Excellent answer and intro,
@plosive12!
I had to chuckle at your last statement, because look - what we call TMS (in honor of Dr Sarno) is a completely normal but primitive brain mechanism that is often operating in overdrive in the modern world. So there's that, to begin with. Even more importantly, this mechanism is at work all the time, whether our symptoms are from real injuries or illnesses, or whether they are purely due to our repression response.
I always go back to my emergency room example from 2008, a full 3 years "Before Sarno". I came in with a hip fracture after a bicycle crash at age 58. My pain was through the roof and I was catastrophizing about being bed bound for six to eight weeks. When the doc came in with my x-rays, saying it was a simple non-displaced fracture and that they could pin it up and have me on crutches in two days, my pain went from probably an eight down to a three - instantly.
That's the same brain mechanism, my friend, at work on a 100% real physical injury that would have been a death sentence in the primitive wilderness of human ancestry. The mechanism has not had a chance to evolve for the modern world of only a few thousand years.
The thing that is so confusing to everyone who accepts the premise of TMS is that the mechanism comes into play for so many different reasons. There's the distress of childhood trauma, the distress of emotional repression, and the stress of current stressors, whether those are jobs, relationships, or the breakdown of the environment and possibly civilization in the 2020s.
In another personal example, I have rheumatoid arthritis, that was brought on by undue stress in 2020. I am technically "in remission on medication" according to my rheumatologist, but there are days when my hands ache more in the morning, and I can directly relate those days to the amount of stress that I am mindlessly allowing to build up. Occasionally, a really disabling pain flare will be related to a specific thought or interaction that my unconscious brain is repressing - which I bring into my conscious awareness by using my TMS tools (mostly expressive journaling, as described by Dr Hanscom).
TMS is or can be all of these things in different combinations and at different levels at different times.
That's the long answer! The short answer is that yes, TMS symptoms can absolutely fluctuate. But then again, so can the symptoms of all kinds of "real" injuries and illnesses, because our natural responses to stress fluctuate from day to day and even hour to hour.
Ultimately my answer to your question is a non-answer. But since you've been declared to be perfectly healthy, there's no reason to allow your OCD tendencies to distract you with symptoms. Let them go, refresh your journaling skills with Dr Hanscom's advice for Expressive Writing, and move on!
