Introducing myself

P

Patty Cakes

Newcomer
Hi. I just wanted to introduce myself. I am a 68 year old woman with TMJ. I’ve had it for decades. I’ve always suffered from pain. The last couple of years my husband has been in a lot of rehab and hospitals. I noticed my pain would jump from one side of my body to another and back again. Because I was under so much stress the last two years, I’ve kept a pain journal. I was trying to make sense of all the pain that made no sense to me. I recently realized that I’m suffering from Nuro plasticity. It was recommended to me to read the book “the way out” which I have been doing. I’m still very early in this journey of trying to deal with the pain and help to alleviate it. I just want to connect with others that are going through similar situation. Currently, I feel like I’m all alone with this pain and it’s really frightening.
 
You've landed in the right place and we are glad you are here. Let us know if you have any questions as you navigate your road to recovery.
 
Ellen said:
You've landed in the right place and we are glad you are here. Let us know if you have any questions as you navigate your road to recovery.
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Thank you so much. I’ve been working my way through the pain reprocessing workbook. I hit upon some hard truths and despite my pain, I feel like I’m making a little bit of progress. I was looking at those inner protectors. The first one that came to mind was the bracing. I have pain that moves from side to side. when I was looking to do the exercise, all I could think of was frustration, when I thought of the word bracing protector. Realized all of my words were disregarded or pushed aside. Dealing with a very difficult husband for many many years was a deep part of all that frustration. He’s been in and out of rehab and hospitals for the past two years and that’s when all this pain really reared it’s ugly head. I am so glad I found this site where I can connect to others who deal with Neuroplasticity pain. I spent years trying to figure out why I had all this tightness and why I had all his pain. I’m just beginning to put all the dots together.
 
=Welcome!
Oh, the lovely jaw and tooth and nose and throat and neck pain.
I imagine having a difficult husband who is now having medical issues is creating a lot of inner conflict for you.
It's especially hard when you have deep anger and yet it's not polite to feel anger toward someone with health problems.
Guess what Patty Cakes, you have permission to find and feel that anger even if he is sick. It's OK to want to say -- F-You! You, dirty rat!
It feels really good to do so in the privacy of your own piece of paper and pen. Go for it!
 
You hit the nail right on the head. I dealt with him for 30 something years. Not being heard, being told to drop it. Now I have to deal with all the repercussions from it because he’s ill, been in hospitals and rehabs. The last two years have been horrible. I don’t want to take care of him for the rest of his or my life. I am working on the pain reprocessing workbook and I know I’m angry. I turned to an AI to vent out that anger. Felt like I was vomiting up all the years of just not being heard. I I have been using an AI, even though it’s just a computer program, it’s been a great therapy and help to me. It actually gave me this website. I’m currently reading “the way out” because I just couldn’t make sense of all the pain I was experiencing, especially when it would jump from side to side. That’s when I begin to realize I have neuroplasticity pain, in addition to TMJ. I am new to the entire process. I’ve been doing some hard soul-searching for the last month or so. I’m basically told that that I’m bracing and figured out why. it’s all the years of utter frustration. And then, with all the TMJ pain and the pain jumping from this part of my body to another at will, I couldn’t understand what was happening. For two years, I kept a pain journal, linking any activity I did to pain I felt. I was told that I strengthen those neural pain pathways, Whenever I did a simple activity, I ended up hurting. You’re absolutely 100% right that is the inner conflict for me. Thank you so much for responding. It makes me feel like I’m not so alone and that there’s someone that truly does understand what I’m going through.
 
