Morning Pain in Bed

[patrickj]

Hi

I’ve had daily back pain for over 4 years. Got another MRI planned in January but the scan two years ago was clear, nothing to report.

I am journaling and meditating. My back pain is worse in bed and morning. It’s actually worst in my sides just beneath the rib cage, I wake up every day very sore and very stiff. Generally I loosen up a bit through the day but the pain never goes away. My sides are so sore and my back is very stiff and tender. Up into my neck also.

I believe it’s TMS. But I get doubt when people talk of a stressful event leading to acute back spasms. I’m stressed every day and my back/sides hurt every day. There’s no change and no noticeable trigger. Most success stories appear to be sudden sharp spasms that ease off after time then come back. I cannot find one story similar to mine of the pain consistently there for years?

For the record I have several other aches and pains too and I’m soooo tired everyday. I feel battered physically and mentally.

Could do with any advice or reassurance especially around the bed pain / morning pain.

Thanks.

 

[Ellen]

I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and had constant pain, stiffness, and fatigue for 20 years. I have been free of it since 2013 by treating it as TMS.

We all want to find success stories that exactly mirror our symptoms, but our brains are so complex that our TMS experiences are very individualized. The exact location, duration, and timing of our symptoms can vary wildly. The important thing is to accept that your symptoms are TMS. Journaling and meditating are great, but knowledge therapy must be included. Read TMS books daily. Listen to podcasts. There is much available now. You are re-training your brain and need to give it more accurate information in a steady diet. Recovery is possible and you can get there.

 

[patrickj]

I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and had constant pain, stiffness, and fatigue for 20 years. I have been free of it since 2013 by treating it as TMS.

We all want to find success stories that exactly mirror our symptoms, but our brains are so complex that our TMS experiences are very individualized. The exact location, duration, and timing of our symptoms can vary wildly. The important thing is to accept that your symptoms are TMS. Journaling and meditating are great, but knowledge therapy must be included. Read TMS books daily. Listen to podcasts. There is much available now. You are re-training your brain and need to give it more accurate information in a steady diet. Recovery is possible and you can get there.

Thanks Ellen..

I’ve read a couple of books and I listen to podcasts almost daily for probably a year now. Getting pretty bored with it cos I don’t get any improvement. Doctors told me it’s fibromyalgia as well. Bit stuck really.

 

[Ellen]

Thanks Ellen..

I’ve read a couple of books and I listen to podcasts almost daily for probably a year now. Getting pretty bored with it cos I don’t get any improvement. Doctors told me it’s fibromyalgia as well. Bit stuck really.

When I was feeling stuck, I listened to the audio version of Sarno's Healing Back Pain. Something about his voice was very reassuring to me. I guess because I found him believable. And more recently, I was experiencing a relapse and watched Schubiner's movie This Might Hurt, and by the end of the movie my symptoms were going away. Something about kind, dedicated, knowledgeable professionals delivering a very clear, sensible message is healing for me. Sometimes it just takes time for our brains to override past learning with new learning.

Fibromyalgia is TMS. You are on the right path to recovery. Keep at it and you will see progress.

 

[patrickj]

When I was feeling stuck, I listened to the audio version of Sarno's Healing Back Pain. Something about his voice was very reassuring to me. I guess because I found him believable. And more recently, I was experiencing a relapse and watched Schubiner's movie This Might Hurt, and by the end of the movie my symptoms were going away. Something about kind, dedicated, knowledgeable professionals delivering a very clear, sensible message is healing for me. Sometimes it just takes time for our brains to override past learning with new learning.

Fibromyalgia is TMS. You are on the right path to recovery. Keep at it and you will see progress.

Thanks, I’ll try. I’ve listened to the audio book and loads of schubiner stuff and watched all the rage etc etc.
No better. Maybe I’ll get some relief in 2023.

 

[Baseball65]

Most success stories appear to be sudden sharp spasms that ease off after time then come back.

You haven't read enough stories.

