No more arm pain

[lisamr]

I've been super busy not thinking of my arms all the time, but I shouldve written this months ago. At it's worst, I had pain on the inside and outside of both elbows, tingling pinkies on both hands, a sore neck that would cramp up whenever I didn't lay down or stand, and on occasion bilateral burning on the insides of my legs. It was a pretty long list of unexplainable and drastic symptoms. No medical diagnoses could be made and the only constant was pain, which I now know was coming from my head. In the end, 95% of my symptoms improved within 2 weeks of reading sarnos book and within 7 weeks total I didn't have any pain at all.

I kept thinking of the inconsistencies in my symptoms, how they didn't align with anything that made structural sense, and then I started doing normal activity instead of acting disabled. Returning to normal-me was a huge morale boost and helped a lot psychologically. I had avoided the computer for so long because it was so painful and as a result, it was the last thing that gave me pain. Keep in mind I was climbing 3 times a week. I just told myself the pain was in my head and within a week, no more elbow pain. That was it and now I'm totally normal again.

I just went climbing in Joshua tree for a week, I can type with whatever posture, I can knit, and of course open doors and do dishes. None of those things were remotely possible without pain for 4 months, so Im pretty thankful for all the resources out there.

 

[shmps]

OMG!!! What a success. Such a joy to read your story

And the part that related the most with me is “no more not being able to close doors” my main door had a turn teist kind of door knob which for almost a year I couldn’t open, had to ask my 6 yr old that time to do that for. What a feeling of shame frustration disability... once i knew i can and when I started opening it on my own my daughter said you are fine and that gave me a sense of pride even though i had pain but i knew i am stronger than what my mind percieced of me.

BTW, anything in particular that you did to heal? Journal meditation self talk etc?

 

[lisamr]

Most of my techniques are covered in earlier threads, which I wrote while I was going through it all. What I remember working was reading The Mindbody Prescription in 1.5 days and already noticing change. I made a list of evidence to repudiate a structural cause, and the main themes were that the symptoms were too inconsistent and just didn't make sense. I also didn't have any diagnoses despite the numerous doctor visits and tests. I needed to buy into TMS a little more, so I listened to a lot of podcasts that I actually found somewhere on this website. I listened to neuroscientists and psychologists speak about TMS, or something similar without that specific name, and it provided additional legitimacy to a psychosomatic cause. Finally, I started going through Alan's program and I think I made it to day 17. I would binge on his program so each day, maybe I'd do 5-6 days worth. The thing that resonated most with me was that I was associating my arm pain with fear of never being my normal self again. I needed to divorce the two, which I did by being as mindful as possible. That can be a nebulous term, so essentially, whenever I felt arm pain, I would notice it with curiosity, but I wouldn't allow the pain to ever overcome me.

Hope that's helpful!

 

[Andy Bayliss]

lisamr,

Beautiful story, and thanks for sharing. I appreciate your easy specificity explaining what you did and how you did it. For example:

The thing that resonated most with me was that I was associating my arm pain with fear of never being my normal self again. I needed to divorce the two, which I did by being as mindful as possible. That can be a nebulous term, so essentially, whenever I felt arm pain, I would notice it with curiosity, but I wouldn't allow the pain to ever overcome me.

Andy B