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How do you explain it to people?

Enrique

Enrique

Well known member
Ok. So for those who have started to get better or have overcome chronic pain, how do you explain PPD/TMS to people that ask you how you got healed or are getting healed?? I've been healed for 5 yrs but still don't have a consistent answer!

Anyone develop a nice succint answer??
 
Enrique, I have the same question! I feel like I don't do a very good job of it. And I really want to be ready to write a letter to all of my former health practitioners later this summer as I approach the 1-year mark of discovering TMS.

I look forward to following the comments on this thread
 
I don't know if it's succinct, but I've been explaining it to people and most seem interested or at least respectful. My TMS doctor asked me at the end of our appointment how/if I planned to explain it to people in my life. He said a lot patients feel unsure of how to tell others about TMS, but by the time I saw my doctor I had been working on with Dr. Sarno's books for about 6 weeks and had already been telling people about it.
 
I have two friends who embraced the concept whole-heartedly, and are excited about their progress - I should give myself more credit :^)
 
When I was at the worst and my pain went down 80% after reading Dr Sarno's Back Pain book I told my bookclub friends, many of them took it personal like I was saying they had to believe that way also and were wrong to take medicine or go for physical therapy. I told them I was talking about me and happy it is working for me, this wasn't about them! So since then I am very careful because people when they hear new ideas do tend to take things personal and feel guilty if they think they are doing it wrong. But I did have a few who asked about it and were interested to read about it…including my doctor who was surprised I was healed so fast after acute attack. She wrote down info, that made me very happy. She said she has a lot of patients with pain issues not physically related. She is younger doc into sports in her early to mid 40's. So I think we should have hope for the future if some of the younger ones are more open minded like that and want to help their patients with long term pain issues with something besides a pill….
 
JanAtheCPA said:
Enrique, I have the same question! I feel like I don't do a very good job of it. And I really want to be ready to write a letter to all of my former health practitioners later this summer as I approach the 1-year mark of discovering TMS.
Click to expand...

I thought about writing the 9 specialists I saw too. But in the end, I just wanted to move on. I did tell 2 practitioners: a very forward thinking, alternative treatment sports med doc and an open minded GP.

I believe it was Dr. Schubiner who suggested telling people the truth, but succinctly in terms they could understand and not refute. "I solved my stress induced muscle pain through a retraining program and making adjustments to my lifestyle." You are retraining your brain and people with other health issues do it all the time.

I also like the personal affirmation "My personal recovery is not predicated on what other people think".
 
Thanks for the responses. After careful consideration, I realize that it really doesn't matter what I say. What does matter is that I explain with conviction in my heart and without fear of what anyone else thinks.
 
I usually say that after extensive medical searches they couldn't find anything wrong, and eventually I read a book that suggested stress could cause back pain. I'd tried everything else and was so deperate I tried treating it as stress and to my amazement the pain went away.
 
I don't really think there is a right or wrong way to do it. I do tend to be hesitant to explain it to people, but I really think it is just my TMS goodist personality coming out. I either don't want to offend anyone who may have chronic pain or I don't want to be considered "Psycho". But to a certain extent thinking this way, in my case, really only perpetuates the TMS traits that caused my symptoms in the first place. A large part of recovering is accepting the diagnosis and the strong emotions that we have been repressing. I think learning to tell people about TMS is part of this, because, at least in my case, in means that I simply accept that I had TMS and realize there is nothing wrong with it.

Still, when I do explain I usually use the term stress instead of psychosomatic. I also really like how Sewmuch said she explains it "I solved my stress induced muscle pain through a retraining program and making adjustments to my lifestyle."

If someone gets it great, but if they don't who cares. I'm pain free and that's all that matters!
 
Pandamonium said:
I usually say that after extensive medical searches they couldn't find anything wrong, and eventually I read a book that suggested stress could cause back pain. I'd tried everything else and was so deperate I tried treating it as stress and to my amazement the pain went away.
Click to expand...

I sure hope that I will be able to say this to people one day...
 
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