose]

While I have read that it is needed to 100% believe, I am not convinced that anyone can fully go blindly into that absolute percentage. Without doubts, we stop questioning. Questioning must always occur for growth and change. Not every technique works exactly the same for each person.

There IS the aspect of over-thinking. When you are paralyzed in your changes, that may be an aspect of over thinking. I 'think' a great deal, but I also allow some 'mulling' time. Instead of keeping things boiling, I move it to a simmering state, where more can be absorbed without over doing anything. Yes, a cooking analogy *smiles*

The physical change in condition, where you can feel the difference between the right and left hand, is much like any physical manifestation of this TMS/MBS. You are embarrassed, you blush ... that means blood rushes to your face. A real and visible response to an emotional state. Prolong that blush, and what would begin to happen?

Is there a medical cause for what is happening to you? Possibly. Is it TMS? Likely. Since the medical aspect is at a standstill, you have nothing to lose in exploring whole-heartedly the TMS aspect. If you believe it 99.9%, you are doing fine. Work at it as though you DO believe it 100%. Remember, everything is just a practice. We are re-training and re-conditioning our responses and our beliefs.

The first aspect is this: Believe in yourself, and believe in your own power. The rest starts to fall into place.

with grace and gratitude,
^_^

 

[chrisami]

Hi Lily Rose, thank you for taking the time to respond. I suppose I understand how it is easy to get hung up on the physical changes which happen as a result of TMS, and mistakenly view them as the root cause of the problem. And yes, perhaps it is impossible to believe anything 100% straight away, but whether I'm only at 80%, 90%, 95% or whatever, my conscious mind certainly believes and understands that working on my TMS is what needs to be done in order to heal. Now I just need to get my unconscious mind to understand that "I know what you're up to!" and get it stop trying to distract me from my life and my emotions (however difficult)...

 

[Lily Rose]

This day involved a great deal of standing, as we were using tiny paint brushes to apply sealer between the kitchen counter tiles. My hamstrings began to protest. Their little voices raised, and I sent a mediator to negotiate with them. They hollered for my hind-end muscles to back them up. The mediator (my breathing and my amusement at their antics) got the hamstring crew to move from red zone to yellow zone. The arches in my feet chimed in. The mediator patiently headed in that direction. We put some music on (think More Than A Feeling ...ooommm chucka ooomm chucka), and it diverted the hamstring crew and the arch crew into the green zone, as now they decided we were having fun. The glut-department sighed but fell willingly into the hip motions, even as my hands remained steadily applying the sealer. I kept up a running commentary to my husband about every development, so that we both were getting amusement from the situation.

I know what you are up to is a perfect description. When you know, you can employ diversionary tactics.

It is difficult at first, but each practice ... it gets less difficult. After a while, it starts to become a habit. It will happen. It IS happen, just by your acknowledgement. There will be some rough points, but that will tell you that you are on the right path. Settle in for the journey, and just see what happens.

with grace and gratitude,
^_^

 

[Msunn]

Hi Chrisami,

Great advice from Eric and Lily. There is a chapter in the Divided Mind where a patient had a nerve conduction test with below avg. results, had carpal tunnel surgery, and still didn't improve until accepting that it was TMS.
So physical symptoms can be caused by TMS.

In my RSI case I had a variety of diagnosis and treatments, none of which made anything better. As I've accepted TMS as the cause I've gotten much better.

It took me a while to accept that what I have is TMS 100% but I do believe that it is at this point. The first thing you could try is stopping the massages to the hand and see if anything changes. You may see, as I did, that nothing got worse physically when I stopped all treatments, and in fact I got better. Then I started seeing how I brought on pain when I got stressed out etc. where as before I thought it was due to posture or "overuse".

It's a process that takes time for many of us. This is a great community to get support and suggestions. Please keep sharing your journey with us.

All the best

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

Lots of great advice for you Chrisami.

It can be hard to accept 100 percent that our symptoms are from repressed emotions, but it's essential.
Our unconscious mind may think we don't fully believe and keep the pain coming.

It's easier to think our pain is from posture or overusing our body, but that's got to be overcome and
accept TMS 100 percent. Keep working on that. Steve Ozanichs says he finally healed from years of
severe back pain by totally believing it was caused by anger over medical maltreatment of his wife
that left her paralyzed and eventually ruined their marriage.

 

[chrisami]

Thank you all.

Lily - I'm heartened to hear your account of how you have become so comfortable fighting your TMS that you can do it with humour. That is great, and a goal I will aim for.

Msunn - Yes good idea. I have a physical therapy appointment booked in for tomorrow actually, that unfortunately had been booked from a while ago. Since learning more about TMS, I had already intended to make it my last appointment.

Walt - I believe I am getting closer to 100% conscious belief. As I have read on the Structured Education Programme however, I understand that more reading, learning, and repetition is necessary for that knowledge to sink down to the unconscious.

Best wishes

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

Chrisami, it can be the hardest thing to believe 100 percent in TMS causing our pain,
but if you keep working on it, it will happen.

Laughing also really does help me. I get stressed and then laugh it off.

My mortgage bill today went up $250 dollars a month because of higher taxes,
and I'm trying to laugh it off. It ain't easy.