RoseofTime
Newcomer
Hi all,
I had a lot of success with TMS symptoms related to my jaw pain and dislocation several years ago. Since then, I have had various issues and didn't really think to relate them to TMS. I am trying to deal with all of that now, and figured I would write here, because this seems like a good community and has helped me in the past. My situation:
My older sister used Sarno's book and would always talk to me about it. I had dislocated my jaw and had a lot of TMJ/jaw pain that was very debilitating. I got a minor surgery and found some relief, but not much. In 2017, I got into reading Sarno's book with interest only in the emotional healing, since I had a lot of trauma. I did not care at all about the chronic pain solution and did not believe in it at all. I spent an evening discussing some of my trauma with my parents and then let out a lot of my rage and repressed feelings for hours for the first time in my life. The next week, a few days in, I remember realizing: wait, why isn't my jaw in pain? I opened and closed my mouth quickly several times, something that always caused me fear. My jaw pain has very briefly returned at times, but never lasted. I also still clearly have a "malformed" jaw, my jaw opens sideways and affects my bite, but it doesn't hurt anymore.
Years went by and I continued having various types of pain related to some injuries that I have. My joints are hypermobile (and this runs in my family), and resulted in a minor shoulder dislocatiaon as well as sacroiliac joint dislocations over the years. I got into using ergonomic keyboards and mice at the computer, stretching, doing various types of physical therapy. Part of what got me thinking this may be TMS is that I have gone to around 4-5 physical therapists since 2020 (I moved around a lot, which is why I went to multiple), and they all noted some muscular imbalances and so on, but none seemed to think there was any reason why I should be experiencing nerve pain or the pattern of pain that I had. I notice that acute injuries I have gotten, like dislocating my sacroiliac, cause a lot of pain, but that pain just kind of fades away when the dislocation is dealt with. Once the joint is re-set, I have a few days of dull ache, and then I'm totally fine. This contrasts a lot from TMS pain, obviously, which comes and goes in mysterious ways.
I thought about TMS again because for the past year or so, I dealt with relatively severe acid reflux that would limit my diet, cause anxiety and sleep issues, and cause vomiting occasionally. I mentioned it to my sister, and she said "Oh, do you think it may be TMS?". I hadn't thought about that. I considered it and did just one session of "rage writing". No more acid reflux since that day, which was maybe a month and a half ago.
Since that time, I had more pain in my back. This limited what I could do, made me scared for the future, and made me unable to exercise as much as I wanted. I am dealing with a number of acute stressors at the moment, including a very fruitful but difficult addiction recovery program and a budding relationship, as well as an upcoming move in the next six months. I realized my back pain could be TMS, and started doing "rage writing" again, and am trying to keep up on it every day for a few minutes. My technique is to write all of my writing on one "line" of my notebook, so at the end, it just looks like a crazy jumble of scribbles, which makes me more comfortable getting my true frustrations out, since they can't be read by anyone afterward.
I bought a copy of The Mindbody Workbook to try to deal in a more straightforward way with some of these issues, since it may help, and am going to reread The Mindbody Prescription. When I get back pain, I say to my brain "Give me more blood in that area please!", to get it firm in my mind that this is the issue.
Lastly, I do have muscular and joint issues that I can point to pretty clearly, and affect my ability to do hard exercise and so on. However, I am trying to distinguish that from the vague chronic pain that I get, which seems very firmly to be from TMS. I am still doing exercises I learned from physical therapy that can strengthen my weak core and my unstable shoulders. However, when I was in physical therapy, my PT encouraged me to rock climb and rollerblade and do other exercises. He said there is no danger, so I know that I am safe, and this is just to make my body stronger. As such I am trying to treat it as exercising for health, rather than "physical therapy". I have never been very fit, and I 'd like to be.
Last, I want to mention that the pain I currently have is limited to my right side: on my neck, back, and hip. When I started to have pain in that area several years ago, I read a book where a very neurotic character had some kinds of nerve issues only on his left side. I remember thinking, oh no, I hope that doesn't happen to me! I think that fear and obsession sort of got to me, even though it sounds silly to say, I have to admit it affected me.
At the moment, my back still has some discomfort, and some soreness, and some pain. However, the constant very severe pain that I was experiencing has been severely dialed back.
