I have TMS? Yes!

I'm 57 yrs happy with my family- children and grand children, and also happy with my job. About once a year a get lower back pain that goes away after a few days until this August... It started with a sneeze! I thought that after a few days it would be gone but... after a week it got worse-intense and unbearable. I was unable to get up or sit down without help nor was I able to get dressed. lifting anything was out of the question. I slept for 2 weeks on the couch sitting up, afraid to lie down. I was terrified of sneezing! I couldn't leave the house to see my doctor. My wife went and came back with prescriptions...Everyday I felt a little better. When I was able to leave the house I went for acupuncture which helped a little. Also visited a chiropractor which did help.
Slowly but surely the situation improved. After 3 weeks I had no pain in my back but I had headaches.

Then I read "Healing Back Pain" by Dr. Sarno.

I'm sure that I have Tms. I remember that I suffered last winter from a cough that lasted 4 months. My Dr. did blood test+ chest X-Rays and everything came out normal and I continued coughing.

Last week I stopped taking painkiller for my headache. After a week It got a lot better...because I know that nothing is wrong with my head- the pain come from TMS.

I spoke to by Skype to two very nice Tms therapist who wanted to help me for a certain price per conversation- one cheaper and one more expensive. I'd rather not spend thousands on treatment.

I'm deciding to work on my problem myself (maybe with the help of this forum). I started day 1 of the educational program. If anyone has ideas for me, I would love to hear from you. As I said now I have no pain. I hope to keep that way.

 

Hi, bd. I'm glad you're not in pain but just have headaches. They are a common symptom of TMS.
The SE program will help you to learn what emotions are causing the headaches.

It's great that you are happy in your personal life and with your job. But something must be nagging you.
It may be something you may be repressing, or it is because you have a perfectionist or "goodist" personality, wanting to please everyone, perhaps too much.

Here is just one person's post about his healing from TMS 95 percent after doing the SEP. He posted again a few days ago that he is now totally without pain.

One of the best ways to relieve a headache is to practice deep breathing. There are some excellent videos on that on Youtube.

Kevin healed 95 % from SEP

Welcome to the SEP and to the path of recovery. I am on my final two days of the program and I can say with complete confidence that I am a changed man. I started after 6 months of nasty low-back/butt/leg pain, could hardly walk, stand, etc. was in physical therapy, chiropractor, acupuncture, pain medications, etc.. the usual. My MRI showed 3 disk bulges/herniations touching nerves, so that is what I believe it to be....that is until I read Dr. Sarno and found this site.

I encourage you to really get involved, follow the instructions, do the journaling, take time to read all the suggested readings, and watch the videos. I'd say I'm 95% cured. There is still some very light lingering "annoyance", but I still have some work to do. I've been walking miles with hardly any pain these last few weeks. But even more, if the pain comes on now, it just doesn't bother me like it used to, I sorta just see it, acknowledge it, and go about my business. It took working the program to get to that point, but 6 weeks compared to 6 months is nothing! I made more progress in the first week than I did from two months of PT!!! It's going to challenge you and your "beliefs" in medicine, but you have nothing to lose. We generally wind up here when all else fails.

So give it a shot, especially before considering anything invasive like surgery. If you put the work in, you will get better. Have you read Dr. Sarno yet? I assume you have since you're here, but in case you haven't, definitely readHealing Back Pain. Again, it will challenge everything you've believed about your pain, and backs in general. You'll be encouraged to resume life as normal, i.e. stop ALL "therapies" (PT, chiro, etc.), stop taking medications, and most importantly, stop thinking STRUCTURAL problems are the cause of your pain and shift to psychological as the reason.....again, this can be difficult and takes some time to sink in, so be patient and kind to yourself.

It was a process for me. A few of the bigger moves in my case were: I ripped up and threw out my MRI test results (I found myself obsessively reading over them and comparing them to other results I could find on the web and even here on the TMSwiki site...); I got back to the gym and stopped using a weight belt; and I even cancelled an appointment I had made with aTMS doctorbecause it was more than a month away and it was hindering my recovery (that is, my 100% belief in TMS was lagging because I had this pending appointment, but as soon as I cancelled it, my recovery sped up significantly). Everyone's journey is unique to their situation, but I've found that really committing to the program and brining what I learn from it into my daily life has had profound results. Also, sharing along the way here in these forums has been extremely helpful - there's something about knowing that you're not alone in your TMS recovery that really helps. I encourage you to look through my past posts for some insight into my experience with SEP. Like I said, I'm just now finishing, tomorrow is my final day, and I feel like a changed person. It's amazing. And I feel as though it is something that one carries on with, not just like a one time 6 week thing and that's that...it has helped me to get to know myself and taught me tools to "deal" with my emotions. Learning and accepting TMS is a life changer for sure.

 

Hi BD, and welcome! You have certainly come to the right place. I also diagnosed myself when I read The Divided Mind and by doing the SEP and participating in this forum, and from other books and resources, I was able to achieve about 90% recovery from most of my symptoms in a few months, and I got 100% of my life back. Thanks to this work I was also able to survive three devastating losses in the following two years. Now I'm back on the forum, this time learning about mindfulness and refining my knowledge and techniques. I love doing this work, and I also love spreading the word about TMS theory!

Keep posting, and keep us posted!

 

Hi Beloved Grand Eagle:
I'm sorry to hear about your losses and wish you the best! I appreciate your help. Today I was almost without headache pains!

 

Hi bd, I found some good videos about natural ways to relieve headaches on Youtube. They are acupressure points on the head and
even massaging the soft space between the big toe and toe next to it.

