Numbness and weakness along the sciatic nerve

Hello everyone,

I'm quite familiar with TMS yet I find myself with another dilemma..

15 years ago I had a horrendous sciatic pain in my left leg that lasted 2 weeks and then disappeared. It left behind residual numbness in my foot and toes that went away eventually, or was so minimal I never noticed it again.

Over the 15 years I sometimes would strain (pick something up, or help someone heavy up at work) and have a little of a flare up but it would always resolve eventually.

About 3 weeks ago I had some left side tingling/tightness on my whole left side (including face, shoulder, arm, leg) as if I was split in half. It lasted a little and then came back a few days later, always at night. I have been extremely stressed at work and in life and I'm in peri-menopause so attributed it to some strange meno symptoms. However 2 weeks ago I developed numbness and tingling in my left foot, weakness in my left knee and numbness on the outside of the shin. I remember it was exactly where my sciatic pain used to be. The numbness is pretty bad, I can't stand on my toes on that foot, and walk wonky. There is absolutely no pain anywhere though. Just numb and weak. And some tightness on my hamstring. No low back pain, no shooting pains. The numbness reduces when I lie flat on the floor with my legs 90 degree on the chair. But when I walk it's scary, I feel lopsided. I am having an MRI tomorrow of my lower back. I was told it is much worse to have numbness only, it means the nerve is not firing any more.

Could this be TMS? Even with the weakness of the knee and the whole leg feeling pretty disabling? Pretty worried especially since even though the MRI is tomorrow I have to wait up to 4 weeks for the written results (that's the way it goes here). I will get the DVD with the image though so could take it to an orthopedic doctor to read.

Any ideas would be very appreciated.

 

Order a copy of "Healing Back Pain" by John Sarno and read it ... There is nothing in your story unique or different or scary. Anything we told you here would be re-transmitting that info. If after you read it and follow the instructions you have questions, they'll be answered here promptly.

Yes... I had every symptom you've mentioned and more....and they're all gone

Nothing in an MRI confirms or denies TMS...structural changes that the medical industry blames for symptoms are 100,000% BS...

 

Thank you so much for your replies. I really appreciate them.

I read Mind/Body Prescription back in 2009 and The Divided Mind in 2011. I worked with some of my symptoms over the years, a lot of them resolved when the appropriate emotion was accessed. I did a little work with dr Schubiner's Unlearn Your Pain. I totally believe that most of my symptoms have always been TMS. I think however as soon as the symptoms were gone I would fall back into repressing, stressing and I haven't really shifted into being more open, curious rather than panicked, in the long term.

However my lower back has been the "scary symptom" - always.

If it was just pain I would rest and do the inner work knowing that it's TMS. But having just the numbness and weakness really freaks me out.

I haven't been to a doctor yet. I told my symptoms to a physio and he suggested getting an MRI so I'm doing that and will take the image to a doctor, possibly today.

Last night I woke up and felt some tingling in the perineum on the left side. It subsided and I fell back to sleep. This morning I woke up and as I started walking the numbness and weakness wasn't there - however 5 minutes later it started coming back, first into the leg, then the knee and tingling in my toes. It's just so scary for me. Pain - I understand, but this numbness and weakness make me believe it's something serious. I know that's how TMS works yet I am unable to stop the mind spiraling into chaos. I keep thinking that there is a serious disc issue that will require surgery, that when I am horizontal it releases but when I start walking the pressure builds and the disc presses on the nerve.

I have had lumbar MRI's in 2011, 2014 and 2018. There was nothing scary in them, just "normal" amount of slightly bulging discs, loss of disc height etc.

 

My personality hasn't changed a lot at all...My belief about myself has..

That's why I asked if you had read 'Healing Back Pain"...to Sarno, if you were harboring ANY fear about your physical well-being, he didn't consider you 'cured'. That is obviously what is coming back to getcha.

The Incident that brought me to this work and 'Healing Back Pain' was begun with Numbness and Tingling. I had just gotten into the Entertainment Union, had a second Child and began a Job at Paramount. In my second week, my leg got so Numb and weak, I had to escort it by pulling it with my trouser. I had NO pain....just weakness and a lack of feeling. In fact, my first thought was that there was something wrong with my HIP.

