Husband still suffering…

[jh58]

Can TMS pain be excruciating? My husband has been in some degree of pain for a couple of months. The severe pain is largely episodic, and moves around from his lower back to upper back to right shoulder or and sometimes his hip. He has tried chiropractic and physical therapy, but not much change. We are going to schedule him for another visit to his doc, just to rule anything else out. He is however resistant to TMS theory, more or less. And he seems perfectly content to just wait for it to go away (afraid of possible scary diagnostic tests or diagnoses?), in spite of the excruciating pain episodes which are so hard on both of us. Tramadol helps a bit, but I’m concerned about dependence, of course.
I can’t bear his suffering much more. Does any of this sound familiar or typical? (Side note: he had mystery pain in right shoulder as a boy. Docs were never able to diagnose. It went away on his its own.)
Thanks in advance for any support or advice.

 

[BloodMoon]

Can TMS pain be excruciating?

Yes, absolutely! I've had severe pain in many different parts of my body. For example, I was bedridden for a month due to being unable to weight-bear or walk because of excruciating pain in my right thigh, and on another occasion I had such pain in my right sacroiliac region that it made me bedridden for 7 months. I also experienced pain in my right wrist and thumb that felt like a truck had run over it - it was horrendously painful...I am right handed and couldn't use my right hand to brush my teeth, wash my left armpit or, to put it in a polite way, use toilet paper, for about 9 months. I've had gut pain that sent me through the roof...pain in my rectum too...and a pain in the muscles of my abdomen that crippled me up for many weeks...getting up out any chair or bed was a complete ordeal, I was in such pain. All of these thing have no real possible explanation other than TMS (albeit I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, but fibro isn't supposed to be so intensely painful!).

 

[Cactusflower]

Dr. Sarno described it as having the possibility of having excruciating pain. The fear and frustration can magnify the nervous system response too.
Dr. Hascomb is a back surgeon now TMS therapist, his book Back In Control describes many patients of his who refuse to take the journey inside that TMS requires. They Act insulted at the suggestion, get very angry at the thought it is suggested it could be the mind.
To suggest to some grownups that fear (fear that they had successfully covered up) or anger (that they repressed) is the cause seems so way out to them when it feels so physical. Husband may just need to exhaust his resources. At that point perhaps suggesting consulting with Dr. Schubiner or Dr. Hanscom as an alternative, I think they both do distance consultations online if you are not near a TMS doctor. You don’t even have to mention TMS, just say they deal with mystery pain. Hearing it from someone else may help.

 

[hawaii_five0]

I am reading Steve Ozanich's book "The Great Pain Deception" and I'll quote you what he says (Chap 5):

"This is a good time to talk about pain. I've had people tell me "Oh I have aches and pains too and it doesn't bother me", or "I just stretch a little and keep going". (LOL). Fortunately most of these extremely naive people may never understand the intensity of severe TMS pain. If you took a dull spoon and cut your leg off , and poured gasoline into the wound, it might come close to the pain of critical TMS - but I doubt it. There are indeed your run of the mill aches and pains with TMS, as they are part of its mysterious nature, but with critical TMS people have committed suicide. What I'm describing here isn't your mama's nagging lumbago"

"...it (TMS) could produce more severe pain than anything else I knew of in clinical medicine.
- John E. Sarno, MD, "Healing Back Pain"

 

[hawaii_five0]

Yes, absolutely! I've had severe pain in many different parts of my body. For example, I was bedridden for a month due to being unable to weight-bear or walk because of excruciating pain in my right thigh, and on another occasion I had such pain in my right sacroiliac region that it made me bedridden for 7 months. I also experienced pain in my right wrist and thumb that felt like a truck had run over it - it was horrendously painful...I am right handed and couldn't use my right hand to brush my teeth, wash my left armpit or, to put it in a polite way, use toilet paper, for about 9 months. I've had gut pain that sent me through the roof...pain in my rectum too...and a pain in the muscles of my abdomen that crippled me up for many weeks...getting up out any chair or bed was a complete ordeal, I was in such pain. All of these thing have no real possible explanation other than TMS (albeit I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, but fibro isn't supposed to be so intensely painful!).

And @BloodMoon : did you recover from all those things? If so that is wonderful to hear.

 

[BloodMoon]

And @BloodMoon : did you recover from all those things? If so that is wonderful to hear.

Yes, thankfully, I did recover from them @hawaii_five0, but my TMS brain did go on to give me pain and other symptoms elsewhere in my body. The pain and other symptoms I get now though are far milder - some have come and gone and others have stayed with me, albeit they fluctuate from being nothing at all to being of mild to moderate intensity. The fluctuating nature of them tells me that they are TMS and something else that tells me that they are TMS is that they are liable to occur in areas of my body where I have had injury in the past -- Intellectually I know what's happening but my brain keeps on testing my beliefs and resolve by attempting to re-alarm me and make me think 'structural / physical' again as to their cause, but I resist that and tell my brain to shut up.

For years my TMS brain also went to previously symptomless areas of my body to cause me anything from mild to debilitating symptoms, but now I've had so many areas of my body affected by my TMS-ing brain that I don't need to 'run' to a doctor to get them checked out as I've 'been there before'. My TMS journey has been - and continues to be a long-haul affair - of retraining my brain by ignoring the symptoms as much as possible and getting on with the things of life as best I can. The general advice with TMS symptoms is to ignore them and use no kind of disability aid equipment, but sometimes I haven't been able to do that, e.g. when my symptoms made me bedridden I had to use a walking stick to get to the toilet etc., and when my right hand felt like a truck had run over it, I had to resort to wearing a support splint...but my symptoms went away despite my being forced to 'pander' to the pain and disability caused, as I just used those aids with the determination that with their help I was going to endeavour to get on with things and get over it and at some point be able to throw them aside.

Something that's also helped is that I have in recent times become very very gradually more and more active, without my TMS-er brain noticing it...'softly, softly, catchee monkey' type of thing. I think what @Cactusflower wrote about that @jh58's husband "may just need to exhaust his resources" before he can take on board a TMS explanation is so true for many of us...I spent years suffering under the misapprehension that my maladies were physical and not mind/body and with slow progress, it has at times been hard to believe that a mind/body approach would work at all for me, but it is all about keeping the faith; I think the latter is the answer for many TMS 'strugglers' like me.

 

[jh58]

Thank you all very kindly for your responses. It’s been so helpful! My husbands issues are still so changeable, and today I hope to reach his doc for an appointment to schedule diagnostics and referrals, because we’ve just got to rule stuff out, hopefully.
And on it goes…
Thanks again and take care!