I was in pain non-stop for 18 months. There were 'episodes' where it got like 'kill me now' worse, but on average I was miserable all the time with occasional respite from steroid injections.That's hours out of Months. basically in different degrees of agony from waking to sleep. I am pretty meat and potatoes as far as my experience

Also.. the stressful events? That was just 'the straw that broke the camels back'. Once you accept the TMS diagnosis retroactively we can see how the situation(s) we were in were at the root... but when you are in pain intellectually knowing or being told that would only make you angrier. That's why it's best to just commit to the process.

BTW.. I am still stressed a lot. Just had a good stiff dose today! The difference between now and then is a mental exercise..when these rage inducing, embarrassing, frustrating situations arise I actually TELL my body to not respond with a symptom. WE talk about it. Look at it from more angles. Think about our motives,etc.....basically anything that raises self awareness can banish TMS as long as we are doing it for the purpose of uncovering repressed rage

Sarno said our pain patterns vary across a large spectrum and your does not sound particularly different than the rest of us. Which means your odds of getting out of pain are pretty high.

 

[patrickj]

You haven't read enough stories.

I was in pain non-stop for 18 months. There were 'episodes' where it got like 'kill me now' worse, but on average I was miserable all the time with occasional respite from steroid injections.That's hours out of Months. basically in different degrees of agony from waking to sleep. I am pretty meat and potatoes as far as my experience

Also.. the stressful events? That was just 'the straw that broke the camels back'. Once you accept the TMS diagnosis retroactively we can see how the situation(s) we were in were at the root... but when you are in pain intellectually knowing or being told that would only make you angrier. That's why it's best to just commit to the process.

BTW.. I am still stressed a lot. Just had a good stiff dose today! The difference between now and then is a mental exercise..when these rage inducing, embarrassing, frustrating situations arise I actually TELL my body to not respond with a symptom. WE talk about it. Look at it from more angles. Think about our motives,etc.....basically anything that raises self awareness can banish TMS as long as we are doing it for the purpose of uncovering repressed rage

Sarno said our pain patterns vary across a large spectrum and your does not sound particularly different than the rest of us. Which means your odds of getting out of pain are pretty high.

Thanks. I appreciate your help, I’ve read some of your posts before so good to hear from you. I had to use my dictionary for “retroactively”

I hope I can get better in 2023.

 

[patrickj]

You haven't read enough stories.

I was in pain non-stop for 18 months. There were 'episodes' where it got like 'kill me now' worse, but on average I was miserable all the time with occasional respite from steroid injections.That's hours out of Months. basically in different degrees of agony from waking to sleep. I am pretty meat and potatoes as far as my experience

Also.. the stressful events? That was just 'the straw that broke the camels back'. Once you accept the TMS diagnosis retroactively we can see how the situation(s) we were in were at the root... but when you are in pain intellectually knowing or being told that would only make you angrier. That's why it's best to just commit to the process.

BTW.. I am still stressed a lot. Just had a good stiff dose today! The difference between now and then is a mental exercise..when these rage inducing, embarrassing, frustrating situations arise I actually TELL my body to not respond with a symptom. WE talk about it. Look at it from more angles. Think about our motives,etc.....basically anything that raises self awareness can banish TMS as long as we are doing it for the purpose of uncovering repressed rage

Sarno said our pain patterns vary across a large spectrum and your does not sound particularly different than the rest of us. Which means your odds of getting out of pain are pretty high.

Hi
Would you be able to offer any advice on why my pain is so much worse when I wake up in bed? My sides and mid to lower back absolutely murder. It’s so difficult to convince myself that it’s not the bed or the sofa or the sitting that’s causing my pain. I’m sure it’s TMS but it’s so depressing that I’m not getting any better despite believing and journaling etc.

 

[Baseball65]

When we are having chronic symptoms virtually all of it is 'residue' from past conditioning. Period. Not here and there, but everywhere. The first time we had the symptom it was straight up TMS; A command decision to create a symptom rather than experience a rage inducing episode.
But, Once it worked, our brain 'chose' it through a combination of conditioning and necessity....and eventually when it became chronic, it no longer is serving it's original purpose. It's just THERE like that couch you bought. 100% conditioned. Oftentimes the original rage maker has been removed but the pain lingers. Occasionally it's still around...usually a bad relationship, but the good news is THAT doesn't have to be dealt with yet.

