Is vertebrobasillar insufficiency TMS too?

[mutombo]

Hello my friends.

I have cervical disc herniations, kyphosis and scoliosis. My main problem is left neck/shoulder pain, brain fog and dizziness/vertigo. When I went to physiotherapy with Neck MRI, they found some herniated discs with minimum pinched nerves. And they said pinched nerves are the reason for my vertigo and my dizziness. I took Physical therapy and it didn’t help me much. Then, I have tried to treat it like TMS. But it didn't help too much.

Lately, one doctor wanted carotid and vertebral ultrasound. According to ultrasound report I have "low-grade vertebrobacillar insufficiency" My artery blood flow is 165 ml/min. The normal value of that is more than 200. And the doctor said it is because of my disc herniations. He said the herniated discs compress the arteries.

In the literature, there are some cases like this.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1930043317301309 (Bow hunter's syndrome in a patient with vertebral artery atresia, an arcuate foramen, and unilateral deafness: a case report - ScienceDirect)
https://thejns.org/spine/view/journals/j-neurosurg-spine/11/3/article-p326.xml (Positional vertebral artery compression and vertebrobasilar insufficiency due to a herniated cervical disc in: Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine Volume 11 Issue 3 (2009))

"The authors report a case of vertebrobasilar insufficiency caused by vertebral artery (VA) compression due to a herniated cervical disc, which was surgically treated with the aid of intraoperative angiography. "

When I eat an pineapple or took Aspirin, I feel normal. (I think it's due to blood flow)

I am so confused. I know Sarno's theory is about blood flow too. And it seems like that too. But it says herniated discs compress the arteries. And we know herniated discs generally don't do this in TMS education.

I need your help and your comments. What do you think about this?

 

[JanAtheCPA]

I'm really sorry, mutombo, but most of us here are not medical professionals and we can't give medical advice or offer opinions about articles in medical journals.

Once someone has accepted the TMS diagnosis, we're here to offer support for the emotional journey that follows.

I know Sarno's theory is about blood flow

Dr. Sarno's original theory was about oxygen deprivation, but honestly, I think that's a just a simple visualization for beginners, which doesn't explain what most of us come to accept as TMS equivalents. I personally think that his repression/distraction theory is the one to pay attention to. The distraction theory depends upon the fact that our brains create all pain - pain is NOT created at the site where we feel the pain. If you need proof that, you just have to look at the fact of phantom limb pain - a pain phenomenon where there is no blood flow. And, by the way, a pain phenomenon that is accepted as a fact, by the traditional medical community. 100% created by the brain, which has memorized where the pain used to be in the now non-existent limb.

You seem to be stuck in a fear cycle in which you are obsessing over physical phenomena. The TMS mantra is "think psychologically, not physically".

We do say that you must be medically checked out. The doctors will often try to find something wrong, and they will often put labels on what they find. Your job is to interpret what they are saying, decide whether they are making a convincing case that you have something seriously wrong that must be treated right away, OR whether they are kind of scratching their heads and giving you some kind of diagnosis because you are sitting there desperate to receive one. There is a BIG difference between these two scenarios, but you have to be in a healthy mental state to be able to determine the difference.

If you decide that maybe you do have some disc issues (Dr. Sarno says that most of us do) but that they aren't dangerous, and that you want to treat your symptoms as TMS, then it's time to do one of the free programs and work on listening to the fear messages your brain is bombarding you with, and starting to fight back.