Ok, thanks for listening everyone.
I had a lot of success with TMS symptoms related to my jaw pain and dislocation several years ago. Since then, I have had various issues and didn't really think to relate them to TMS. I am trying to deal with all of that now, and figured I would write here, because this seems like a good community and has helped me in the past. My situation:
My older sister used Sarno's book and would always talk to me about it. I had dislocated my jaw and had a lot of TMJ/jaw pain that was very debilitating. I got a minor surgery and found some relief, but not much. In 2017, I got into reading Sarno's book with interest only in the emotional healing, since I had a lot of trauma. I did not care at all about the chronic pain solution and did not believe in it at all. I spent an evening discussing some of my trauma with my parents and then let out a lot of my rage and repressed feelings for hours for the first time in my life. The next week, a few days in, I remember realizing: wait, why isn't my jaw in pain? I opened and closed my mouth quickly several times, something that always caused me fear. My jaw pain has very briefly returned at times, but never lasted. I also still clearly have a "malformed" jaw, my jaw opens sideways and affects my bite, but it doesn't hurt anymore.
Years went by and I continued having various types of pain related to some injuries that I have. My joints are hypermobile (and this runs in my family), and resulted in a minor shoulder dislocatiaon as well as sacroiliac joint dislocations over the years. I got into using ergonomic keyboards and mice at the computer, stretching, doing various types of physical therapy. Part of what got me thinking this may be TMS is that I have gone to around 4-5 physical therapists since 2020 (I moved around a lot, which is why I went to multiple), and they all noted some muscular imbalances and so on, but none seemed to think there was any reason why I should be experiencing nerve pain or the pattern of pain that I had. I notice that acute injuries I have gotten, like dislocating my sacroiliac, cause a lot of pain, but that pain just kind of fades away when the dislocation is dealt with. Once the joint is re-set, I have a few days of dull ache, and then I'm totally fine. This contrasts a lot from TMS pain, obviously, which comes and goes in mysterious ways.
I thought about TMS again because for the past year or so, I dealt with relatively severe acid reflux that would limit my diet, cause anxiety and sleep issues, and cause vomiting occasionally. I mentioned it to my sister, and she said "Oh, do you think it may be TMS?". I hadn't thought about that. I considered it and did just one session of "rage writing". No more acid reflux since that day, which was maybe a month and a half ago.
Since that time, I had more pain in my back. This limited what I could do, made me scared for the future, and made me unable to exercise as much as I wanted. I am dealing with a number of acute stressors at the moment, including a very fruitful but difficult addiction recovery program and a budding relationship, as well as an upcoming move in the next six months. I realized my back pain could be TMS, and started doing "rage writing" again, and am trying to keep up on it every day for a few minutes. My technique is to write all of my writing on one "line" of my notebook, so at the end, it just looks like a crazy jumble of scribbles, which makes me more comfortable getting my true frustrations out, since they can't be read by anyone afterward.
I bought a copy of The Mindbody Workbook to try to deal in a more straightforward way with some of these issues, since it may help, and am going to reread The Mindbody Prescription. When I get back pain, I say to my brain "Give me more blood in that area please!", to get it firm in my mind that this is the issue.
Lastly, I do have muscular and joint issues that I can point to pretty clearly, and affect my ability to do hard exercise and so on. However, I am trying to distinguish that from the vague chronic pain that I get, which seems very firmly to be from TMS. I am still doing exercises I learned from physical therapy that can strengthen my weak core and my unstable shoulders. However, when I was in physical therapy, my PT encouraged me to rock climb and rollerblade and do other exercises. He said there is no danger, so I know that I am safe, and this is just to make my body stronger. As such I am trying to treat it as exercising for health, rather than "physical therapy". I have never been very fit, and I 'd like to be.
Last, I want to mention that the pain I currently have is limited to my right side: on my neck, back, and hip. When I started to have pain in that area several years ago, I read a book where a very neurotic character had some kinds of nerve issues only on his left side. I remember thinking, oh no, I hope that doesn't happen to me! I think that fear and obsession sort of got to me, even though it sounds silly to say, I have to admit it affected me.
At the moment, my back still has some discomfort, and some soreness, and some pain. However, the constant very severe pain that I was experiencing has been severely dialed back.
Ok, thanks for listening everyone.