If you study Pavlov, it didn't take many times for the dogs to salivate...once or twice was sufficient. Maybe 3 times with the slow ones. We are no different.
So you have a pattern. You wake up in pain. It's now 'suffering'. The original pain might have been serving a purpose but odds are it no longer serves.

The only way to break conditioning is to acknowledge it as conditioning and then to 'scratch the record'. Remember vinyl records? If you got a scratch, it might play the same little song segment over and over...or skip a segment. To break out of TMS you are gonna grab a sixteen penny nail and scratch the bejesus out of that record so it can't ever play again!!!!

You wake up, and you find your attention is drawn to the pain.? Yell 'NO... I don't fu-#-ing believe you.... you are here to distract me, I am sick of it and I am not listening to you anymore!" Talk to it like it is a possessing entity. Because it is. It is like an exorcism of sorts and you are gonna be your own priest.

despite believing and journaling

Believing is good. Keep reading the books over and over and over until you know the text by heart. I am not kidding. It's not for the purpose of rote memory, but to re-program all of that 'interesting' useless crap we learned when we were in the system. We know too much about discs, deterioration etc etc and not enough about Freud, Charcot, and Pavlov....

I don't know what 'Journaling' is , But I have been writing since I got better. I use the 4th step INVENTORY format from the 12 step programs... you can find it easily with a google search. They even have printable ones.
I make lists of irritants and anger makers, even ones not directly related to me like politics, general principles, idea's,etc.... then, I ask myself WHY it makes me angry. I do not judge myself for being an 'asshole;' which the good-ist in me is great at doing. What does that anger inducer affect in me?

Now.. you might say 'But TMS is caused by repressed anger...how can my conscious anger help me?" GREAT point! BUT, when I get involved in a regular and thorough inspection of my anger-makers , I begin to see that I walk around with a lot of rage all the time. Then like an iceberg, I can sort of guesstimate how much more must be down there that I don't see...based on what I do learn.

I was in pain always. SO, to get out of pain I had to go through every little detail of my life MINDFUL of the pain being there as a conditioned response, and a bodyguard whose services I no longer need. So I went back to sleeping on my stomach. I got rid of my lumbar support crap. I stopped every 'correct' lifting technique and all of the other pseudo scientific crap I learned in therapy, and I move and lift and do stuff the way I always did before I go indoctrinated in the pain system; with very little attention paid to it.

MOST IMPORTANT . I have not had a 'long struggle with TMS'. I got better and I get the occasional attempted break-in which is easily fended off with one of Sarno's MOST IMPORTANT directions.

"Whenever you are finding yourself focusing on the pain, I encourage them to forcefully turn their mind to a source of recurrent irritation like a bad marriage or a financial problem" -Sarno paraphrased.

I did that. Religiously. A guy named Dave ripped me off in a music deal right before I read Sarno.

so.. I wake up and I am in Pain. As soon as I become aware it has my attention
"F- Dave... I wanna whoop his ass". I would run a film in my head of me harming him physically...I'd keep the thought going and go down dark corridors of letting my angry self speak unchecked.

I am driving to work and my back spasms?
"F-Dave... I am gonna ruin that little beeotch's life.. I'm gonna tell his wife he's been sneaking around doing dope"

I am out riding my bike and my butt cheek spasms
"F- Dave... I am gonna make sure every body knows what a dick he is"

etc,etc. It is important to be pre-armed with the recurrent source of rage so the second I catch my attention focusing on pain I immediately begin that thought process... the sooner the better. This is probably the KEY to my still playing Baseball at age 57 and working in heavy construction. I am not particularly big, athletic, healthy or strong. What I am is particularly good at following Sarno's instructions... I took every suggestion as a commandment and I GOT the results! Out of pain in 3 week, back at work in 5...

and not only that. EVEN still...whenever I feel a jolt of something from nowhere, I immediately (love that word) say "NO! BS !! I call BS on TMS... you're here to distract me and what I am really angry about is....." The people around me might think I am a raving lunatic, but I am a pain free lunatic.