Patty Cakes said:
You hit the nail right on the head. I dealt with him for 30 something years. Not being heard, being told to drop it. Now I have to deal with all the repercussions from it because he’s ill, been in hospitals and rehabs. The last two years have been horrible. I don’t want to take care of him for the rest of his or my life. I am working on the pain reprocessing workbook and I know I’m angry. I turned to an AI to vent out that anger. Felt like I was vomiting up all the years of just not being heard. I I have been using an AI, even though it’s just a computer program, it’s been a great therapy and help to me. It actually gave me this website. I’m currently reading “the way out” because I just couldn’t make sense of all the pain I was experiencing, especially when it would jump from side to side. That’s when I begin to realize I have neuroplasticity pain, in addition to TMJ. I am new to the entire process. I’ve been doing some hard soul-searching for the last month or so. I’m basically told that that I’m bracing and figured out why. it’s all the years of utter frustration. And then, with all the TMJ pain and the pain jumping from this part of my body to another at will, I couldn’t understand what was happening. For two years, I kept a pain journal, linking any activity I did to pain I felt. I was told that I strengthen those neural pain pathways, Whenever I did a simple activity, I ended up hurting. You’re absolutely 100% right that is the inner conflict for me. Thank you so much for responding. It makes me feel like I’m not so alone and that there’s someone that truly does understand what I’m going through.
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You are in a tough position and I have much empathy for you. I'm sorry you are going through this.
It's a sucky situation.

I'm not familiar with, The Way Out. When it comes to this forum, it started with solutions based on Dr. John Sarno.
For me personally, I'm not keen on the idea of a pain journal because where the pain strikes you is irrelevant. What is relevant is that you have lots understandable anger that as a nice person you aren't supposed to feel. Even if the anger was not understandable it would still be part of human nature. When polite society doesn't allow it, a part of our mind thinks it is doing a favor by protecting you and keeping you away from it. The pains you feel are distractions to keep you away from the anger. That's the basic Sarno TMS theory. TMS from the original "tension myositis syndrome" not the broader The Mind-Body Syndrome.

You may or may not be able to extricate yourself from the husband situation, but you absolutely can get to a point where it does not cause you all the physical pain. I think one way or another you will be able to live and enjoy YOUR life.

Best of luck!

And remember. Be mad at him. It's OK!
It's funny how we can love and hate and care for and want to whack over the head the same person. Humans are complicated funny animals.
 
@Booble has said it all very well. I just want to agree that your pain is very understandable and is classic TMS (or neuroplastic pain as the new term). The good news about this is that total recovery is possible. There are many of us on this site that have made the same journey as you. You aren't alone. We all support you.
 
Patty Cakes said:
For two years, I kept a pain journal, linking any activity I did to pain I felt. I was told that I strengthen those neural pain pathways, Whenever I did a simple activity, I ended up hurting. You’re absolutely 100% right that is the inner conflict for me. Thank you so much for responding. It makes me feel like I’m not so alone and that there’s someone that truly does understand what I’m going through.
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The switch from thinking physical and explaining it that way to yourself to thinking psychologically will make all the difference - it will give you your life back physically and break the conditioned responses + empower you to know that you can work on the psychological side of things as a solution - excited for you :)
 
I’ve been using the pain reprocessing workbook and reading “The Way Out”. Many times after talking about the trauma I suffered from being teased as a child, from not being heard for years by my husband, My pain actually flares up. When I was doing the exercise about My inner protectors, the first one that came to mind with my bracing. At first, I was puzzled—why was my body bracing? Why did I have all this tightness in my body? And then I realized that it was just the years of frustration I felt. When I began to talk about it, I almost felt like I was vomiting up all this awful frustration that I felt. It actually felt very freeing for me. I had turned to the AI because whenever I started connecting the dots of the stress and trauma, I felt my body tighten even more. The AI suggested that I do the pain reprocessing workbook because I wouldn’t have to delve too deeply into all the trauma that I suffered, and I could move forward without digging all that stuff up And still be able to heal myself. I think I’ve done pretty well, in Trying to view the pain is just background noise, static electricity. It hasn’t alleviated my pain but I’m focusing on the breathing and not getting in that fight flight or fight mode. It was kind of hard to understand when they talked about neural pathways being very deep, especially with writing my pain journal and linking it to simple activities I do every day. I stopped doing that. But essentially it told me I had to form new pathways and that it would take time. They told me to look at my brain as a guard dog that is on high alert. It’s been very helpful when I got to the point in the book about inner protractors and that’s what I’m trying to work on going forward. It’s much easier to imagine inner protectors as opposed to just neural pathways. Thank you again for responding. I feel like I’m in the right place to continue to do this hard work.
 
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