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Is there a difference between TMS and FND?
- Thread starter Things
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CaptivaLady
Peer Supporter
I think they overlap at a minimum and are likely the same. I've seen Zoffness, et al discussing it and it always smacks of TMS in my view.
Things
New Member
Thanks for the responses.
It is looking more and more to me like FND is the same as TMS, but TMS was discovered in relation to conditions like back pain, and FND in relation to conditions to do with automatic motor skills. So it's like the same root cause is giving different sets of symptoms.
A question I now have is whether some types of physical treatments could actually help (this website says to stop all physical treatments). In the case of back pain, I can see how the physical treatment is reinforcing the wrong idea, but with FND, I think they use a physical treatment (though maybe it's ultimately psychological?) of focusing on something else while walking, which helps rewire the brain's ability to walk as an automatic function (at least that's my understanding, I don't have motor issues like that so I'm not speaking from experience of the treatment).
It seems to me that although it's a physical practice, it's acknowledging the real cause of the problem (neuropathways), so is psychologically reinforcing the right thing.
Of course doing some emotional/psychological work to look at what caused the neuropathways to end up like that in the first place, is going to help the symptoms not just shift to some other area once the brain is able to manage automatic movements again, but I think that is part of FND treatment as well.
Anyway, I'm just wanting to know if people think this kind of physiotherapy (one that aims to retrain the brain, instead of build muscle, etc.) can help?
It is looking more and more to me like FND is the same as TMS, but TMS was discovered in relation to conditions like back pain, and FND in relation to conditions to do with automatic motor skills. So it's like the same root cause is giving different sets of symptoms.
A question I now have is whether some types of physical treatments could actually help (this website says to stop all physical treatments). In the case of back pain, I can see how the physical treatment is reinforcing the wrong idea, but with FND, I think they use a physical treatment (though maybe it's ultimately psychological?) of focusing on something else while walking, which helps rewire the brain's ability to walk as an automatic function (at least that's my understanding, I don't have motor issues like that so I'm not speaking from experience of the treatment).
It seems to me that although it's a physical practice, it's acknowledging the real cause of the problem (neuropathways), so is psychologically reinforcing the right thing.
Of course doing some emotional/psychological work to look at what caused the neuropathways to end up like that in the first place, is going to help the symptoms not just shift to some other area once the brain is able to manage automatic movements again, but I think that is part of FND treatment as well.
Anyway, I'm just wanting to know if people think this kind of physiotherapy (one that aims to retrain the brain, instead of build muscle, etc.) can help?
CaptivaLady
Peer Supporter
That sounds promising to me. I believe that physical actions help with both! Resuming activity after/during TMS is good for the body and the mind. So, physical therapies for FND seems perfectly reasonable to me, especially if approached with love Vs fear.
Cactusflower
Beloved Grand Eagle
I believe that each person’s approach to healing is their own, and causes and effects of TMS can vary.
I do a form of pt, their focus is also neural retraining. They acknowledge the physical tension, nervous system interplay any my own pt understands my fears and that I feel there are emotional/personality aspects that probably began this cycle. He is onboard. He will explain his theory, I tell him mine. We blend it.
Will I need his approach forever? Our goal is no.
Would I recommend this approach for everyone? Certainly not.
I have many books by people who have healed mind/body issues in s myriad of ways. They all had to do emotional work, but how they got to their better place in life varied. The biggest step is to make the decision to heal and stay committed.
I do a form of pt, their focus is also neural retraining. They acknowledge the physical tension, nervous system interplay any my own pt understands my fears and that I feel there are emotional/personality aspects that probably began this cycle. He is onboard. He will explain his theory, I tell him mine. We blend it.
Will I need his approach forever? Our goal is no.
Would I recommend this approach for everyone? Certainly not.
I have many books by people who have healed mind/body issues in s myriad of ways. They all had to do emotional work, but how they got to their better place in life varied. The biggest step is to make the decision to heal and stay committed.
JanAtheCPA
Beloved Grand Eagle
"TMS" was not a discovery, but a theory. It is also nothing more than a string of words that Dr. Sarno put together to describe the symptom of muscle pain resulting from muscle tension which he believed was from oxygen deprivation, which he theorized was caused by emotional distress and repression. Forty years ago in the early 1980s.
The thing is, "Tension Myositis Syndrome" is not a meaningful phrase. It simply signifies a condition of muscle tension. Just like FND signifies a disorder of the neurological system which has no discernible cause. We actually joke around here about the number of conditions that we consider to be TMS which have been given descriptive labels by a medical community that is desperate to give some kind of diagnosis to individuals who are desperate to be diagnosed. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, and many more. We collected a bunch on a thread earlier this year, I think it was. Yet none of these tells us anything outside of a description of the symptoms.
Dr. Sarno started out with back pain, but his later two books clearly show how his observations moved on to many other conditions. I'm actually of the opinion that he would have been fully engaged in the many neuroscience advances which have been made since his time, as well as the proliferation of research confirming the stress/inflammation/disease connection.
