So I am now rereading The Divided Mind by Dr. Sarno, working to figure out Somatic Tracking, and after weaning myself off one more med I will be down to….ZERO MEDICATIONS. The Parkinson’s is a bit bothersome but I find myself wondering how much of that diagnosis was driven by my TMS. I exercise so much my neighbor is certain I am training for Ironman. And that is enough to slow the progression of Parkinson’s - if in fact I really have that disease. I love no longer looking for the quick pharmaceutical fix for what ails me.
Hi Jim! I remember seeing your post a few days ago and I really liked what you said, plus I was intrigued by your mention of the Parkinson's in that post, so I'm excited that you expanded on that part of your story. Which, BTW, doesn't even come close to competing for length with some of the novellas we get here (many of which I only skim because they go on
foreeeeeever and with so much detail about symptoms and treatments that are completely irrelevant! As you well know.) (But I digress...)
This experience of reframing your Parkinson's diagnosis and getting off the meds really sounds like a Success Story to me. I'm just sayin' - if you ever think about writing it up in a bit more detail, it absolutely should go into the SS subforum! To me, TMS recovery success takes many different and subtle forms.
I myself have been at this since 2011, the year that turning 60 resulted in a cascading crisis of what had been six decades of quite mild off-and-on TMS symptoms that never impeded my active life. "After Sarno" I was doing really well, although I recognized that the existential dread of getting older was always lurking and that I needed to be mindful of how my brain will always want to repress the emotions around that topic. But Then 2020 came along, and thanks to a confluence of several demanding circumstances that were partly due to and partly coincidental with the pandemic, I found myself overwhelmed with outside stressors and a lack of mindfulness that ended up with a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis.
I immediately connected this to the stress and I consulted with Dr. David Schecter (well-known TMS MD) to see if I could just treat it as TMS, and he said yes, BUT also no - because I had to get control of the massive inflammation (he saw my labs) or risk serious physiological damage. The good news is that after four years it's well under control with a moderate dose of the most basic (not biologic) RA medication there is, and a newly-assigned rheumatologist just told me that I was "in remission with medication" which I found interesting. I do have flares, but I can
always connect them with some weird-ass stress response that my brain thinks it needs to repress, and a bit of self-reflection and/or journaling takes care of the flare in less than 24 hours.
One of the books that really influenced me after reading The Divided Mind back in 2011 was "When The Body Says No" by Gabor Mate, MD - do you know of it? I think you would really appreciate it, plus it's really well written and compassionate. I can't remember if he discusses Parkinson's specifically, but I certainly agree that you're on the right track when you connect that Dx with a physiological response to emotional stress. The Stress-Inflammation connection is becoming more well-known and accepted all the time.
Cheers, and welcome to the discussion!
