My Story - New to TMS

[Pingman]

I am new to the forum and wanted to say hello and post about my experience. I am a 36 year old active male who has struggled with Health Anxiety a few times over the past 4 years. It started with a Lupus misdiagnosis that caught me off guard. Once that was clear I was ok, then I mentally fixated on an abdomen pain a year later and thought I had colon cancer. After the doc did a colonoscopy I settled down and relaxed and all pain subsided. Fast forward to now, I am experiencing a multitude of pains. Tingling left leg, electrical jolts in leg/feet/arms, sore calf that magically has knots, throbbing left arm, facial tingling, back tingling, and sore foot bottoms.

These all popped up after I became consumed with my nocturnal polyuria and having to wake up to pee at night. I had been obsessing about that when I heard someone in my family has MS. I googled MS and saw a correlation to urination issues and freaked out I had MS. So I went from stressing about one health issue to MS and these sensations starting. Coupled with my job as a project manager for software and freaking about my health I have began to lose sleep and even have anxiety shakes at night.

I went to my GP and he did neuro tests and he said I was totally healthy and show no MS signs. All my blood work was great too. He told me to relax.

My whole life I have been a perfectionist to some degree. I like to hunt and my hunting gear has to be perfectly tuned. When I purchase anything I examine it at the store for any flaw. If I have a party I have to do everything to a T.

I am starting to think I might be suffering from TMS. I think I live with subconscious stress from my OCD as well as stress brought on by my concerns with my physical sensations and health. In the past when I had been cleared by tests it was easy to relax and all the somatic sensations melted away. This time around my GP won't give me any more tests and told me it is time to break the cycle. These new sensations feel so real I have a hard time accepting them as stress related.

Thanks for listening. I look forward to exploring TMS and its relationship to my condition. If my Dr. is blanket stating I have anxiety as a reason for my pains....isn't that just like saying you have TMS?

 

[Steve Ozanich]

Your doctor clearing you simply frees you to look into TMS. You also show every sign that you have TMS and can heal.

But healing is a life change, it's a new direction in thinking and living. It takes work. It does not always come easy, but it's well worth it.

From what I just read, you are at the same stage I was at when I was 36. You have a lot to learn. Good luck.

Steve

 

[Pingman]

So is my first step to read the Dr. Sarno book?

 

[Ellen]

Pingman,
My suggestion would be to start by reading Sarno's Mindbody Prescription.

Welcome to the forum! You will find a great deal of support and compassion here.

 

[Steve Ozanich]

Yes, your work should start with gathering the information, as Dr. Sarno wrote, "into the nature of the disorder." You can't take action until you fully understand what you're up against. However, then you need to go live the words. Most people just keep gathering info and never get to the letting-go phase.

I would start with HBP, but that's just my opinion. You may be able to gather the info with MBP.

Then when you fully understand the TMS process, you can take "accurate" action. The people here will help you through to keep you on course.

You can always heal, but you have to be ready to open up and let go. It often takes great courage.

Steve

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

Hi, Pigman. I'm more than twice your age and had terrible back pain a year ago that began when I lifted a case of 36 cans of beer art the supermarket. I learned from reading Dr. Sarno's Healing Back Pain (HBP) that the lifting had simply triggered TMS repressed emotions going back to my boyhood. Once I accepted that 100 percent, my back pain went away. But at first I only believed the pain was from TMS about 90 percent. I still had some pain until I believed in TMS 100 percent. Steve Ozanich says it has to be "all or nothing."

I read HBPain first, then the MBPrescription, but found HBP would have been enough. After reading that I think you could learn a lot from Steve's book, The Great Pain Deception. He tells about his back pain and learning about TMS and how it cured him.

If you read HBP and posts on the TMSWiki you'll learn about "journaling." You can start doing that each day for about half an hour and it will get you started toward healing. It means think about your boyhood and youth and write down anything you remember that could cause you anxiety or anger today because you repressed it. This is not easy, as Steve says, but it sure works. And as you discover things that happened to you years ago you begin to realize you can let go of them. You may need to forgive others, and yourself.