Headaches are a common symptom of some emotional stress, as you know from your TMS reading.

 

I have been aware of and have been applying Sarno/TMS techniques for about 3 years. During this journey I had an MRI showing many different types of spinal injury. Not wanting to use drugs, injections or surgery I went to the TMS Wiki to find a Sarno doctor who could definitively say my pain/weakness was not due to "structural abnormalities". I was, and still am, having a difficult time mediating these symptoms. I went to a "Bruce Eisendorf" at Palo Alto med. who claims he studied under Sarno. I wanted to hear that my MRI was unremarkable but he said I must accept the fact that I would always have pain and weakness.
I was so disappointed.
I want to find another MD to whom I can send the MRI study and get a second opinion.
Can anyone recommend a good Sarno doctor? I am willing to fly anywhere at this point to see a good doctor.

I really think this Eisendorf guy is wrong and why he advertises him self on the TMS wiki is a mystery to me.

 

Hi, cwalker. I too think Dr. Eisendorf was wrong. Definitely he should not tell anyone they would always be in pain. Sounds like he wanted a patient who would keep returning. Thousands of people have become pain-free through believing in TMS causing the pain. You will, too.

Kevin is just one example. He posted this a few weeks ago and again posted a few days ago saying he was 100 percent healed, thanks to TMS knowledge and the Structured Educational Program:

Kevin healed 95 % from SEP

Welcome to the SEP and to the path of recovery. I am on my final two days of the program and I can say with complete confidence that I am a changed man. I started after 6 months of nasty low-back/butt/leg pain, could hardly walk, stand, etc. was in physical therapy, chiropractor, acupuncture, pain medications, etc.. the usual. My MRI showed 3 disk bulges/herniations touching nerves, so that is what I believe it to be....that is until I read Dr. Sarno and found this site.

I encourage you to really get involved, follow the instructions, do the journaling, take time to read all the suggested readings, and watch the videos. I'd say I'm 95% cured. There is still some very light lingering "annoyance", but I still have some work to do. I've been walking miles with hardly any pain these last few weeks. But even more, if the pain comes on now, it just doesn't bother me like it used to, I sorta just see it, acknowledge it, and go about my business. It took working the program to get to that point, but 6 weeks compared to 6 months is nothing! I made more progress in the first week than I did from two months of PT!!! It's going to challenge you and your "beliefs" in medicine, but you have nothing to lose. We generally wind up here when all else fails.

So give it a shot, especially before considering anything invasive like surgery. If you put the work in, you will get better. Have you read Dr. Sarno yet? I assume you have since you're here, but in case you haven't, definitely readHealing Back Pain. Again, it will challenge everything you've believed about your pain, and backs in general. You'll be encouraged to resume life as normal, i.e. stop ALL "therapies" (PT, chiro, etc.), stop taking medications, and most importantly, stop thinking STRUCTURAL problems are the cause of your pain and shift to psychological as the reason.....again, this can be difficult and takes some time to sink in, so be patient and kind to yourself.

It was a process for me. A few of the bigger moves in my case were: I ripped up and threw out my MRI test results (I found myself obsessively reading over them and comparing them to other results I could find on the web and even here on the TMSwiki site...); I got back to the gym and stopped using a weight belt; and I even cancelled an appointment I had made with aTMS doctorbecause it was more than a month away and it was hindering my recovery (that is, my 100% belief in TMS was lagging because I had this pending appointment, but as soon as I cancelled it, my recovery sped up significantly). Everyone's journey is unique to their situation, but I've found that really committing to the program and brining what I learn from it into my daily life has had profound results. Also, sharing along the way here in these forums has been extremely helpful - there's something about knowing that you're not alone in your TMS recovery that really helps. I encourage you to look through my past posts for some insight into my experience with SEP. Like I said, I'm just now finishing, tomorrow is my final day, and I feel like a changed person. It's amazing. And I feel as though it is something that one carries on with, not just like a one time 6 week thing and that's that...it has helped me to get to know myself and taught me tools to "deal" with my emotions. Learning and accepting TMS is a life changer for sure.

 

What we say here is that you need to be checked out by an MD for structural problems, and proceed accordingly. If there is nothing that can be done, you might as well proceed with your TMS education, because TMS knowledge, awareness, and acceptance are still useful for every human being - that's because we all have TMS to some extent.

If you have structural problems in your back, you can still use TMS education to help with the pain and anxiety. You can use TMS techniques to recover from IBS or anxiety or RSI or migraines or whatever. You can learn to reduce the symptoms of illness or injury by employing one or more of the various techniques offered here and other places. You can reduce symptoms, recover faster, and use less meds while doing so.

Many of us here (like myself) didn't bother getting a diagnosis of TMS. I had already been seen by plenty of practitioners who could only diagnose stress and anxiety. The day I started reading The Divided Mind, I knew with 100% certainty that everything that was wrong with me was the result of TMS. So I proceeded accordingly. Feel free to read my profile story, and read this post about pain reduction when I broke my hip and had surgery to pin it up, which might help to explain what I'm talking about.

Finally, you should probably check out our reposted blogs by Dr. David Hanscom, a back surgeon in Seattle who is at his happiest when his patients decide to not have surgery after going through his "Back In Control" program. What we call TMS on this forum, he calls NPD - Neurophysiological Disorder. (and Dr. Schubiner calls it MBS - Mind Body Syndrome, and still others use PPD - Psycho-Physiological Disorder. It's all the same thing).

 

Thank you for posting the "Connections" movie link. I watched it this morning and it is a very encouraging film.