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Is my Knees pain TMS?

Discussion in 'Support Subforum' started by franluc, Oct 4, 2016.

  1. franluc

    franluc Newcomer

    Hi I’m Francesco from Italy, a new member of the forum. First of all I want to salute all the members. Secondly I’d like to tell you about my recent pain story to receive some help. I’m 28, my personality is the perfect example of the TMS persona: perfectionist, goodist, always pretending more from myself, compulsive. At 14 I’ve suffered from nervous anorexia, my life was at risk but with the help of my family and loved ones I’ve overcome this nightmare. I’m driven by so many passion from cinema to music concert photography and painting. I’m a very dynamic person too, in fact, sport was the weapon of choice for me to overcomes my fear and any stressfull period in my life. I’ve played basketball since I was 12 and I’ve been through many acute injuries as any athlete could. Every time the specialist MDs tell me that my problem was related with the way I move (pes planus, one leg longer than the other, you train too hard) or with my physique in general (“you’re too buff muscular” for example). Always I felt I wasn’t right but I was driven to overcome the adversity and I always fight to regain the condition in the best way possible.

    Last year I’ve sprained very badly my right ankle during a game. I wasn’t able to place any weight on my ankle for two months; the physiotherapy lasted for 3 months for 6 days a week. All my 2015 summer I wasn’t able to work or study and dedicated myself only to walk and then train again. It was very difficult to me because I wanted to take a break after the death of my beloved 10 years old dog. She was a sister to me and after her violent and unexpected death I wanted to finish all my university examinations and get my second title in philosophy, to take sometimes for myself. But I was stopped by the injury, I was tired, angry and for the first time in my life I was really catastophizing about the possibility to overcome this problem and be able to be happy again. This phrase that the MD told me was always in my head: “This is all the years of training that now, at your age, present the bill to you”.

    In september 2015 I was able to run and work out in the gym again with minor pain. It was amazing , I felt blessed but inside of me I was scared that something bad could happen again soon and the death of my dog was still painful. I’ve dedicated all my time to study and workout three times a week nothing else. I was closed in myself. The only person with which I’ll interact was my loved girlfriend. She noted that something in me was strange but I’ve been running from my fear and pain. The stress was building up.

    In march 2016 after my last examination I was literally blocked by back pain and sciatica. The pain was always there for a month. I can’t do anything from sitting, to walking, to sleep. I took an MRI and they discovered a dehydrated disc on l4 – l5 region. Nothing serious, but for the first MD I’ve visited that can’t be compatible with any of my sport activities. It started the biggest nightmare in my life. I began searching on the internet, I feared to be in chronic pain for the rest of my life or that my disc will herniate in the future. I went in depression pretty badly. My whole world seems to me shattered in pieces in the very moment I want to change my life, be happy with my girlfriend, take the degree, search a job, regain my peace.

    I went to another specialist which gave me some chiropractic manipulation to my pelvis. It gave me more mobility but I felt that my gate was altered. After a month I regained a little confidence and started to train again, walk more and more, be active on the pain. It was very difficult not only for the back pain but for other symptoms (difficulty to sleep, fasciculations all over my body for long period of time, pain and discomfort when sitting).

    The day I’ve felt that something positive will happen, all of a sudden pain hit me in my let knee during light gym work out on leg extensions machine. I’ve shifted my attention on it thinking: “Oh no, now that my back hurt less does come the knee pain?”. I didn’t want to believe that but I’ve decrease my training hoping the knee pain will disappear.

    After two weeks the pain build up and in the same time my father torn is quadriceps tendon on work space, my pain goes nuts. I was scared to death: “Who will help my family know if I can’t drive and walk? Why this is happening to me? Why the knee? Did I made some mistake during training? Was it the hip manipulation that cause all of this?.

    The knee pain became bilateral and I decided to get an ultrasound of them. The MD found a chronic tendinopathy with 3 millimeters calcification in my left patellar tendon and he said to me: “Pay attention to it, this is chronic, don’t be scared but it can break. This is the bill to pay for all the year of training”. I don’t understand why? I’ve never had knee pain in my life and I felt pain not in my patellar tendon.

    I was devastated and feeling that all the things I’ve done with so much passion and effort in my life was useless and gone. The pain blocked me physically and mentally, I’ve stopped any activities besides working on my degree thesis as much as I could. The knee pain was always there anything I do from sitting to laying in bed.

    In may I’ve travel with my girlfriend cause I’ve promise her that we will visit Naples together. We walk over 30 km in 3 days. At the end of the travel my pain was unbearable, so I decided to undergo Extracorporeal Shockwave (because my MD told me is the only thing I can try with my problem) and begun phisyo, . The result was more and more pain; at that point my right feet and ankle begun to hurt badly as one year ago, my shins was in burning pain. I was feeling as a damaged version of me. It wasn’t me. I was asking to myself: “where is the real, strong Francesco?”.