Meanwhile, to relax and lower your anxiety without medication or alcohol, try these techniques:

Deep breathing is incredibly important in relaxing and reducing anxiety and stress. Breathe in through the nose to the count of six, making a balloon of your stomach. Hold the breath in for a few seconds, then let the air in the stomach out with a "whoosh" sound to the count of about 4. Repeat several times. It's good to do in bed, too, to help get to sleep.

Try a yoga trick called the "massaging the valley point." Take your thumb and forefinger of your right hand and squeeze back and forth the fleshy part between the thumb and index finger of the left hand. Do this about 25 times, then switch and do the same on the other hand. Tell yourself, "I feel relaxed" or "I feel fine all over," or some other "mantra."

Don't go to bed worrying about your pain, your health, healing, or any other worries. Spend the hour or two before going to bed listening to soft, soothing music or watching something relaxing on tv (no action movies or tv shows). Let yourself drift into a relaxed state doing the deep breathing and valley point massage. Do some meditation before bedtime. There are lots of suggestions on TMSWiki and the Internet on meditating.

I hope these things help you. Main thing is, know that you are going to be feeling no pain soon. Don't become impatient if you're not pain free tight after reading Sarno or Steve. It can happen right away or take weeks, months. I'll list here the 12 Daily Reminders from HBPain that Dr. Sarno says are the steps to take each day to heal. Good luck and do the work Steve and Sarno suggests. It's a great learning experience as well as a healing experience.


12 Daily Reminders:

1.The pain is due to TMS, not to a structural abnormality

2.The direct reason for the pain is mild oxygen deprivation




3.TMS is a harmless condition caused by my repressed emotions

4.The principal emotion is my repressed ANGER

5. TMS exists only to distract my attentions from the emotions

6.Since my back is basically normal there is nothing to fear
7.Therefore,physical activity is not dangerous
8.And I MUST resume all normal physical activity
9.I will not be concerned or intimidated by the pain
10.I will shift my attention from pain to the emotional issues
11.I intend to be in control-NOT my subconscious mind
12.I must think Psychological at all times,NOT physical.

 

[Gigalos]

Hi Pingman,
I actually found about TMS by accident when searching the net for MS. Thank god, so to speak, for that day!
I am 37 and suffered from most of the things you describe. I have been doing the TMS thing for approx. 9 months and I feel 90% better right now. The fear factor has decreased tremendously, which helps for not starting the vicious cycle of fear/anger->symptoms-fear/anger->symptoms->etc..... when something new comes up.
Go for it, wish you all the best with deciding whether to go with the TMS approach or not. I hope you take on the challenge, you won't regret it.

 

[Pingman]

Thanks everyone so much for all of the motivation and advice. I have purchased the Sarno book for my nook and plan on starting it tonight. I also took a big step and resumed running today after stopping due to my sudden foot sole pain and leg pain. Wow, what a difference it made in my mood today. My leg pain got better after the run but my foot pain is still around when I go barefoot. I just have to remember that it came on suddenly when I hadn't done any exercise or anything to cause it but stress about MS.

I took some time last night and talked with my wife about the stress in my life. We identified a few areas of repressed stress that I had never thought of. One being my feeling of abandonment by my mother. She left when I was 10 and I was raised by my father. I never really had any nurturing growing up so when I was sick or scared I had to be a man and handle it on my own. I always also suspected my mom smoked when she was prego with me. I had terrible ear aches as a baby and was given tetracycline which caused me to have staining on my permanent teeth. Bless my father who paid to have my front 6 teeth capped with veneers as a teen. Later in my 20s they veneers needed replaced I had a hack of a dentist attempt to do new ones. They ground my teeth down into stumps so I had to have crowns put on. It was a horrible experience at the time.

Things I never explored emotionally at all. I have just always put on a shell and been the rock for everyone in my family.

I will admit I think TMS is the cause for my issues but in the back of my mind my old anxiety ways want to associate my newly found foot sole pain to a nerve issue and back to MS. I am excited to see where the journey takes me and I just want to heal myself. I don't want to keep repeating these vicious cycles of health anxiety anymore.

