Intro - sound like Tms?

hello my name is Mark My pain started after being very intensely involved with martial arts. my 1st symptom was hernia like pelvic pain maybe 8 years ago. The pain comes back for a few days anytime in stretch my lower abdomen or lift really heavy thing. The images came back negative for hernia.

2nd I broke my leg (unrelated) and when I went back to practicing I developed tendinitis in both shoulders very quickly. This comes back anytime I do much overhead lifting or plank or pull-up kinda movements. The images came back "slight tendinitis", physical therapy did not work.

3rd back pain yep back pain that also became sciatica ..varies from butt to hip depending on how much work I do or if I ever decide to exercise. Doctor said I have slightly abnormal degeneration for my age (28 at the time) of l5s1..tried so many things.. So much time/ effort.. So much money

4th neck pain. This is new.. And it's really breaking the camels back lol

My personality is much what is described by dr sarnos as " goodist". I'm also apparently extremely un compassionate towards myself.. The Brandon -self compassion clip from the Tms recovery wiki.. Really an eye opener for me. I thought it was just normal if you wanted to do good and get things done to just make it happen, ignore the bumps and bruises. I didn't know that these things could build up and cause all of this. Anyway I've recently had shingles and got a pretty good nervous under eye twitch.. I'm glad I discovered this site even if I don't get rid of the pain lots to work on. Thanks

 

Yep, sounds like TMS to me.... I recognize most of your pains (which make no real sense); in my case it turned out to be TMS. Good to hear you have already accepted the possibility of a mindbody connection and found out the traits that might be responsible.

Hope you find what you need here, good luck to you!

 

Definitely sounds similar to a lot of people on this forum and almost certainly TMS! Glad you found this website and can start on the recovery process!

 

I suggest you look at the Holmes-Rahe list of stressful life events that can cause TMS/psychosomatic dis-eases :

THE HOLMES-RAHE STRESS SCALE:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmes_and_Rahe_stress_scale (Holmes and Rahe stress scale - Wikipedia)​

There's the science behind TMS. Even doctors can't dx you by proxy, so giving you a positive yey or ney on whether it's TMS is not practical--but about 80% of what ails man masquerading in structural guise, has its origin in TMS, so your odds are good. A TMS physician will interview you for a great length of time, maybe hours, during a work-up to determine your personality, emotional history, and anatomical markers, like the "tender points" to determine if you have TMS, real structural issues needing treatment, or a combination of both.

You don't necessarily have "lots of work to do", you may merely need a change of mindset and totally embrace Dr. Sarno's TMS theory: that the pain emanates from the sub-conscious, as a psychological defense mechanism, and presents itself in the body, for a distraction from facing emotional issues head-on, that the sub-c decides would be even more painful. If it's TMS you just need to take conscious control of your life and tell your sub-c, "Thanks for the protection, but I don't need it anymore." I guess you could call that "work"--or you could play with it.

 

Yep - certainly sounds like TMS. I'm amazed at the number of young people who develop shingles these days. My sons are in university and some of their friends who were very stressed got shingles. My sons both have their black belts in tai kwon do, so I can understand why you have developed issues in the areas where you have them and why they come back when you go back to martial arts. Examine what you like and what you don't like about martial arts. Is the studio you go to putting pressure on you to compete? Are you putting pressure on yourself that you're not good enough? I recently started doing tai chi and am loving it. The centering aspects of it are part of all martial arts. Think of this when doing your martial art. Perhaps a change in martial arts studios where they don't know you and you feel you have nothing to prove will help you.

 

Thank you all for replying as you probably know it really helps.


As far as martial art goes I haven't really done it in years though the Pain It caused was just ruining my life. I used to put extreme pressure on myself for many hours a day. It was pretty important to me. Looking back it was like a self induced boot camp, it's not surprising that my body would try to shut it down. I've changed since I was 22 though but these symptoms haven't and have gotten worse in direct relation to more responsibility anxiety and fear

 

So I stopped all therapy (back stretches etc) for my back and am heading down the Tms path. I've realized a few things after becoming more familiar...

1. Before i was a very active person, around 13-19, I had extreme stroke type migraines a couple times a year. These were my first Tms symptoms (doctor said nothing physically wrong）I also had carpal tunnel. Both became less severe as I got older and more physically active.

2. Shortly after breaking my leg and then developing bi lateral shoulder tendinitis I developed bi lateral variococeles (variocose veins leading to the testicles..not fun.) I had surgery and it worked but I developed a new pain. A crazy spasmy nerve pain mainly in the pelvis that for four years would drop me to the ground if I excercised too much. This may have been nerve damage from surgery, gabapentin was my friend.

This pain pretty much is only ever at a 1 even if I excercise for last many years...anyway since starting Tms work my back pain has improved, the neck pain a couple days intensified but now neither really hurt but testicular nerve pain is flaring up for no reason. maybe the fourth day in I had a crazy flare up of what I used to think was sebhoric dermatitis in my inner ear but now feel like I should get checked for eczema or psoriasis because it was just overnight BAM raging. I can't help but think of the things said by sufferers and Sarno about past injury and moving pain. We will see..