Multiple "injuries"

Just wondering if tms can have more than one symptom at once in the body. Basically in 2008 I began working at McDonald's and on the first day I had back pain. I could never work more than 3 hours due to my back pain and every Saturday I would work for 3 hours and it would take about 6 hours to recover from the terrible pain. Pretty soon I had an xray of my back which confirmed I had scolisos and kyphosis. I quit my job at mcdonalds in 2009.

By 2011 I was an absolute computer nerd and loved being on the computer playing games and programming. I loved it more than anything and I guess you could call it an addiction. I was top in my class in all tests and assignments. I truly was "the best". During a software development class however I learnt about RSI and become scared I would get it. At the same time however I was scared about the HSC (Frightning exam done in new south wales australia at the end of highschool that many students have commited suicide over) and was hoping that something would happen to me so I didn't have to do it. A month later I got RSI and 6 months later at the end of year 11 I couldn't type or write anything... I was truly disabled and had to leave school.

I changed my career direction and instead went into childcare. I got my cert 3 in the first half of 2012 and have been working since then... My RSI has improved and I can write and type again but it's still their preventing me from ever enjoying the computer again. Pain from computer use currently comes in about 10 minutes or less in some cases so I don't use the computer for entertainment because what's entertaining about damaging my body? Just for info the pain was originally in my hands, then my arms and then finally now my elows and shoulders.

Anyway a week ago I started having pain in my right knee and I was worried because I need my knees for childcare but no so much my hands. So this was terrifying but I told myself it was tms and it went away in a few days. My psychologist says she believes the "RSI" pain is Psychosomatic and that the knee pain was interesting because it fits in with the RSI. She said the pain is an escape from situations that I don't like. For example the RSI an escape from the HSC. Then she told me the knee pain was an escape from childcare. I said I like childcare however and she said "yes... But it's not what you originally wanted to actually do is it?" she told me knee pain would return if I started becoming sick of childcare...

Looking back on it I wonder if the back pain "caused" by scolisos is just an escape too... The only reason I dislike childcare now is because of my back pain. I come home everyday and have to lie down for ages to recover from my 8 hour shifts... It takes up my entire day leaving no "me" time. Not that I have any anyway because then I have to look after my little 3 year old sister.

What do you guys think?

 

Welcome, 12padams

It's great that your therapist recognizes you are having psychosomatic pain. You mentioned she says the pain may be a way to get out of certain jobs or situations. Although for me there were certain advantages to being in pain (getting out of things), Dr. Sarno's distraction theory made more sense for me--the pain is there to distract from feelings that we repress because they are perceived as unbearable. It's possible your back pain doesn't have to do with dislike of the job but something else, I don't know.

With me, pain would sometimes come on when I was relaxed, doing something I really enjoyed. In a relaxed state, these repressed feelings were closer to breaking through so pain would come on to distract me. Some of my worst pain would happen on vacations.

Have you tried journaling at all? When I first started working on TMS I made lists of everything that could be bothering me in my life, things from childhood or the past that might be bothering me (even if I wasn't normally thinking about them), and various personality traits and habits that contributed to my stress. If you do this you might be surprised at what you find--there might be something besides work that is bothering you. This sounds very negative, but it actually is a relief, just to know these things are there and could be stressors, even if you don't change anything, just having awareness about your feelings will help.

The good news is you now know about TMS and are working on it so pain-free days will be coming your way, hopefully soon!

 

Hi and Wow you have an interesting story.

Any situation that causes us stress (or even bigger--any conflict we feel ) can cause a physical ailment. It seems you've already seen that. The brain is trying to get our attention and say HEY !!!

In the past I had not paid much attention to secondary gain, but years later it has become so clear to me that personal situations and those I see in others are giving secondary gain in some way.

It may not be your job that is causing the pain as Veronica said . It could be something about the job, or something someone triggers for you that is a past memory, the stress of getting up to go to work every day, etc. There could be many reasons but only you know which resonates with you. It could also be an unconscious or buried past memory that is being triggered too.

Don't underestimate what the brain is capable of creating while trying to "protect" us. I would encourage you to read Dr. Sarno's books again. This information takes time to sink in and is very different than how we've been conditioned. It's great you are aware of your issues possibly having emotional causes. That is step 1!!

I also recommend reading some profiles to see how some of us have recovered from being disabled by tms pain. Journaling about what we think could be bothering us (if it comes to mind, it is bothering!) is very beneficial too.

 

Yea, it's interesting you say it comes during leisure activities. I don't find gaming a "chore" but I do find it a waste of time even though I used to really enjoy it before I got RSI. I really wish I could play again but whenever I try to I'll be sore within 10 minutes. And playing for 2 minutes at a time then having a 30 minute break isn't very fun at all. I wish I could just go in and play a massive 2 hour painless session like I used to in my free time but no... I can't because of "RSI".

I have found that program on the tms wiki which is based on journalling and I was wondering if I should give this TMS treatment a go but I've got to get my phycholigists permission first. She can help me by looking over my journals. I somewhat am scared about what I am going to uncover though because even though I act like a positive person, a child magnet in my job due to my warm friendly character and overall a really helpful kind person I actually have tricked myself into believing I am happy when I know deep down inside there is some potentially dangerous thoughts, anxiety and depression. I don't really want to bring that into the open because then nobody will like me anymore and make me more depressed.

 

I really wish I could have complete confidence that this is completly TMS and I know that you can't treat TMS unless you know nothing is physically wrong with you. But that's the problem, everyone around me is telling me that this is physical even though I have known about TMS for about 8 months now.

