Knee pain and osteoarthritis: Is it TMS?

[Prairie Dawn]

Please advise!!

I’m hoping to hear some opinions and advice from people who have recovered from ongoing pain, specifically knee pain that’s been diagnosed as osteoarthritis. I want to believe that my pain could be TMS because I need a path to recovery, but I’m feeling frustrated and hopeless and I don’t have it in me to chase another dead end.

I’m 42 years old, generally healthy. About 4 months ago, I started noticing a few twinges in my left foot, and my lower legs felt tired, stiff, and achy. I figured that the plantar fasciitis (which I've had before), so I decided to “nip it in the bud,” and went on a spree of fast and furious chiropractic, massage, physio, and doctor’s appointments in the hopes of warding off any emergent foot pain. But instead of going away, the pain got much worse. It spread from my left foot into my knee, then up toward my hip, then into both knees. I went from walking 2-3 hours/day with no problems to being in pain any time I move. First I was diagnosed with plantar fasciitis that affects the knee, then with runner’s knee (left)/compensation pain (right), then I went for x-rays that showed mild "joint space narrowing” in both knees, and am now being told that all of my pain is the result of osteoarthritis.

Here are the reasons why I think my pain could be TMS:

· I’ve seen MANY different health practitioners over the past few months, and have not received one single piece of medical information from any health provider (from diagnosis to cause to treatment) that hasn’t been directly contradicted by a different health provider.

· When I received the arthritis diagnosis, the doctor pointed out exactly where in my body the arthritis had developed, and at that precise moment, all of my pain locked into those exact areas. Prior to that though, the pain wandered all around my lower and even upper body.

· The emotional aspects of TMS that Dr. Sarno describes seem to line up with my experience. I have suffered several significant losses over the past few years, and am very much continuing to deal with heartbreaking loss right now. Prior to this winter I had already reached a point of feeling hopeless about the future, but I had convinced myself that as long as I could still do the things I enjoy (swimming, long hikes all summer), life was still worth living. This pain is stealing away the last few joys in my life, so every time I feel pain, I also feel rage and despair.

· I recently went on vacation. This trip was a wonderful “escape” from a challenging everyday life, and my pain decreased significantly while I was gone, then returned with a vengeance as soon as I arrived back home.


Sounds kinda like TMS, right? But here are the reasons why my pain might not be TMS:

· Everything I’ve experienced has a convincing structural explanation. Of course my knees hurt if I’ve got arthritis! Of course my knees felt better when I was on vacation because I went somewhere warm and dry! Of course my foot hurts sometimes if I’ve suffered from plantar fasciitis in the past, etc.

· X-rays don’t lie, right?


So that’s the situation. Here are my questions:

1. Do I have TMS? (I know you can’t tell me for certain, but do you have a sense that my pain could be TMS?)

2. Because I find this pain so upsetting and I’m so terrified of how much worse things will get in the future, I tend to hyper-focus on every twinge, and then I become very angry and depressed. Is that part of TMS? Am I making my pain worse?

3. Could my conscious rage (as opposed to my subconscious rage) be causing pain?

4. What are my next steps? Merely reading the books didn’t bring about the relief that it does for some people. How do I make myself believe that my pain has a psychological origin when I’m so afraid that it's just my body falling apart?


Alright, that’s all for now. Thank you for your help! I will keep reading…

 

[newarrior]

I am in the same boat--no replies ?

 

[Diana-M]

Think of your pain as a warning signal. It’s saying enough is enough. You are living a painful life and your primitive brain considers you to be in danger. By painful, I mean unmanageable, overdrawn. It’s costing you too much emotionally, physically or stress wise. Probably all three.

The arthritis diagnosis is bogus. Dr. Sarno said arthritis shouldn’t cause pain. Doctors use that as a diagnosis because they don’t take emotional issues into account. They have nothing else to explain your pain with. You’ll have to make a lot of changes and learn a lot about yourself. It will feel really hard, but as time goes on, you’ll consider it all to be a gift.

Strong emotions scare your brain—conscious and unconscious. So start small. Always soothe your nervous system after you feel deep emotions through therapy or journaling. Meditation is very soothing. There are all kinds.

I also highly recommend the Curable app. It’s backed by a panel of top leaders in the mind-body field. It teaches you how to retrain your brain to get out of pain.

As far as believing you have TMS. You don’t need to believe it 100 percent at first. Just a little. Your conviction will grow. And check out the success stories. Those help a lot.

 

[newarrior]

I'm not sure about the original poster but myself I'm in a terrifying situation I just had my heart valve replaced 9 months ago I've got three zero 30 years of hearing loss from loud noise and tinnitus. I live in a foreign country my family is dead I'm never married I've got a girlfriend but I'm at the end of a bad relationship so I don't have a lot of security baked into my life I've never owned property never had kids no living family I do have money and I do live cheaply in Thailand I'm not sure if you're responding to myself or the original poster

 

[newarrior]

I've been following TMS and John Sarno in reading his books and documents since January of 2005

 

[newarrior]

I do meditate I do see a therapist I do see a psychiatrist I try to get a lot of support from friends and doctors I go to the sauna I live a pretty easy life in Thailand I don't work I don't have to go to school I've got plenty of money in the back I don't have to have a car life is pretty easy pretty easy low stressier overall

 

[Cactusflower]

Clearly you have stress. You mention being terrified and also in a bad relationship.You also mention the lack of family. Be honest with yourself and ask if you feel alone?
How do you feel about your safety and by that we're not necessarily talking about the external safety of the world, we're talking about your inner safety - which, when you mention "terrified" makes me think that this might be a huge stressor for you.

Stress isn't about the external stressors of life, it's about how you FEEL about the internal stressors you generate. The worry and fixation about your arthritis and what it means in your life.

It's also about your belief system. Your posts are always kind of self-victimizing or at least second guessing unless you speak about your earlier life or how you've overcome some difficult things in life. Why the lack of confidence now? What is it all bringing up?

My suggestion is to add some journaling to the things you do to confront TMS and the mindset of belief. It's not easy to dig out of a mindset that we are somehow damaged or compromised when we've had some true illness like your heart valve issues. It's the feeling of lack of control or agency over our selves and our lives, but I think you can regain some sense of this agency simply by slowly working on it in the realistic realms of the things you can control vs. acceptance of the things you can't control and finding some peace of mind within the balance.

TMS isn't about searching for a "cure" for a pain or a symptom. Sarno's message is about dealing with the mental and emotional suffering that is an equal or even greater symptom of TMS than the physical sensations. If you believe it's TMS then that's the way to go.