Normanator
New Member
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.
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.