...it all starts the next time you feel the pain, and if that is every morning then have that 'recurrent source of irritation" ready, get out a journal and write about your anger, not how your day went (unless it made you angry) and say "NO! No way bro... do not believe you"

Turn your thoughts
Talk to IT.
and say NO. Not buying.

The record will not be able to play. You will wake up and all of the music will have stopped. Peace. Quiet. Oh!!...(Laughs out loud with true Joy that only comes from a benign creator)..It's gone!

That's my advice.

 

[patrickj]

Thanks… I appreciate the style of responses you give and the details

I must admit I find it all very difficult because I’m getting no results. I journal about my rage (of which there is a lot) but I’m getting no results. My back is actually getting worse and my neck and shoulder etc etc. I’ve been in pain 15 years. So it’s hard to pinpoint a certain stressor like many TMS’ers do.

I have lots of anger at my dad, my mum too. I was abused as a child. My mum is a recovered alcoholic which brought a whole load of issues. Including approx 10 years of hospital stays. And breast cancer. And cirrhosis of the liver. I hate my career and my job. I have no friends (or shall I say close friends, lots of acquaintances) and I rarely see any family.

Yet I get up and go to work everyday and look after my wife and daughter. It takes a lot of strength. I’d love to wake up and feel ready to “attack” the day with positivity. I have so much I want to achieve, personal goals, and dreams for me and my family. But I’ve realised I have a lot of trauma and a whirlpool of negative emotions in my head.

I’ll re read Sarno. I wanted some TMS practitioner sessions but they want £100 + a session which is ridiculous. Especially for zoom sessions.

Thanks again.

 

[Cactusflower]

I can tell you that tms coaching sessions can be worth your investment, tms specialists have had to invest quite a bit of time and money into doing what they do, and like you at your job, need to earn a living. However, if you don’t want to use one, you don’t need to because the free programs here are very similar to the skills a coach helps you work through. There are also therapists that practice Internal Family Systems or ISDTP that you may find beneficial to work through your considerable life experiences.
Remember that as you work through things, symptoms of pain or anxiety may increase before they subside. Striving, frustration, self-blame are as much a part of TMS personalities as is anger, be kind to yourself. You are doing your best, it can take time. Lots of time, but it can happen. You can begin to enjoy life even through the pain. Look for the glimpses of little things that make today seem better than yesterday. Mindset is so much a part of the healing.

 

[blackdog]

TMS was developed with rage as the central emotion driving pain. Other emotions, such as sadness, can also drive TMS. Uncovering some of this by seeing an evidence-based therapist for trauma (you definitely had a traumatic past) may well help you. ACT, IFS, DBT, even trauma-based CBT may be beneficial. Seeing a good intake coordinator or doing a consult with a therapist who uses one or more of these methods would be a good starting point. If you do and you don't like your therapist, then see someone else. You don't go back to the same garage over and over when they keep misdiagnosing your car troubles, right? You don't hang out with someone you don't feel good around in any way, right? I point this out because I deal with anxiety and just yesterday a Beloved Grand Eagle on here told me (paraphrasing) "Don't even work on your pain, start working on your anxiety. When you begin to resolve it, the pain will start to melt away." Whether that occurs is yet to be seen, but I can see the wisdom in his words. Sometimes that's all we have to start with, trusting someone who's been there and passed through. I wish you success in 2023,

blackdog

 

[blackdog]

Hi Baseball65,

You are a very determined person. That sets a great example for those of us still healing. I like your description of using your anger at Dave to shut down your pain/fear responses. Sarno wrote of using a 'recurrent irritation' such as a financial trouble. Do you think that using something like that would work as well? Or, did having a single person that was purposefully malicious in intent make it more solid and easier to use as a tool?

