Numbness never went away

[mpc]

About 20 years ago, I experienced severe neck pain. My primary doctor advised against surgery, explaining that it often causes more problems than it solves. However, a neurosurgeon I consulted strongly recommended surgery, saying, “Even if the pain improves, the numbness won’t.”

I chose to follow my regular doctor’s advice and avoided surgery.

Despite trying various treatments, nothing helped, until a friend gave me one of Dr. Sarno’s books. I had what felt like a “book cure.” Within a week, my pain was gone. It was truly remarkable.

However, the numbness in my right hand—specifically in the pinky and ring finger—never improved. That leads me to a lingering question: was the numbness part of TMS too, or was it caused by actual structural damage? This unresolved symptom makes me question the TMS framework. Did the pain simply fade over time, as the surgeon predicted, while leaving behind nerve damage? And if there is nerve damage, how could that not be a structural issue?

Any thoughts or insights would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[JanAtheCPA]

Hello Mike and welcome.

If you understand the basic neuroscientific FACT that every single bodily sensation, symptom, or process, is generated by our brains, you will realize that the answer to all of your questions is "Maybe" and/or "It depends".

This is a basic understanding that is essential before seeking a mindbody explanation for your symptoms. One of the easiest ways to understand this is to look up the explanation for Phantom Limb Pain, which is well-known and extreme example of how the brain can create very real physical sensations in a body part that actually no longer exists. The medical world didn't understand the mechanism involved until relatively recently (like the 1990s, maybe?) thanks to rapid advances in neuroscience.

Another thing to understand is that we still use the term TMS on this forum in honor of Dr John Sarno MD, but his original acronym has been replaced by many/most of today's practicing mindbody professionals - although we're all still talking about the same thing.

Finally, you might find TMS being explained in a way that makes it seem like a medical condition that can be cured once and be done with, but that's misleading. TMS really refers to a normal, but primitive, brain mechanism that is part of our survival response to primitive dangers. It was not designed to deal with the completely different and seemingly infinite number of stresses in the modern world, and it often misinterprets and misfires under stress. Until evolution catches up in a lot more millennia, we're stuck with it and have to learn how to manage it.

If you know nothing about TMS I'd be happy to copy our quick list of beginner resources.

 

[mpc]

Hi,


Thanks for your reply. I think you may have misread my original post. I’m actually very familiar with TMS treatment — in fact, it’s what helped me eliminate my original neck pain about twenty years ago. My concern now is that the numbness has persisted, and I’m wondering whether that’s simply another TMS symptom or if it represents permanent nerve damage. Even the doctor I saw, who had studied directly under Sarno, couldn’t give me a clear answer.


Interestingly, I actually spoke with Dr. Sarno himself right after I “recovered.” When I told him about my experience, he said, “Good for you — you had the book cure!” And he was right. The results were almost instantaneous. I read Healing Back Pain in one night (I couldn’t sleep because of the pain), and by the next morning my symptoms were dramatically reduced. Within a few weeks, the pain was completely gone.


I was incredibly receptive to his ideas, every word of that book felt like it was written about me. I could relate to nearly every story and even had several of the other conditions he described, such as asthma and GERD. That book changed my life. I’ve since read all of his works.


You mentioned that the term “TMS” is no longer used. What is it referred to now?


Best,

Mike

 

[JanAtheCPA]

You're right, I've been writing too many new welcome posts lately, by the time I'd covered my main points I just automatically added that tag about beginner resources, sorry!

I would recommend doing our Structured Educational Program on the main TMSWiki.org if you've never gone deeper than the book cure.

You mentioned that the term “TMS” is no longer used. What is it referred to now?

I can't really even answer that these days! It's more like there's a movement amongst the "official" practitioners' group to find a different term that covers their big shift towards neuroplasticity. Certainly there are influential practitioners who still use "TMS" (Nicole Sachs is the main one I follow) but Alan Gordon has gone in a different direction and never uses it anymore. Dr. Schubiner has been using MBS for a long time, and honestly I don't know where he's leaning these days. The professional group of mindbody practitioners (they are both founding members) which was formed not all that long ago, started as the PPD Association, where PPD was PsychoPhysiological Disorders, but now they've changed their branding to ATNS, Association for the Treatment of Neuroplastic Symptoms, and it's all been unfortunately quite confusing. I'm not sure if they have a new acronym for us, but they still have their previous courses using PPD.

Dr David Clarke heads the PPDA or ATNS, and he clashed with Dr Sarno and never used the term TMS, so there's that.

The emphasis on neuroplasticity, to me, is an attempt to reach people who would rather not look at their rage and their unconscious negative emotions, which of course is the basis of Dr Sarno's brilliant synthesis of psychotherapeutic concepts.

We are a TMS forum at heart, but there's plenty of discussion about PRT (that's Alan Gordon) and neuroplasticity and about methods which manage to get around emotional vulnerability. (Oops, a bit of snark just slipped in there).