Is back pain always TMS?

[Melissa E]

i -- I've been familiar with TMS for awhile now as I've always been a somaticizer of sorts, the worst of mine being pelvic pain. Usually they were random things like headaches, itching, etc. and I was able to just sit with it and recognize it as TMS and within a few days it would usually go away.

However, I'm having trouble buying into TMS with the one that seems to be the most TMS of them all - recent onset of back pain. Mind you I've never actually had back pain as a symptom, minus the intermittent sciatica. But earlier this week I was pushing a couch and felt a twinge in my back. At first I just thought I twisted it wrong so I figured it would go away and haven't been doing anything different trying to say oh this is just TMS. However, the pain has been getting worst, and spreading - the twinge in the middle of my back is now on both the left and right side, in my lower back, upper back, some soreness, tingling, shooting pain, some tingling down my butt -- it feels like it's all over. And I'm not gonna lie I'm scared I herniated a disk and now I'm afraid if I go to a doc to get it checked out and they find a herniated disc (which in many people they do) I'll go down a TMS tail spin. But could I have actually really hurt my back? I keep telling myself it's TMS but the symptoms haven't let up and it's been longer than usual, and normally it doesn't get worse - so naturally I'm thinking maybe this one was an actual injury. Any advice?

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

I doubt that moving the couch caused you to have a herniated disc. Dr. Sarno writes in his book, Healing Back Pain, that even if a person is diagnosed in having a herniated disc, that may not cause pain. Back pain and pains that move around are very common symptoms of TMS. The fact that you feel pain in various parts of your body also is an indication that they are caused by TMS emotions. If you have not yet done it, I suggest you begin the Structured Educational Program, free in the subforum of this web site. It will help you to discover the emotions causing your pain.

I began having severe back pain when I lifted a case of 36 cans of beer at the supermarket, then the pain moved around. I read Sarno and did the SEProgram and the pains went away after I discovered I had been repressing anger going back to when I was a boy and my parents divorced when I was seven. I had been repressing feelings of abandonment and insecurity. When I realized those emotions and did some journaling I realized my parents had their own TMS pains and was able to forgive them. They had since passed on, so my forgiveness was in my mind and journaling, but it stopped the pain.

You need to believe 100 percent in TMS and you will heal.