New To Forum...Looking for a little support

Hi, and thanks to all who contribute to the forum. Your words are very helpful.
I'm new to the forum. In a nutshell, discovered Dr. Sarno over this past summer. Saw myself on every page of Healing Back Pain. Perfectionist, goodist, with a string of ailments that thankfully have never been debilitating but annoying and limiting. Allergies (magically went away one day when a chiropractor said they came from eating sugar, which I stopped), plantar fasciatis (went away in one day when I changed shoes which I was told would fix it), numerous stomach ailments (went away after they scoped me and could find nothing), .. I could go on. About three ago after my wife died I had pain everywhere on my body. I decided just to start running and it went away till my knees went to pot. Switched to running on a treadmill when someone told me that would help. Pain went away in a day. Up until this point knew nothing of Sarno but now I see I was just having one placebo cure after another and my brain just found something new to attack. After I read Healing Back Pain, I understood the mechanism at some level and started to just ignore any pain that I encountered and I was doing great. Then I think my brain got smarter and sent something new when I entered a particularly stressful time (my brother dying, my Dad approaching death with a very bad disease, my last brother just barely avoiding death [I'm not making this up], me getting remarried after my wife died a number of years back the same week as my best friend, moving, buying a new hose, changing the school for my son, and some really insane stuff at work, all basically happening together. Yikes!) It sent numbness. To be accurate, it first sent wicked ankle pain ... so bad I went for an x-ray. I got a call from the doctor that it was broken. I said that cannot be true as I was walking on it. Turned out it was an old break and the pain was coming from the area of the old break, I ignored it, it went away, and, pissed off that I would not respnd to pain any more, in came the numbness. Two middle toes on each foot went numb and did the tips of each thumb. Each come and go a little bit but basically are numb gto some degree all the time. I also have some numbness that runs up my legs sometimes and my knee feels weird. Some periodic but wicked calf pain at times and wicked upper shoulder pain at times. The pain is actually comforting because I can try to convince myself that oxygen deprivation is at work causing pain and numbness. It's when I don't have any pain and just numbness I freak out. While I am outside the age when people get MS, I am worried I somehow have it. It consumes me as I have to raise my son and I have almost no family left. I am trying to journal, read Dr. Sarno's books and, while helping, the numbness continues. I have also gone back to therapy. Not helping it seems. I am going to see my regular doctor in a couple weeks but I am annoyed. Intellectually, the level of stress right now certainly seems like a perfect breeding ground for TMS so I should not worry. Just do the brain work and ride it out. But whatever I try I cannot get my mind off the symptoms. And my worry is that numbness diagnoses are so inexact that I won't get the "all clear" from the doctor but a suggestion that it could be bunch of things and I will be hospital testing hell forever. And the uncertainly will be the worst thing for me as I am a bit of a hypochondriac . So my question is: has anyone ever dealt with numbness as basically their only symptom or do most people get it with pain? Am I nuts thinking this is TMS? I cannot think of it being anything else as it just seems so perfectly timed with what may be the most stressful time of my life (though some of the stress is coming from getting remarried which I think is just great.) Also, I do have an appointment with the Doctor who took over Dr. Sarno's practice. Any experience with him? Thanks for listening. Trying to ride this storm out.

 

Rashbaum? How long before your appointment? He should give you the answers, no one can dx you over the internet. Do a search for numbness here and at the TMS HELP site and you should find reams on "numbness". Why do you think you may have MS?

 

The MS worry is due to way to much googling and being a worrier. While numbness can of course be an MS symptom, it can also be due to a bunch of other things and I don't have any of the other typical MS symptoms like fatigue, vision issues, urinary problems (see... too much googling!) I also have completely contrary symptoms like trigger thumb (both thumbs audibly snapping each time I move them, which is a tendon issue and certainly a good target for TMS but not something I have found associated with MS.) I also did read a couple posts today on a neuralgia blog where people undergoing significant stress had comparable numbing issues. Unfortunately, I sometimes forget logic and go to the worst possible result. Can't tell you how many times I thought I may have had pancreatic cancer till Healing Back Pain took away my back pain.

Yes on Rashbaum, and the appointment is in a couple weeks. He's a little backed up but I also thought I could use a little more time to try to whip this on my own. It is just freaky to have a couple numb toes! If I cannot get myself right before then it may be nice to have someone tell me I'm not going to expire. just going through a TMS rough patch and it may take a while (or it may just take until some of the current stressors subside.) I definitely am on anxiety overload right now.

Thanks for note! I really appreciate how people look out for other here.

 

You might want to get an rx for some mild tranquilizers to calm your anxiety, nothing wrong with that to get you through a rough patch for a few weeks. And, mild doses of anti-depressants have been found to be helpful for curing TMS back-pain. AND, STOP googling symptoms other then at TMS sites, you need to brainwash yourself with TMS KNOWLEDGE PENICILLIN.