After a month or so I went to a Dr. They told me it was my Back. THEN I got back pain as well as the Numbness and weakness.

I went and got a bunch of MRI's and everybody had a different take. "It's your disc.....You have a congenital fusion....you have stenosis.... your Hips are horribly twisted" But i got zero relief, even after 9 epidurals (3 sets of 3) Hundreds of treatments, therapy, magnets, back braces, SURGERY and enough drugs to kill several touring Funk Bands.

This was marked by several attempts to go back to work over a year and a half. My family could Not survive on my disability check.

I got dumped on the 'Chronic Pain' trash heap and was assigned to one of those centers.

After an emergency room visit, I got angry at the whole damn system and purchased a copy of "Healing Back Pain" .

I treated it like my personal trainer and I was fully healed and back at work in about a month. I have had a couple days relapse in 25 years. I do not believe in Back Pain...or better, It is just a messenger about some RAGE that has piled up that I am ignoring. I turn 60 this month and still work in Heavy construction. I have zero limitations other than my ability. THIS is what caught my attention in your OP :

There is not such thing as a strained Back. Sarno himself asks it as a rhetorical question in the back of the book. This is what he would call 'physico-phobia". It is not fear on your part, but rather a lingering belief in the fragility of the back buried in your unconscious.

When Sarno said to get 'Checked out'

He repeatedly said to rule out Cancer or a tumor. Many of the 'real' diagnoses that people believe means they don't have TMS are found on MRI's. Herniated discs, tears in ligaments, etc. I myself broke a spinal vertebrae in a fall and had zero pain, and didn't take any special care while it knitted itself, because it was only discovered after it had healed (I fell two stories)

The medical world continues to use more and more minutiae to diagnose symptoms because their recovery rate is so poor. It's No wonder....the problem is in my life and my head, not in my back or Hip.

I began looking closely at my Wonderful loving Family, my 'Great" Job and my failures at the things I really wanted to be doing. AHA.... all of those pasted on smileys that made me such a great Dad and Husband and Middle class Nirvana guy? That's where my problem was hidden. I didn't have to change a Thing except my beliefs about those things. That is 'the work' and the feelings of numbness, pain...whatever you got? Those are there to distract me. It's actually like an over evolved coping mechanism that just can't keep up with all of the Rage inducers of modern society that have been foisted upon us, by ourselves.

 

From my understanding this is ehy TMS keeps coming back to people. Because ultimately you need to change. Obviously you will still be you. But I think the main thing is to change how you perceive think act and be.
If how you perceive yourself, the world and others doesnt change. It keeps coming back. Or tjats at least my understanding

 

Numbness, tingling, stiffness, a strange sensation of having some sort of energy running through the leg... these are my 24/7 symptoms. Usually there's no pain. Even so they're the ones that get more easily to my emotions.
I think part of the reason is that they're very strange sensations that doesn't feel natural.

But I do know they're always there exactly because they get the most of my attention.

 

I am largely the same inside as I was when I was 30...but when I am caught up in a role? It's much easier to see it faster, because we are also largely redundant. ... the selfish childish 5 year old in me is still awake. If I have learned anything from Sarno, its's never to discount that 5 year old. He never goes away no matter how 'mature' we might be on the outside. The 5 year old (Id) fighting with the Moses (Superego) is largely responsible for symptoms. To keep me from looking at that.
The 'Adult' me? That's the pasted on smile. Pretending he's the real me is a liability. Sarno does a great chart on these in "Mindbody Prescription"...Just reviewing that chart is a huge help remembering who I really am.
All 3, but only showing (intentionally) the world my adult. Most everybody else can see the others, but our adult THINKS he's the real team captain

 

I believe you have to teach that 5 year old that the behaviours it believes are keeping it safe because its the only eay they know how is now redundant. We understand that it did these things to survive but now we can teach ourselves a better way.

Our brain wants 4 things.
Love
Connection
Safety
Deserving.

And our brains will do anything to get those things.

And its now our job to teach our brains that they can get these things in healthier better ways.