 

[Pandagirl]

Hi Pingman! We have a lot in common. Don't waste as much time as I did by doubting TMS! Because I didn't have the typical back pain, I dismissed the idea. I have had all the symptoms you have described and much, much more. I'm also a recovering hypochondriac with a traumatic childhood! I was also tested for lupus and MS as well as everything else under the sun! Anxiety fuels TMS.

Healing Back Pain is a good start. I would then move on to Steve's book, The Great Pain Deception. Then get back to enjoying life!

PS - A week after I had my last baby I could barely walk because the soles of my feet were so sore. I felt like I had been beaten with a baseball bat. My feet don't hurt anymore! You can read through some of my old posts and find tingling, electricity in my left leg, body shakes, buzzing, etc. You name it and I've had it! Whatever scares you the most will stick around!

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

Hi. folks. Pigman, how great that you have a wife helping you discover your repressed emotions. Abandonment by your mother when you were so young may be the number one repression. The fact that you didn't think of it right away means to me that it was really deeply repressed. Now remember that you could not have been the reason she left. As was said in the movie, Good Will Hunting, "It isn't your fault!" So now, just forgive her.
She must have had a lot of TMS to make her leave.

Pandagirl, you've given Pigman inspiration and the best advice for healing. After reading Sarno and Ozanich, "Then get back to enjoying life!"

 

[Pingman]

Thanks everyone...Pandagirl, you are so right about what you fear fuels the beast. I have been reading HBP and have been telling myself as a sensation pops up that is is only my mind. Like you, I don't have typical back pain. I have suffered for years from Sacroiliac joint issues or pain around that area. Every year when I first start golfing again my left Sacroiliac joint area gets so sore I can barely move. Eventually its gets better, I just chalk it up to getting in golf shape.

With this flare of my anxiety I am just plain sore all over but that area in particular is very sore to the touch.

I am back running again. I think it has actually help to eliminate most of my left leg pain and tingling issues. That is what started this bout of extreme health anxiety 4 weeks ago and now it has gone down to maybe 20% and comes and goes. The issue I am facing now is the sensations in the soles of my feet. Out of no where, my feet started to hurt 7 days ago. It is worse when I am barefoot and walk on carpet. I feel absolutely no pain at all when running. It feels like the balls of my foot and heals are standing on little pebbles if I stand too long in one place.

My wife is convinced it is emotionally related and a manifestation of my mind to switch to another worry. Since I had been having an MS scare, it would only be logical that I would manifest yet another MS symptom of foot problems according to her.

She is probably right. The pain was acute, coming on after I had 3 solid days of mostly lazy boy sitting from a stomach bug we all passed around. I had been working out a few weeks before but had been resting mired in my left leg pain fears. Of course my mind goes to the worse which is some sort of nerve damage caused by MS and that my feet will hurt for the rest of my life.

My mind is so powerful at creating physical sensation I can't believe it even though I know what I have manifested in the past.

Walt...great insight on my mother. I thought I had forgiven her for the past but honestly it is her ongoing actions I find deplorable. She really only cares about herself. To give you an example of how she is. When my wife showed her the ring I bought her, my moms comment was "Do you know what kind of car you could have bought me with that".

TMSwiki and the books have helped me already and I think will assist in me curing myself. I have always thought of myself as such a strong person. Ideal career, beautiful home, wife, son. It really seems like I have some work internally to do. I have to stop being such a perfectionist, I need to learn to have more compassion for others and forgive. I need to place more faith in my savior Jesus Christ and ask him to help guide me instead of me trying to plan every aspect of my life.

I think I was just existing in life instead of cherishing each day and living my life. It is time to start living again and I am really going to try hard to win this battle I am in.

 

[Walt Oleksy (RIP 2021)]

You've got the answer, Pigman. Cherish each day. Live in the present.
A friend told me yesterday I should be grateful for being 84 and not walking
with a cane or walker like people she lives around in an apartment building.

It reminded me that I need to thank God for my good health and cherish each day.