New here!

Hello from Ontario, Canada!

I am new to the TMS life, but have read Healing Back Pain and am going through the Pain Recovery Program presently.

My doctor has hypothesized that I have a herniated disc and am waiting for my MRI, but I won't get in until Sept... These scans take time here in Canada sadly... He convinced himself of this through my symptoms and 'positive' leg raise.

Anyhow I had started PT and used an inversion table nightly for a while and much like most people here things have been going poorly. I was feeling a little desperate as pain likes to bring on and found the whole TMS methodology.

I am textbook personality and have started the healing work as gently as possible the past few days. I am apparently a very scared person :\ These self checks are quite revealing.

I wish I could say I was one of the few who have had immediate success after reading the book but sadly that is not my tale, however I am willing to figure out what's needed.

I have 10/10 pain in my glute and it travels down my leg and cramps up my hammy and now it seems my calf and heel are going to take the hit today as well. Lots of opportunity to practise my relationship to the pain... Does anyone do anything else to relieve the discomfort while doing the healing work needed? Walking and sitting are the devil presently although I decided I would sit today as much as I could to start disassociating sitting with pain. I lay back when I need to recover... is this just reinforcing the pain model?

 

Welcome to the neighborhood
I would like to be able to tell you that just knowing that it’s TMS is enough for it to change, but that’s not always the case. I think at the beginning of your healing journey you need to do what you can to help the pain. The more I’ve read about TMS and success stories then the more I can reaffirm in myself that it really is TMS. A lot of people here don’t have quick fixes just by reading the book. I was so sure I was going to be one of those quick fixes because I believe with everything in my being that it is TMS, it didn’t work that way. But I am a heck of a lot better!
I ordered and have been reading “the Great Pain Deception” and also downplayed the Curable app. Listening to the podcasts of recovery stories is really affirming. You can also check out YouTube, put in Dr Sarno’s name as well as Steve Ozanich ( The great pain deception author)
A lot of people have bulging, herniated and ruptured discs. It’s still just the symptom of the underlying emotions (fun, right?)
Beth

 

The thing that most of us need to do is to start practicing self-acceptance and to learn to nurture our fearful inner child. When you're doing the work, one goal is to try to get back to yourself as an actual child, and find out what you were experiencing and feeling, and to figure out what needs were not being provided by your parents? Some people actually do have trauma in their childhoods, but many of us did not - yet we still had childish needs that were often not met, due to the normal distractions that parents have to deal with, like job work and house work and taking care of other family members. The mere existence of siblings is typically a source of rage to the young child. And Freud probably wasn't wrong when he theorized that we all experience trauma and loss when we are forced, not very long after birth, to start growing up, doing things for ourselves, and worrying about the future.

Going back to self-acceptance: to be successful in this work, you need to love yourself enough to know that you deserve to recover.

~Jan