My Bowen therapist said this is partly in your mind and partly RSI. That's exactly what my psychologist is saying too. But the problem is that if it's both these disesases at once then I can never be cured. The RSI will get worse if I ignore it and type yet then if I leave it along and don't use my hands/arms the TMS will get worse. I hate being told its both at once because now I'm stuck with this my whole life which I don't enjoy at all because of my pain.

Basically my psychologist said to still use my hands and not avoid using them otherwise I will have this chronic disease by the time I am 40. At the same time however I should do "pacing" to stop my RSI getting worse. She said to use them for 5 minutes then have a long break before using them for another 5 minutes. I hate that idea because my time is Avalible in chunks. I may get a 2 hour chunk of time for myself in the day but with this pacing method I only get to use about 20 minutes of my time. With 5 minutes to myself I really don't enjoy that 5 minutes whether I am working on my current book or playing games/chatting with friends. It just makes the computer a disaster to use and not worth it...

I tried to tell her about the idea of TMS where you go on the computer and build up the activity everyday and ignore the pain knowing that it's completly in your head but she said not to do that because I will make my RSI worse... Ive had RSI for 15 months now... How long does it take to cure? Seriously I stopped using the computer the first day I started getting pain I my hands and have used the computer for no more than an hour per day since then and it still won't go! Why can't I just get diagnosed properly and then start my recovery. I am sick of these "professionals" making my problem worse. Especially when they have 12 years worth of study, 20 years experience and cost $160 per hour!

I wish I just knew I had TMS and then could start treating it. I want to go back to using my hands for 6 hours per day but how can I if professionals keep telling me I have two diseases that prevent eachother from being cured...

 

It sounds like your therapist is open to a mind-body connection but does not believe in TMS. That might be a real hindrance to you. Honestly, it might be better to find another therapist. Many people on here have recovered from RSI just working with Sarno's methods and not doing any of the things your therapist is talking about.

You mentioned that you were afraid that the Structured Program might bring up something really negative. That type of belief is part of what's driving TMS and repression of feelings--the belief that something awful is inside of us and has to be stuffed down. EVERYONE has these "negative" emotions and they are not bad and don't mean you are not still friendly, kind, etc. It doesn't mean that people won't like you. If emotions start coming up while journaling that are too intense, you can take a break and work through them with a therapist.

Jan mentioned reading the Thank You Dr. Sarno stories--there are also a lot of other success stories on the wiki that might boost your confidence in TMS.

Take care,
V

 

Thanks for the advice guys

What I am going to do is simply do heaps of research, look at success stories and read through "the divided mind" and actually finish it this time rather than putting it aside due to the lack of time I had to read it while I was at Tafe.

There is one burning question I have first however... Does "RSI" actually exist? Before accepting TMS you must make sure there is nothing physically wrong with you. How would I know if I had RSI or tms? What is the difference in symptoms? Or is there no difference and is it true that all RSI is just tms?

Also depression... I heard those with it can't be Cured using the TMS method. Working through school made me suffer extreme depression (I don't wish to use words to explain it) and it was all a buildup of fear to the HSC at the end of it. But in the end this TMS I appear to have got me out of school 1 year before I had to do the HSC. The only thing causing me depression now is the pain itself. Why won't it just go away because school (the main cause of my problems) is finished.. It has no purpose anymore and now is just not letting me be happy. Finishing school is supposed to be the happiest moment of my life but how can it be now that I am disabled. I am even less "happy" then I was at school a year ago...

Anyways while you answer those questions I'll go do some research. Thanks for the help

 

I had many TMS symptoms...headaches, TMJ, foot pain, eyelid twitches, anxiety, etc. I think of TMS as the underlying condition and everything else as symptoms of that condition. It sounds like you have already seen a doctor who would have noticed if you had something serious like a broken bone, cancer, or an infection. You can think of RSI as a TMS symptom.

I haven't heard about depression being different from any other TMS-equivalent. Maybe pain, depression, school stress were all distracting you from sitting with your actual feelings?

Recovering from TMS is a process, be gentle with yourself

 

Well... I was getting all excited about this but look at what my psychologist just said to me when I emailed her asking permission to treat my pain with the TMS methods:

"Hi philip – I think it is best for you to wait and see what the specialist says tomorrow and also to talk to him about pacing and whether he is happy for you to do this rather than the whole TMS approach as it might be a bit extreme for you."

The specialist I am seeing tomorrow is an orthopedic surgeon who will be checking out what needs to be done to fix my scoliosis and back pain. I don't know if I'll ever get permission to follow this tms path

 

i think the permission is needed from yourself to go down this path. i had the choice of doing surgery too for my foot pain but i declined and wanted to try something else. believe it or not most psychotherapists dont believe in TMS so good luck trying to get the ok from them to do the TMS route. trust me its hard to do this on your own when you dont have a professional telling you "this is what you should be doing" but you have to trust intuition and do what your gut tells you.

 

Funniest thing actually ending up happening... I went to the back professional, he got me to have an X-ray and then said "scolisis doesn't actually cause any physical pain". He also said "there is nothing visible in this X-ray that would explain why you have any back pain at all. You should not be limited at all in what you can and can't do and back pain should not be a problem for you at all because physically your back is fine". I then asked him if he knew about tension myositis syndrome and guess what... He knows all about it!

To be on the safe side however he is doing a full MRI of my body and a ct scan of my legs (one leg is longer than the other). My phycholigist however is not wanting to do anything however until the results of my other two tests come in.

 

That's great news, 12padams! Glad to hear you doctor knew about TMS. I think that helps a lot.