Day 1 I was introduced to TMS recently by my son.

[SLRP]

I knew about TMS before but never paid much attention to it as, fortunately, I had no need for it. I've always been pretty healthy. My son has had a lot of back pain throughout his life. He had back surgery at least 10 years ago and it really helped, but a couple of years ago, the pain started coming back. He went to see his surgeon, had x-rays taken, and his back was perfectly fine. That's when one of his friends brought him Dr. Sarno's book, Healing Back Pain. He now has that pain pretty much under control.
A few months ago I strained my leg, and just one month after that I strained it again - badly. I have been having incredible pain in my left leg, to the point where I had to stop my daily walk with my husband and our two dogs. My doctor suggested physical therapy, but it just wasn't working. In fact, if often caused me to have more pain. My husband was out of town on a nine day bicycle trip and, during that time, the pain got even worse. I was in bad shape. That week, my son and I had lunch together and he told me about Dr. Sarno and how much he helped him. He told me he thought my pain was emotional and there were valid reasons why that made sense to me. I went right home and listened to The Divided Mind on Audible. I bought into it and I immediately got to work on the Daily Study Program. It totally explained why my leg wasn't getting better. I could not figure out why my leg was not improving, because the injury wasn't that serious to start with.
Twenty two years ago, my husband was having severe back pain. He is very fit, so it really upset him. He tried all kinds of things, but somehow discovered Dr. Sarno. He read Healing Back Pain and the pain was gone the next day!
I can see that my journey with TMS is not going that quickly, but that is OK, as I feel confident that I am on the right track now. I am trying to listen to the treatment chapter in The Divided Mind or another part of the book every day. I have been doing some journaling as well, but need to be more diligent. My son just sent me this link to the Pain Recovery Program and I hope that will help as well. It's still very much up and down with me and the pain, but overall I feel like it is getting better. I need to focus more on the days when the pain is bad.
Yesterday I saw my physical therapist for the first time in three weeks. He was delighted that I had discovered TMS and was very encouraging. He did want me to resume the physical therapy though, and this makes sense, as my left leg is weak now due to lack of use. I need to build up the muscle in that leg. I am nervous about resuming them though, as they do seem to cause me pain - not while I am doing them, but the next day.

 

[JanAtheCPA]

Yesterday I saw my physical therapist for the first time in three weeks. He was delighted that I had discovered TMS and was very encouraging. He did want me to resume the physical therapy though, and this makes sense, as my left leg is weak now due to lack of use. I need to build up the muscle in that leg. I am nervous about resuming them though, as they do seem to cause me pain - not while I am doing them, but the next day.

Welcome to the rest of your family @SLRP - and to ours!

Sounds like a good PT to me. All I can say about this is that your anticipation of the pain will certainly feed into the fear mechanism, and amplify whatever is going on, which at this point is not harmful (Dr. Sarno teaches us this). When I've had to do PT, or even just at the gym when my trainer is pushing me beyond my comfort level, what I do is flip that switch in my brain - the one that allows the negative fearful messages to start coming at me. I flip it, and I change the conversation to the opposite, and I change my visualization to a positive one - so that the message is that the movement is creating healthy blood flow, and the visualization is that my muscles are getting stronger.

I believe that this is what athletes do all the time - they simply make sure that their conscious positive mind is in control of the inner messages, instead of letting the fearful and primitive unconscious mind take control.

You can do it too!

 

[SLRP]

Welcome to the rest of your family @SLRP - and to ours!

Sounds like a good PT to me. All I can say about this is that your anticipation of the pain will certainly feed into the fear mechanism, and amplify whatever is going on, which at this point is not harmful (Dr. Sarno teaches us this). When I've had to do PT, or even just at the gym when my trainer is pushing me beyond my comfort level, what I do is flip that switch in my brain - the one that allows the negative fearful messages to start coming at me. I flip it, and I change the conversation to the opposite, and I change my visualization to a positive one - so that the message is that the movement is creating healthy blood flow, and the visualization is that my muscles are getting stronger.

I believe that this is what athletes do all the time - they simply make sure that their conscious positive mind is in control of the inner messages, instead of letting the fearful and primitive unconscious mind take control.

You can do it too!

Thank you for this good advice! I seem to have a mental block about getting into the physical therapy again. I took a short walk the evening before yesterday, as my PT had suggested, and yesterday I was in pain all day. I love to walk. Discouraging. Today, I'm going to try to "flip that switch".