Having a little trouble coming up with someone, which seems weird. Plenty of people have been assholes, but usually they are strangers, may have acted out of ignorance rather than intent, had other good qualities, felt sorry for them in some way, etc. Maybe I'm overthinking this, but it seems like it would be best to have a single person that you had unadulterated anger at.

I don't know if you have any thoughts on all this.

Thanks,

blackdog

 

[JanAtheCPA]

Maybe I'm overthinking this, but it seems like it would be best to have a single person that you had unadulterated anger at.

Overthinking is a great distraction technique used by our TMS brains to keep us from looking at what we really need to look at. Everyone's life experience, from the moment of conception, is different from that of any other individual who exists or ever existed, so trying to compare your experience with others is just a distraction, because the TMS mechanism will ultimately attempt to convince you that it's not valid.

Have you explored, written about, meditated upon, or written "unsent letters" to, your parents, siblings, or other people from your childhood? That's generally the original source of repressed rage and fear. The writing exercises in the SEP are designed to uncover the truth of childhood experiences - if the exercises are done with courage and self-honesty.

 

[Baseball65]

Hi Baseball65,

You are a very determined person. That sets a great example for those of us still healing. I like your description of using your anger at Dave to shut down your pain/fear responses. Sarno wrote of using a 'recurrent irritation' such as a financial trouble. Do you think that using something like that would work as well? Or, did having a single person that was purposefully malicious in intent make it more solid and easier to use as a tool?

Having a little trouble coming up with someone, which seems weird. Plenty of people have been assholes, but usually they are strangers, may have acted out of ignorance rather than intent, had other good qualities, felt sorry for them in some way, etc. Maybe I'm overthinking this, but it seems like it would be best to have a single person that you had unadulterated anger at.

I don't know if you have any thoughts on all this.

Thanks,

blackdog

The resentment against Dave was useful because It was fresh in my mind, It was a 'beyond a shadow of a doubt' he was in the wrong, and because it was tied up with Music/career/money which were all very important to me at that age (30-32).

On your other post you talked about forgiveness and this goes hand in hand with TMS people. WE tend to forgive people without even processing what it is they did wrong!! That is not being a 'good person'. That is being Pollyanna and a formula for pain. This is like a therapeutic technique and us TMSers are far too much into what Yannis Pappas calls 'Mommy Love'. Our culture has gone waaaaay too far down that road and the result is TMS and a lot of other problems. Mommy Loves you no matter what, and as you are. "Daddy" on the other hand has your best OUTCOME in mind and doesn't care about how you feel, but the outcome. There are conditions.

TMS recovery is "Daddy Love"...your gonna get the result but we're gonna stop BS-ing ourselves about everybody being OK the way they are...Murder is wrong. Theft is wrong. Bullying and lying and cheating are wrong. It is OK and NATURAL to be angry at people who are way out of line. Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple with whips.

For the therapeutic purpose of recovery from TMS I have to be an A-hole for a minute. I even pray about it and ask God for an extension. "God I know I shouldn't be angry at {Blank) but for the purpose of recovery, I'm going to go down some dark alleys."

Ultimately, down the road, I am not going to be 100% free until I forgive them, but i better know damn well what I am forgiving them for, and as I said in the other post, sometimes that's the best they can do... That was the best Dave could do. I forgave him... but we were never close again...and he died a few months back homeless and drug addicted though at the time of our interaction he was signing 6 figure publishing and record deals

Some relationships are muddy and murky.. we have a vague intuition our side of the street isn't clean so it's not a good one to turn our attention to for TMS. Remember, all of the 'Hate' if you will, is to retrain my brain. I only need it until the pain goes away... then it is a liability. So the more 'cut and dried' it is, the better it can send that message to the unconscious. "I know what's going on down there... I may not know the details, but It's Rage, so I'm going to take care of this one MYSELF!"

and as I said, I still use this technique to fend off new attacks, though the longer I've done this, the better I am at guessing what is going on. I was having a mystery pain around my gallbladder around Xmas. I had a pretty strong feeling it was based on anger at a person who has grown far too dependent on me. Ceaseless problems, filling my ear up and wasting my time. I finally told them I can no longer interact with them...speaking, hanging out, nothing until they can stop their rants and moaning (which she probably can't).... 5 days of no contact and I noticed "Hey... My gallbladder thing is fine! And I ate salami everyday. It wasn't pork fat... it was the girl!"

