I'm thinking that my achilles pain is TMS.

I've had TMS before in my shoulders and back. I read Healing Back Pain a long time ago (like 25 years ago) and it resolved my issues. I give that book out to people to read. I read Dr. Sarno's later book The Mindbody Prescription: Healing the Body, Healing the Pain, but I never really connected with it like I did with the first book so I never internalized the idea that other areas of the body could be affected by TMS.

Recently, I've had some issues at work that have me very angry and I can't give voice to many of those feelings or resolve the situation. My wife also recently quit her job due to a number of health related issues. I encouraged her to quit her job because we could afford to live on my pay alone and she was basically debilitated by her health issues and the stress of working the job.

At the same time this has put some extra pressure on me to perform at my job and also the money is a bit tighter so while rationally I know she needed to quit her job I think I am still somewhat resentful of the situation.

Then within the last few months I've noticed pain in my left achilles that varies in intensity and that has kept me from being active. I'm generally a really healthy person. I lift weights, I row for cardio in addition to doing martial arts. All of this means that I have a bunch of built in excuses for why I might have injured or strained this part of my body. I tried resting it, but that did nothing, in fact inactivity seems to make it worse. I wake up in the morning with it being worse, which somehow convinces me it's injured, when it should be the opposite, it makes no sense that a tendon is more annoyed after a full nights rest.

It doesn't make sense that only my left achilles is the thing causing me issues. I've never had pain there before and given that I've dealt with TMS symptoms before I am thinking it must be TMS. I actually yelled at it the other day and the symptoms seemed to get better, which should be the big tell that it is TMS, but I'm still having a hard time internalizing the idea that it's TMS and so the symptoms are persisting. It has to be TMS because it varies in intensity greatly and at times I notice it extending down into the heel more. Sometimes it will seem like nothing is going on and then suddenly it will feel like I need crutches. Any sort of treatment like heat or ice or massage does nothing for it and in fact sometimes it feels worse after that.

It feels fine when I'm doing intense activities is the other thing. I can do deadlifts, bench press, rowing, it feels fine during them. Then later the pain is more intense, so of course this makes me think I strained it more, but that's actually another tell that it doesn't really bother me during intense work.

I've scheduled an appointment with the doctor just to ensure it's not something actually serious, but I can't imagine it is, because it comes and goes, so I can't think I've actually injured anything. There was no precipitating event, it just sort of came on over time. I'm pretty sure they are just going to tell me to rest and take pain pills, which will be useless advice.

It has to be TMS that is doing this, but I just have that bit of my brain that is saying, ah maybe it isn't and so it is persisting. I think writing this out is helping though. Given all the stressors that I've had recently and the nature of TMS it has to be that. Just the fact that I yelled at it and it got better to some degree has to mean it is TMS. Just the fact that more intensity helps rather than hurts means it must be TMS. That extra blood flow being forced into the area when I do intense work is undoubtedly making it better.

I just need to stop compensating for it and start acting normally. It's just difficult when the pain gets intense, but I think now that I see it for what it is and I've reminded myself of what causes TMS, the emotional aspects specifically I can move forward. It's also helpful to remind myself that tendons and ligaments were among the things Dr. Sarno stated could be affected by TMS.

 

Yes, as soon as I wrote this post I could feel something happening in that area and now there is no pain. Man, the mind is so tricky. I'm so happy this wiki was around to remind me of these things.

 

That's exactly how it often works.

 

I tore my right Achilles a long time ago and it caused me issues for over a decade and now I don’t have any pain in it and I’m training for a marathon. It’s TMS.