have you ever wondered

why tms seems to strike on the side thats injured at first (before spreading to diferent places)? like for example. you have neck pain, do an mri and it shows herniated cervical disks. after knowing that all the pain you feel is located there with arm pain if nerves are pinched. if herniated disc does not cause pain. why do people feel pain there?
logical answer that comes to my mind is. since mri showed you herniated a disc there your become stressed and acknowledge that the pain is due to herniated disc showned by mri. but why was the pain there and conscistant BEFORE reading an mri?
not my case, since i have lumbar but yeah just wanting to learn

 

Very good question! I have many ideas, but they are difficult to prove or disprove.
There are many people who have the symptoms of a herniated disc and don't show a herniated disc on a MRI. I doubt it that there is a statistical connection between the side of your body that you experience problems with and the side of the disc that is herniated. If it is there, maybe it simply is the result of that the muscles and other tissues surrounding the herniation sense a change (the disc changes form). So, herniation right side, muscles/tissue at the right side sense the change, the brain overreacts and creates havoc at the right side. (???) If the statistical connection is lacking, then it is simply a matter of chance.

Anyway, what I do know is that many people recover once they approach it as TMS. I believe that in the coming years research will shed more light on how it works precisely. Don't let it deter you from your TMS-quest though!...

 

I had this same conversation at tmshelp forum with ACE1 a few years back. We both think that the brain will often search for the body site that is either "torn, wear, aged, weaken, tired ..." or over used to attach the pain signals to. Our body's survival mechanism at work here. We are under stress, we are in "danger", the brain seek out potential damage parts and try to fix it. It will also send pain or discomfort signal to warn us to be careful and either fight or flight.
We also notice that sometime tms will appear at site that we treasure the most or need it the most. For woman it is breast cancer (ACE1 is a cancer doctor and he think cancer is an extreme form of tms), for man losing hair, and for both, our back, knees, and feet, hand, elbow..., what we used the most.

 

thanks a lot from balto and gigalos! yeah i started to doubt about this. but then again, remember that there are a lot of people with herniated disc and no pain