Hi Yaakmberns,
Sorry to hear about your TMS/plantar fascitis. Let me tell you a quick story about my own very recent bout with TMS/plantar fascitis. First some context: I had severe lower back problems a few years ago that I associated with playing soccer and getting older (I'm 43). Those problems led me down the typical path of PT/ice/painkillers and never-ending stretching and recovery. It would go away for short periods but ALWAYS come back. I finally got so desperate that I was considering surgery. That's what led me to this TMS forum and to John Sarno's books, which described both my personality and my problems with 100% accuracy, and once I fully believed in TMS and followed Sarno's instructions on how to deal with it, it was gone. COMPLETELY. Literally, almost from one day to the next, I went from barely being able to walk to playing indoor soccer on a hard court twice a day with zero pain. Amazing.
Fast forward to about 5 months ago.
Out of nowhere (seemingly), my left ankle and foot started killing me. I had sprained it badly in soccer about 5 years ago, and I was assuming (correctly, it turns out, but we'll get to that later) that it was TMS attacking an old but legitimate injury, as it is known to do. Every time a played soccer my ankle/foot would be killing me and feel very stiff.
Having been through my back problems I knew it was TMS so I totally ignored it and kept playing. But of course it didn't go away. And it was a strange pain, sometimes on the bottom, sometimes on the heel, sometimes more on the outside of the ankle, but consistently it occurred every time I played soccer. After a few months of it not going away from totally ignoring it, I began to think that maybe it wasn't TMS, maybe it was arthritis caused by my legitimate angle injury 5 years ago, finally catching up with me from getting older and still playing soccer (reading this now - I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER!).
To rule this out/get to the bottom of it, I decided to see a renowned local foot/ankle specialist (I'm in San Francisco). He did some tests with me and pressed on the bottom of my heel (which hurt a lot) and pretty quickly diagnosed me with plantar fascitis - which they think is inflammation of the tendon going from the heel to the toes at the bottom of the foot (but it's not - it's TMS). He told me I could keep playing soccer and that PF typically goes away after a few weeks of stretching and strengthening. He gave me a paper with exercises to do, and I was on my way. I was relieved that it wasn't arthritis and that it was something pretty common that goes away quickly.
I'd never heard of plantar fascitis but started reading up about it. I couldn't believe it was so common and that there were so many product MADE specifically to help deal with pain from plantar fascitis. Here's what's really interesting - once the doctor diagnosed me with PF, the pain shifted COMPLETELY to my heel and the bottom of my foot, haha, and it got much worse. I could barely walk. I started doing the exercises the doctor prescribed and iced it and rested it, too. I also bought a boot to wear at night that keeps my foot straight (it's believed that sleeping a certain way makes PF much worse in the morning). All of this seemed to help - a little bit. But then I'd go play soccer and boom, it all came right back. The pain was very intense and very real, and I was convinced I could be one of the "recalcitrant" cases of plantar fascitis.
And then it dawned on me - had I bothered to Google the link between TMS and plantar fascitis yet? Nope. I Googled it, and sure enough this forum came up and I started reading about all these people whose "plantar fascitis" was really TMS. I started re-reading "The Great Pain Deception", and literally, BEFORE I'D EVEN FINISHED READING THE BOOK, my plantar fascitis had almost completely disappeared. It hung for a little bit after I realized that what I had was TMS, but then it was gone. Completely.
And then all the pieces started coming together and everything made sense: just as my back problems had arisen at a stressful time in my life during a job transitions, so had, I realized, my "plantar fascitis", coming on during another job switch and attacking the site of an old injury. It was pretty much textbook TMS. The mistake I'd made was totally ignoring it; it's not enough to just believe that it's TMS, you have to actively engage the belief and remind yourself, every time you feel the pain, that it's repressed emotions causing the physical pain. If you don't stay on top of it in that way, eventually your old way of thinking will come back and your mind will have you believing it's really a physical problem. Once you start to doubt that it's TMS, that's it, it will get a lot worse and you'll go down the path of PT/painkillers/non-stop recovery.
I hope this story inspires you and makes it clear that your "plantar fascitis" is really TMS. Read Sarno's book, or re-read them if you haven't read them yet, and I promise that it will go away.