But i have been doing this 25 years now. Feel free to DM me with any questions. I am not a counselor...just another guy who has beaten this thing.

peace

 

[Baseball65]

'recurrent irritation' such as a financial trouble

...Yes. I think anything that touches you deeply would work. If I am having serious financial problems that would be a good one. That one doesn't work for me because I usually respond to Financial Problems by working more. ..and then I don't have the problem. That particular one doesn't make me feel as helpless as like....not getting a show I want....not winning a contest I am in....being left off the roster for a game. All of us are wired a little different.

 

[BloodMoon]

Hi @Baseball65,

Now.. you might say 'But TMS is caused by repressed anger...how can my conscious anger help me?" GREAT point! BUT, when I get involved in a regular and thorough inspection of my anger-makers , I begin to see that I walk around with a lot of rage all the time. Then like an iceberg, I can sort of guesstimate how much more must be down there that I don't see...based on what I do learn.

Did you ever get to know what was actually in the middle and at the bottom of the iceberg, what the incidents were that caused the rage that was hidden there below the water line? Or was it that inspecting the tip of the iceberg rage making situations purged the buried rage out of you without you ever knowing the specific cause(s) of the hidden rage and it didn't matter that the hidden rage might actually be due to a different cause to that of the tip of the iceberg stuff? Many thanks in advance.

 

[Baseball65]

Did you ever get to know what was actually in the middle and at the bottom of the iceberg, what the incidents were that caused the rage that was hidden there below the water line? Or was it that inspecting the tip of the iceberg rage making situations purged the buried rage out of you without you ever knowing the specific cause(s) of the hidden rage and it didn't matter that the hidden rage might actually be due to a different cause to that of the tip of the iceberg stuff? Many thanks in advance.

Nope. I have impressions of what I am like and what kind of luggage I carry, but there has been no magical 'aha' that entails No Further inspection.
For that matter, I am not even certain I have ever been 'correct' other than whatever symptoms I was suffering from went away or got better.
That has been the only standard candle I have measured by.

I have learned that a lot of it is absurd, so trying to look for cause-effect reasoning isn't going to work all the time.
e.g. "I am angry that my ex GF doesn't call me anymore"...even though I broke up with her 18 months ago...she still needs to call me.

I am angry that I can't play baseball this season because I have no one to watch my dog

I am angry at myself for being so codependent I won't leave my dog alone for four hours
(the most traumatic memory I own is having to put my last dog to sleep...more trauma than losing both parents...yeah)

Oh... my ex GF used to watch my dog

Now I can see the whole circle

Insane...

but the looking and being honest (and guessing) is all part of the recovery.

 

[BloodMoon]

Thank you, @Baseball65, that's all really helpful... it's also made me realise that there is some absurd stuff that I've been annoyed about that my inspections have skirted over because of them being silly... I shall revisit that stuff for better inspection.

 

[Diana-M]

This is probably one of the best threads I have read on the wiki. Packed full of amazing advice! How I wish I could see what’s really going on with me. I guess that’s the million dollar question. We all have to just keep working at it until we get good at fighting off TMS. My problem is I have never processed so many of my horrible rage-inducing events. My survival depended on stuffing them. And there are a LOT of them!

After three years in therapy, a new event popped up this week that I forgot about. So hard to believe I forgot about it! It sent me reeling. I’m still blown away. Will take awhile to process it. Beyond rage-inducing and meanwhile I didn’t sleep a wink. Pain and all sorts of acting out of my TMS brain. This just feels like a bottomless pit. I truly hope I can become a success story. One of these days! There’s just SO much to get through. This post gives me hope and a bunch of good tips. Thanks so much!