Many of us here interpret his prohibition against physical interventions with a great deal of nuance, as @Cactusflower has already described. After all, Dr. Sarno himself said that pain relief medications and anti-depressants can give someone the mental breathing room to turn things around and start on the emotional work. He also recommended therapy for individuals who are not able to do this work on their own, which is generally going to be the case when past trauma is an issue. There's no reason that hands-on bodywork or physical retraining can't be used the same way. It will, in fact, only be effective in the long run if the patient/client incorporates the necessary emotional work at the same time, and uses the training as a temporary tool to jumpstart long-term recovery.
I personally use the power of the placebo effect to do this whenever I need to steer my brain along a self-healing path. I also go to my favorite hands-on PT every two months for a tune-up, whether I have symptoms or not, because at my age (more than twenty years past what I believe is the maximum intended useful life of the human body) I deserve it and it feels great. It does not lessen my belief in the mindbody connection, and if nothing else, I like having a licensed professional, who has known me for years (since "before Sarno") keeping an eye on me. Back in the day he was thrilled to see me find the mindbody path, and it has enhanced our work.
Sure, that makes sense to me, and is probably right in line with Pain Reprocessing Therapy, which is Alan Gordon's new program, although back in the day he was the emotional guru. But it reminds me that back in 2011, just "before Sarno", I was being seen at a dizziness & balance clinic where they tested everything and ultimately couldn't find anything wrong (classic TMS as it turns out) so they started making me do exercises designed to challenge my balance. I was still in the beginning of their treatment plan when I discovered Dr. Sarno and this forum, and realized that challenging my fear response is what they were really doing - and that I didn't need it as soon as I stopped accepting fear as my go-to response to stress. I said "thanks very much, but I'm good to go" and I never looked back.
Exactly!
Well, look - this is highly individualized (as @Cactusflower has also said) and I think it depends a LOT on where someone is at in incorporating TMS knowledge and awareness and skills into their life. In my case, I was on my way to becoming housebound, but was still quite far from that eventuality when I discovered Dr. Sarno and started doing the work (the Structured Educational Program, plus Claire Weekes for anxiety). My belief was instant, because for many decades I'd understood the mindbody connection and believed in the power of self-healing - I just hadn't put it all together with my lifetime of anxiety and previously mild symptoms, plus this totally new idea of emotional repression. Dr. Sarno did that for me. As I said, I dropped the balance clinic immediately, along with the clinic owner's theory that I was a migrainer, and I also stopped seeing an "alternative" MD who was attempting to do cranio-sacral work on me. I doubled down on my workouts with an age-appropriate physical trainer (I was 60 at that time) with a goal of less fear and more determination to restore my strength and activity. Which I totally did. Until the pandemic shutdowns in early 2020, but that's another story, and it's 100% stress-related. Living in today's dysfunctional world doesn't make any of this easy, folks.
The bottom line: Don't overthink it! I think you could be susceptible to letting your TMS brain mechanism use overthinking as a means of trying to control the process and thus the outcome. This, of course, is counter-productive, fooling you into thinking you're accomplishing something while the real work is being avoided. The emotional work must be front and center, and it must proceed unencumbered by intellectualizing and monitoring.
Good luck!
I thought you might be interested in this video. David in this success story mentions that he was diagnosed with FND. He suffered all manner of symptoms for around 8 years and he recovered by doing TMS work.
I just saw this post. I am currently dealing with this diagnosis. Someone else I know with FND told me “it just gets worse over time.” I was very discouraged by this. I am hoping doing the work will help me. I currently have it lined up to do a form of PT that is neuroscience based. But of course, it’s out of network.
TG957
Beloved Grand Eagle
Any exercise
You don't need to pay a lot of money to do this kind of work. Looking back on my experience with one of the worst manifestations of TMS, which is CRPS, I know that if I had examples of people who recovered and who told me that I just must go through the right steps, I could have done it at the cost of a few books. My TMS therapist was great except she was out of network, but I could have done it without her if only I had more confidence that somebody else with CRPS had succeeded.
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JanAtheCPA
Beloved Grand Eagle
That is a sweeping across-the-board statement that is simply not true. If you research it you will see that some people diagnosed with FND get worse, some stay the same, some get completely better, some get partially better. You would be doing yourself a big favour to adopt the mindset and attitude of that you will be one of the ones who will get better. The ones who don't get better are more likely to be those who don't have or don't endeavour to foster that kind of mindset or don't do mind/body work in order to get better. Don't listen to negative prognosis comments, start to make your brain feel safe! -- Watch the video I posted above, if you haven't already done so, and seek out other positive stories while you get stuck into doing mind/body work. Good luck on your journey to recovery.
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I am actually reading your book (I think that’s you…). Thank you for the encouragement!
I also tend to think that people that get well are not as likely to post their success stories, so you already get a negative bias.
thank you so much!!!
Thanks! I will go back and read it throughly.