    I blame myself for the hip maneuver that altered my gate, and my PT also believed it was the cause of all my knee pain. I wasn’t able to handle the pain of physio so I stopped it and went in Rome to the famous Sport Clinic Villa Stuart another visit.

    The MD in Rome found nothing on the mechanical test, she saw my tendinopathy on MRI and ULTRASOUND and she said: “From the images this is a tendon on which I use PRP injections but in your case it was asymptomatic to palpation and not so severe so, if the clinical examination is negative, I can’t inject you”. She told me that the pain was coming probably from the hip maneuver or from my feet (pes planus, Hyperpronation). She had problems with the diagnosis but said to me that I was able to do anything I want and to live my life as normal as possible. I was thinking: “How can I do anything I want with this damm pain, when I can’t stand still for a minute?”, “How can I don’t harm myself by ignore this pain since my tendon was in conditions to be PRP injected as numerous professional athlete does?”.

    All my body was painfull, I’ve also took rheumatic blood test which was negative. No painkiller (Tramadol) or any anti-inflammatory drugs helped me.

    I was lost, seriously I wanted to kill myself and end my suffering. The only thing that stops me was the love for my family and my girlfriend, so I decided to start psycotherapeutic treatment and also at that time I discovered and read Sarno and SteveO books.

    Now, after 6 months, my knee pain subsides but is always there (when I walk, when I stand still, when I sleep) and with certain sample activities it flares up so much that all my mental progress vanish in one second. I’ve got the sensation of puncture in my tendons around the patella and in my kneecap; I feel like my tendons is stiff ready to torn, I fell my knees sore, I fell that my posture and my gate is different from 6 months ago, my legs fells fragile. I think of it all the time, even in my dreams.

    Gently I want to ask you, since I can’t consult a TMS doctor here in Italy, do you think that my symptoms relay to TMS? If it is TMS why my pain subsided but didn’t go away? Now I see life in a different prospective, I see my errors and my success in life, I just want the end of this pain and be 100% happy and free. Now I’m fighting again so, because it doesn’t go away and it’ so real, I think that can be something serious from an organic point of view that requires more time or in the worst hypothesis it will last forever with me.

    Thank you very much and I'm sorry for my very long post and for my bad English but it’s not my primary language.
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2016
  2. Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)

    Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021) Beloved Grand Eagle

    Hi, Francesco. I live in Chicago but visited Italy years ago and loved it. I spent a few days each in Rome, Florence, Naples, and went to Capri. Beautiful places.

    I do believe your pains are from TMS, your emotions. You may be under emotional stresses that you can't imagine. I suggest you begin the Structured Educational Program, free in the subforum of this web site. It will help you to discover emotions you probably have been repressing for years, and that's what is needed to heal you.

    Be positive. Believe you are going to be well again, and you will be.

    Watch the videos by Dr. Sarno and others on Youtube to learn more about TMS and how thousands have been healed. I'm one of them!
     
  3. franluc

    franluc Newcomer

    Thank you very much Walt for your words full of hope. In the last four months I think I've identify the emotions that cause me so much harm.

    First of all, the fear that all the hard work I've put to reach my goals will vanish forever near the end end of the struggle. This fear radicates deep in me one piece at time, after my many injuries wich stops me so many time during important periods of my life, then university change and abuse on my job as a reporter and photographer in a big newspaper in my town, all of this during a painfull and stressfull 5 year relationship with my ex girlfriend who abandoned me in so many fundamental occasions. After this, the death of my beloved dog after I was so happy that she was healthy recovered after a severe spinal injury operation. And then my father has heart ploblems and went to surgery and then I severe injuried my ankle. The list goes on an on. The last 8-10 years of my life, I now realize, was so hard for my mind and my body. The rage of comeback anytime, to spend four time the energy needed to conquer any personal goals exhausted me.

    Now I konw I have to be more gently on myself and be proud of my struggle. So I don't get why this orrible pains and disconfort don't leave me, this sense that my knee and feet don't support me anything I do, without this pain my life now will be complete. For this reason I think it' s something organic goin on (and of course I've got the tendinopathy and the other foot problems documented by image findings).

    If I've accepted my repressed emotions why TMS doesn't leave me? Why I can't feel strong as always during semple days activities? Be active was my cure for anithing.

    I'm really happy with my life on any front except for this pains and the fear that something serious organic it's going on.

    Again, thank you very much for the support.
     

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